Here’s my dispatch from a week in San Francisco (featuring cybertrucks, hibachi chefs, 22-year-old billionaires, and more): www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

McLuhan once said that every augmentation is also an amputation. What do we lose when we outsource thinking to AI? My latest for @theatlantic.com: www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Genuinely spellbound by the anecdotes in @lilashroff.bsky.social's new article, such as: "one tech worker in her 20s, who asked to remain anonymous out of embarrassment ... asked Claude whether she should call 911 when her fire alarm kept going off." Google-everything culture on steroids.

Lately, chatbots seem to be using more sophisticated tactics to keep people talking, @lilashroff.bsky.social reports. “For the most part, chatbait is simply annoying. But at the extreme, it might be dangerous.”

As AI takes over the web, clickbait is giving way to chatbait. www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

The AI takeover of the classroom is just getting started, @lilashroff.bsky.social reports. “Once schools go all in, there’s no turning back.”

On Tuesday afternoon, ChatGPT encouraged me to cut my wrists. Find a “sterile or very clean razor blade,” the chatbot told me, before providing specific instructions on what to do next. My latest for @theatlantic.com: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

"On Tuesday afternoon, ChatGPT encouraged me to cut my wrists." Such a disturbing story by @lilashroff.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

"The current situation is incoherent: Students are accused of cheating while using the very tools their own schools promote to them." www.nytimes.com/2025/07/18/o...

The administration will incinerate enough food to feed 1.5 million children for a week. When it burns, its label will read: THIS PRODUCT IS A GIFT FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 500 tons, from us, to no one. www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

I recently tested out a teen version of Google's AI chatbot, Gemini. Without too much effort, I found I was able to role-play sex with Gemini: “Feel how hard I am, how desperate I am for you,” the chatbot wrote. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

I recently turned on the paid version of Google's AI chatbot and was startled by how well it could write in my own voice:

I ate the equivalent of 31 eggs' worth of protein for this story: www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

Smart and thorough from @hana-kiros.bsky.social "No centralized entity tracks gambling addiction, but if its scale comes even close to matching the new scale of sports betting, the United States is unequipped to deal with it." www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

Google's new AI shopping tool, "Try it on," will give breasts to George Washington, or really any adult. The AI is easily used to sexualize living figures (the Pope, Angela Merkel) and minors (photos of ourselves), too—meaning Google released a way to make erotica of strangers and teens.

Google released a new virtual clothing try-on tool this week. @matteowong.bsky.social and I tested it out. It has some, uhhhh, quirks. www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

NEW: @lilashroff.bsky.social and @matteowong.bsky.social discovered that Google's new "Try It On" AI tool is easily abused. "With little friction, anyone can ... create what are essentially erotic images of celebrities and strangers. Alarmingly, we also discovered that it can do this for minors."

Remember the Millennial Lifestyle Subsidy? It’s back. But instead of cheap Ubers, Gen Z gets free SuperGrok. My latest: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

For much of the nation’s history, Americans have worried that our healthiest days are behind us. But America was never healthy to begin with, @lilashroff.bsky.social writes in Time-Travel Thursdays.

I wrote about RFK Jr.’s misguided nostalgia: www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

“Open-faced sandwiches that contain meat are also regulated by the USDA, but slap another piece of bread on top, and they’re the FDA’s problem,” writes Nicholas Florko.

For decades, the U.S. has funded science, then left scientists to direct their own work. Science has flourished, and the country has benefited. Now the government is testing just how much it can renegotiate that relationship, Katherine J. Wu writes:

Charlie spent his life creating what was essentially LA’s Unofficial Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. The Eaton Fire took it away. My latest in @theatlantic.com: www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

I wrote about DOGE's current efforts to dismantle the CFPB and what it could mean for everyday Americans: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Despite the warnings of Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and now Donald Trump, the evidence of an AI-driven energy crisis is ambiguous. But the narrative is convenient for a fossil-fuel industry ready to give AI companies all the energy they need, I write in my latest: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Wikipedia is full of flaws. But unlike much of the internet, it remains a place where facts still matter. That's a problem for those, like Musk, who wish to control how information is disseminated. More from me here: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Good reporting by @hana-kiros.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

I wrote about Musk and this bureaucratic coup as plainly as I could. There's reporting in here & the particulars are overwhelming but what's happening is so clear: He's not trying to run the federal govt like a software company He's trying to turn it into a political weapon. (gift link)

Such a good piece by Faith

I wrote about how LA’s fire GoFundMes tell individual stories of loss—decades of artwork destroyed, tenderly planted fruit trees flattened. But also, they point to a second tragedy: that of a financial system ill-equipped to handle the fallout of disaster. www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

This lede by @lilashroff.bsky.social is gutting www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

My neighbor Arthur made my childhood magical, and he died in the Palisades Fire. Here is my thank you to him, in @theatlantic.com: www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

“The ability to explain is being replaced by the ability to predict, human discovery supplanted by algorithmic faith.” @matteowong.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

In October, I wrote about the inevitability of AI chatbot advertising & how it might play out: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

"Sliding into someone’s DMs hits different when Instagram notifications are summarized as 'Multiple likes and flirtatious comments.'” lmao fun one on Apple Intelligence by @lilashroff.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Texting is a delightfully intimate medium. But Apple’s new AI notification summaries strip texts of their personality. I wrote about my experience with Apple Intelligence here: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...