"AI slop is winning," writes The Atlantic's Charlie Warzel. By volume alone, slop may be the most visible and successful by-product of the generative-AI era to date. It is also a hallmark of what I’ve previously described as a collective delusion around artificial
Political commentator Frank Rich recently wrote a lengthy essay for New York Magazine on the mayoral candidacy of Zohran Mamdani. The headline, "The Power Breaker," is surely a play on the title of Robert Caro's biography of Robert Moses, the man who infamously used his power
I regret to inform you that certain political pundits and education reformers are calling for the return of "high stakes testing." Or at least David Frum talked to former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings in a recent podcast published by The Atlantic where this dismal idea was (once
The news is bad. I mean that in both senses: "bad news" and "news, bad." There's been much discussion this week of Trump's "university compact," his attempt to bribe the administrations at nine universities by promising them access to funding
When I wrote last week’s round-up of “AI”-related news, I didn’t include any of OpenAI’s product releases, mostly because it’s 2025 and I’m exhausted by this game that tech companies and tech journalists continue to play: the former lobs a press release; the
If you've ridden the NYC subway lately, you've seen the ads for Friend. "Largest subway campaign ever," the founder proudly posted on Instagram. Friend is (of course) an "AI" startup, another one of these "'AI' companion" services, another
Surrender, surrender (but don't give yourself away) – Cheap Trick "Does AI coaching cause more injuries?" asks Raziq Rauf in his latest Running Sucks newsletter. I've heard these concerns about the "personalized training" app Runna for a while now– call it "personalized
