How the Anthropic saga could threaten American AI dominance

The Trump Administration’s Hard-On for AI, Explained

“No dooming. America will be AI DOMINANT!”

AI FOR EPISTEMICS & COORDINATION

Civilization and technology have radically improved the human condition. Nonetheless, the world sometimes goes in directions which essentially nobody would prefer — e.g., nuclear arms races, unexpected financial crashes, predatory marketing, or ubiquitous political misinformation.

Leviathan Waking

On Anthropic/USG, and a new era in AI governance

The AI Model That Was Too Dangerous to Release: Meet Claude Mythos

Anthropic just built the most powerful AI in history. Then decided the world wasn’t ready for it. Here’s everything you need to know.

What the Anthropic fight says about AI regulation

Fables of the deconstruction of American power

On the Death of Amazon’s Writing Culture

How AI has turned what was once a superpower into a liability.

Large AI models are cultural and social technologies – Henry Farrell

Debates about artificial intelligence (AI) tend to revolve around whether large models are intelligent, autonomous agents. Some AI researchers and commentators speculate that we are on the cusp of creating agents with artificial general intelligence (AGI), a prospect anticipated with both elation and anxiety. There have also been extensive conversations about cultural and social consequences of large models, orbiting around two foci: immediate effects of these systems as they are currently used, and hypothetical futures when these systems turn into AGI agents perhaps even superintelligent AGI agents.

How the world's top AI models were revived

The personality clashes and industry confusion behind the 20-day saga.

How Americans see AI impacting human skills; its role in science, matchmaking, religion and more

Majorities don’t want AI to give advice about religion or love. But many say AI should help forecast weather, search for financial crimes, develop medicine and more.

The Great AI Divide: Navigating U.S. and Chinese dominance

At a Rest of World event during New York Tech Week, we explored the challenges and possible solutions to the dominance of American and Chinese AI companies.

The Age of Wonders and Terrors

Twenty years ago, when the idea of AI taking over the world in our lifetimes still struck most of us as the unconstrained fantasy of those who knew too much science fiction and too little science, …

Europe 2031 — What getting AI wrong means for us

A five-year scenario about AI and Europe's impending slide into irrelevance, with a 2034 epilogue that describes how the collapse of the European model could have been prevented.

Comparing U.S. and global attitudes toward AI

Five charts on how Americans feel about the current and future impact of AI on society, and how Americans’ views on the technology stack up against the rest of the world

Large AI models are cultural and social technologies

Implications draw on the history of transformative information systems from the past , Debates about artificial intelligence (AI) tend to revolve around whether large models are intelligent, autonomous agents. Some AI researchers and commentators speculate that we are on the cusp of creating agents with artificial general intelligence (AGI), a prospect anticipated with both elation and anxiety. There have also been extensive conversations about cultural and social consequences of large models, orbiting around two foci: immediate effects of these systems as they are currently used, and hypothetical futures when these systems turn into AGI agents—perhaps even superintelligent AGI agents. But this discourse about large models as intelligent agents is fundamentally misconceived. Combining ideas from social and behavioral sciences with computer science can help us to understand AI systems more accurately. Large models should not be viewed primarily as intelligent agents but as a new kind of cultural and social technology, allowing humans to take advantage of information other humans have accumulated.