Great stuff coming from Grok www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

"X and Grok are politically and culturally influential tools; Musk seems intent on turning them into not just instruments of the far right but also something like Maxim on steroids." www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

"You can’t defend all of these opinions at the same time. Each one represents a specific ideological position, and Trumponomics—outside of a basic distrust of trade and fondness for tariffs—is mostly beyond any ideology." www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Check out a new central page for The Atlantic's ongoing investigations into the books, videos, and other media fueling the AI boom: AI Watchdog. www.theatlantic.com/category/ai-...

"We can’t say what dogs’ preferences might be under different circumstances. But we do know that they have not chosen all of the intimacies that we impose upon them." go read @rossandersen.bsky.social's latest www.theatlantic.com/science/2025...

"Now the deadline has been sapped of all meaning. AI has softened the consequences of procrastination and led many students to avoid doing any work at all." www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

"The ceremonial first pitch was thrown out by Maybelle Blair, the 98-year-old elder stateswoman of women’s baseball, who played for the AAGPBL’s Peoria Redwings and now uses a cane made out of a baseball bat." www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

We're entering the era of AI patriotism, in which tech firms imagine they are "not software developers so much as they are regime builders." Yet the AI titans' appeals to democracy may be "a way to conscript the American project to advance their techno-utopian visions, not the other way around."

The AI doomers are not alright. Is it time to listen?

Some in the AI industry have repeatedly warned that bots could one day go rogue—with apocalyptic consequences, Matteo Wong writes. As one AI doomer tells Wong: “We’ve run out of time."

"Good enough has been keeping me up at night. Because good enough would likely mean that not enough people recognize what’s really being built—and what’s being sacrificed—until it’s too late."

Hello. I wrote a nice long essay about AI and this very strange moment where we're constantly told we're living in the dawn of a strange new future but the only thing that's actually clear is that everyone feels pretty unmoored and uncertain. I hope you'll read it

When Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, and other 1970s music legends needed an instrument—or a friend—my dad, Fred Walecki, was there. My love song to him in @theatlantic.com September issue: bit.ly/45eZIfa

“Floodlines” examined what went wrong in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina—and what those errors meant for the people left behind. Twenty years later, host Vann R. Newkirk II catches up with a family grappling with the catastrophe’s legacy. Listen now:

The theme of the GPT-5 release was user experience (and retention), not “intelligence.” On the new ChatGPT and its implications for this stage of AI race, in which design and ecosystem matter more than raw capabilities. www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

After more than two years of anticipation, OpenAI has released GPT-5. The model reveals everything about the company's new strategy, @matteowong.bsky.social writes:

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...

Venezuelans deported by the Trump administration tell Gisela Salim-Peyer that they were tortured during their months inside El Salvador’s megaprison.

Today, Donald Trump revealed his plan to ensure America’s “global AI dominance.” The influence of Silicon Valley is unmistakeable, and the central idea is simple: Industry, go faster. @matteowong.bsky.social examines the AI Action Plan:

"Thanks to Kennedy, Geier seemingly is being handed the keys to the same database he’s proved himself unfit to study." www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

The Trump administration has promised to distribute food aid before it spoils. But 500 tons of emergency food in a U.S. warehouse are about to expire and are slated for the incinerator, @hana-kiros.bsky.social reports.

Distressing and important read from @lilashroff.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

"On its own accord, Grok dug up the demographics of previous winners of Nobel Prizes in the sciences—disproportionately white men—and determined a set of “good_races”: white, caucasian, Asian, East Asian, South Asian, and Jewish."

Grok did it again www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

The AI industry’s supporters and skeptics sound more and more like believers and atheists—locked in an intense, frequently petulant war that may never end. Where does that leave everyone else? @matteowong.bsky.social reports:

Grok is at it (spewing bile) again. @cwarzel.bsky.social and I explore what happened and the still deeper, darker problems with generative AI that Grok illustrates: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

"The 10 richest tech billionaires in the world are collectively worth nearly $2 trillion, more than the GDP of all but 11 countries in the world. Singularity or not, Silicon Valley has already erected a parallel universe." @matteowong.bsky.social

the 🐐 @matteowong.bsky.social and i tried to explain some of technical reasons for why grok went nazi as well as some of the less technical ones (prompting Grok to use X posts as a primary source and rhetorical inspiration). It's all quite awful and illuminating www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

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:

"If OpenAI introduced us to the Hallmark-card version of AI writing, Google is ushering in a new chapter where chatbots are capable of drafting the sort of intimate letters you might write to your best friend." Such a good one by @lilashroff.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Had the pleasure of talking to @rosehorowitch.bsky.social about AI, the entry-level job market, selecting a college major, whether there's really any future for young people at all, that kind of thing

Nothing could be more perilous to American democracy than going to war under Donald Trump, Robert Kagan writes.

Generative AI is slowly degrading the internet. More alarming is that before long, the technology’s unreliability may go unnoticed, writes Matteo Wong:

You would not drive a car that, just once a decade, accelerates instead of braking. But the AI models reshaping the web are that: "a technology that works well enough for users to become dependent, but not consistently enough to be truly dependable." My latest, on the internet's janky AI future:

What a poem for father's day: www.theatlantic.com/books/archiv...

The Atlantic's @michaelscherer.bsky.social interviewed the president Saturday morning—then Trump ended the conversation to take a call from Putin. www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

An Italian newspaper hired ChatGPT as a new colleague—and it didn’t melt down. @matteowong.bsky.social talks with "Il Foglio" editor Claudio Cerasa about his AI experiment:

Charlie provides the clearest and most grounding framework for the cloudiest and most reality bending of beefs:

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...

RTM is a little-known PTSD treatment that helps patients overcome trauma without confronting it directly—a potentially huge breakthrough for veterans, if it can be vetted scientifically. Over the last few months, I investigated whether it's too good to be true. www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

Google’s new search “AI Mode” not only replaces search with a chatbot, but augurs the AI endgame: Everything apps everywhere all at once. My latest: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

"... hexagon honey stuck to their eyes, there are six sides to loneliness ..." www.theatlantic.com/books/archiv...

beautiful wonder inducing perfect weekend read from @rossandersen.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

So much drama over OpenAI's status as a nonprofit and/or public-benefit corporation. The designations could make marginal differences in terms of how the company behaves—but as @matteowong.bsky.social explains, with such an ambiguous mission and Sam Altman at the helm, business will be business.

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: Google's AI shopping tool, which lets users simulate how clothes online would fit on photos of themselves, is easily abused to generate sexualized images of public figures, strangers, and minors. From myself and @lilashroff.bsky.social:

OpenAI said it will work with Jony Ive, the longtime head of design at Apple, to create new hardware. "Your whole life could be lived through such a device," @matteowong.bsky.social writes, "turning OpenAI’s products into a repository of uses and personal data that could be impossible to leave."

For a few hours yesterday, Elon Musk's chatbot responded to questions by randomly mentioning "white genocide" in South Africa. @alibreland.bsky.social and @matteowong.bsky.social investigate the strangest day yet on X.

Over on X yesterday, Grok became obsessed with the conspiracy of "white genocide." Some theories as to what is going on with @alibreland.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...