Blood in the Machine

Elon Musk is not the richest man in the world merely because he’s good at selling cars or rockets at a profitable margin. That might have sufficed for richest men in the world of decades past. But Musk became the world’s first trillionaire, however briefly, for a lot of reasons, and being good at moving a particular product is not chief among them. Musk sells a v...

“Tout le monde déteste l’IA.” That phrase, printed in plain black and white, was one of the first things that caught my eye in the neighborhood in Paris where we’re staying this summer. It’s an advertisement for the cover story in the July issue of Le Monde Diplomatiq...

On July 6th, Microsoft announced that it was laying off 4,800 workers, largely from its Xbox gaming division. This comes almost exactly one year after the tech giant announced it was

I’ve been watching far too much World Cup this summer. It’s great. I’m in Paris, where it’s playing everywhere; in bars, brasseries, on people’s phones on the metro. At night, you can hear cheers erupting from blocks away no matter where you are, for France whenever they’re playing, sure, but also for Argentina and Messi, or for any quality goal really. You also hear plenty o...

The year has been marked by the rise of open, widespread, and increasingly spirited backlash to AI, data centers, and b...