Why can’t technologists and economists agree on AI?
Even when incentivized to find common ground, the two remain far apart. Perhaps it’s not because of beliefs about AI, but about starting beliefs.
Asterisk Magazine
Clear writing and clear thinking about the worlds shaping the Bay Area. New pieces on Wednesdays.
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Field notes from an AI society
How do we model the future of work? It takes a village.
What Silicon Valley gets wrong about taste
And why we like the things we do.
How diplomats see the world
A glimpse inside the boring-by-design U.S. fact-checking machine.
What should we do about all this AI money?
A conversation between two veterans of philanthropy in the Bay Area.
What happens to countries that don't build frontier AI?
Most countries will never have frontier AI. They’re the ones who should worry.
How two socialist brothers helped automate America’s hardest job
Revisiting the forgotten inventors of the cotton picker.
The politics of foreign aid
An interview with Julianne Weis, formerly of USAID and Aid on the Hill.
The gender equality paradox that wasn't
Do women seek STEM jobs mostly because they "have" to? A viral study and popular talking point rests on shaky methodology.
What's the state of PEPFAR now?
An interview with PEPFAR's former chief science officer.
The case against randomized controlled trials
Everyone knows RCTs are the gold standard of evidence...right?
What is it like to live in a world you believe is about to end?
The doomers are all right.
Can we pay to prevent global war?
The development community treats war as inevitable. We’re learning how to pay to prevent it.
Write for us! Now accepting pitches for Issue 16: Flourishing
Usually, we like to back up our claims with numbers, but right now, we’re in a more reflective mood.
How long until AI doesn’t need humans?
She thinks it's nearly imminent. He doesn't.
Behind the scenes: We’re all one crisis away from taking unlicensed research peptides
Clara Collier interviews Elizabeth Van Nostrand.
We’re all one crisis away from taking unlicensed research peptides
For health hackers, not experimenting is the bigger risk.
Why finance feels like magic
What global markets have in common with necromancers.
China’s AI optimism isn’t what it seems
The enthusiasm seems real. But for a population that lived through the mass layoffs of the 1990s, optimism and fear can look identical from the outside.
The U.S. and China want the same things from AI
Differences do exist, but they are not evidence of diverging long-term goals.
Is Gen Z afraid of risk, or just more aware?
The editors of The New Critic report on their generation’s Risk-geist.
AI policy must fail gracefully
The conditions under which AI policy will operate over the next decades are unlikely to match those in which it was introduced.