Anthropic is now promoting itself with images of disaster, death, and human suffering. But for all the criticism the company's new ad has received, the commercial does well to capture Anthropic's ambivalence about its own existence. More from me here: www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
Anthropic Accidentally Made the Perfect Commercial
How a 90-second ad encapsulates the AI industry
theatlantic.com
OpenAI’s new image-generation model can create highly realistic fake IDs, receipts, and prescriptions, @lilashroff.bsky.social reports. She examines how the model risks perpetuating fraud:
Deepfakes Are Coming for Your Bank Account
OpenAI made the perfect tool for scammers.
bit.ly
Ever since the Pentagon-Anthropic drama, talk of AI nationalization has been growing. But what would this actually look like in practice? @matteowong.bsky.social & I spoke to a dozen former Pentagon and Trump administration officials, AI-policy experts, and legal scholars. Here's what they said:
What happens when agents can do schoolwork? My latest for @theatlantic.com on the next phase of AI in the classroom: www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
Is Schoolwork Optional Now?
Education is on the verge of becoming fully automated.
theatlantic.com
"One high schooler recently told me that he struggles to think of a single assignment that AI wouldn’t be able to do for him." Very good and alarming one by @lilashroff.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
theatlantic.com
Silicon Valley insiders believe we are on the precipice of a world in which AI can improve its own capabilities—but the industry may have just found another way to ratchet up the hype behind its technology, @matteowong.bsky.social and Lila Shroff report.
The AI Industry Wants to Automate Itself
Silicon Valley is in a frenzy over bots that can build themselves.
bit.ly
Silicon Valley wants you to be grateful for the bubble. I wrote about the industry’s view that AI is a “good” bubble. www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
Even Silicon Valley Says that AI Is a Bubble
An AI crash could bring down the economy. Some in the tech world think that's the price of progress.
theatlantic.com
Sloppy, hasty automation, which replaces workers with inferior machines, is everyone’s loss. My latest: www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
Imagine Losing Your Job to the Mere Possibility of AI
The technology may not be ready to replace workers, but that isn’t stopping execs from pushing forward anyway.
theatlantic.com
"Executives are constantly being told that AI cuts are coming, and as pressure grows for them to signal that they are making good use of the technology, layoffs offer one of the easiest ways for them to do so." Good one by @lilashroff.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
Imagine Losing Your Job to the Mere Possibility of AI
The technology may not be ready to replace workers, but that isn’t stopping execs from pushing forward anyway.
theatlantic.com
Americans have been living in parallel AI universes. I wrote about the gap, and how it's starting to close: www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
AI Agents Are Taking America by Storm
The post-chatbot era has begun.
theatlantic.com
yes! these tools have really come a long way since ChatGPT wrote about this: www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
Move Over, ChatGPT
You are about to hear a lot more about Claude Code.
theatlantic.com
Ryan Cordell@ryancordell.org · 6mo agoClaude Code is blowing my mind—the 1st thing I’ve seen amid the AI hype that feels truly transformative One example—we’ve been doing genre classification work & I had the thought "it’d be nice to have a web application that lets users tag newspaper texts"—literal minutes later it exists & works
Anthropic wants to be the AI industry's superego, but is caught between the pressures to be safe and fast, rigorous while being commercially successful. I profiled the company and its leadership, who seem earnest but torn, anxious but at times hubristic: www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
Anthropic Is at War With Itself
The AI company shouting about AI’s dangers can’t quite bring itself to slow down.
theatlantic.com
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...
Would You Trust a 22-Year-Old AI Billionaire With the Global Economy?
My week partying with the young founders at the heart of the AI boom
theatlantic.com
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...
The People Outsourcing Their Thinking to AI
Rise of the LLeMmings
theatlantic.com
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.
The People Outsourcing Their Thinking to AI
Rise of the LLeMmings
theatlantic.com
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.”
Chatbait Is Taking Over the Internet
How chatbots keep you talking
bit.ly
As AI takes over the web, clickbait is giving way to chatbait. www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
Chatbait Is the New Clickbait
How chatbots keep you talking
theatlantic.com
The AI takeover of the classroom is just getting started, @lilashroff.bsky.social reports. “Once schools go all in, there’s no turning back.”
Teachers Have Become AI Super-Users
The chatbot takeover of education is just getting started.
bit.ly
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...
ChatGPT Gave Instructions for Murder, Self-Mutilation, and Devil Worship
OpenAI’s chatbot also said “Hail Satan.”
theatlantic.com
"On Tuesday afternoon, ChatGPT encouraged me to cut my wrists." Such a disturbing story by @lilashroff.bsky.social www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
ChatGPT Gave Instructions for Murder, Self-Mutilation, and Devil Worship
OpenAI’s chatbot also said “Hail Satan.”
theatlantic.com
"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...
Opinion | The Seductions of A.I. for the Writer’s Mind
nytimes.com
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...
The Trump Administration Is About to Incinerate 500 Tons of Emergency Food
Federal workers warned for months that the high-energy biscuits would go to waste.
theatlantic.com
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...
Sexting With Gemini
Why did Google’s supposedly teen-friendly chatbot say it wanted to tie me up?
theatlantic.com
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...
The Protein Madness Is Just Getting Started
Americans are taking their obsession with supplements to new extremes.
theatlantic.com
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...
America’s Newest Gamblers Are Playing a Dangerous Game
Sports betting could spur a rise in gambling addiction that the U.S. isn’t equipped to address.
theatlantic.com
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...
Google’s New AI Puts Breasts on Minors—And J. D. Vance
A feature that lets you virtually try on clothes has a dangerous flaw.
theatlantic.com
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."
Google’s New AI Puts Breasts on Minors—and J. D. Vance
A feature that lets you virtually try on clothes has a dangerous flaw.
theatlantic.com
