This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the AI coding and vibe-coding booms, follow David Pierce. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here. How it started Writing code was a killer app for AI […]
Unintentional leak of internal portions of Anthropic Claude Code has raised renewed debate about neuro-symbolic AI. I explain the controversy. An AI Insider scoop.
Shadow AI isn’t a compliance problem. It’s a cultural exodus. How institutional control over AI, work, and creativity is driving your best people underground.
The OpenAI CEO’s new blog post responds to both an apparent attack on his home and an in-depth New Yorker profile raising questions about his trustworthiness.
The illustration for The New Yorker’s profile of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is a jump scare. Altman stands in a blue sweater with a blank expression. Around his head hovers a cluster of disembodied faces – creepy alt-Altmans, their expressions ranging from anger to open-mouthed woe. Some barely look like Altman. One final face rests […]
Two weeks ago, I was getting ready to log off work when I got a text message. “Oh wow, I was checking out Mitski. did you know people are saying her Dad was a CIA operative?” Normally, that kind of out-of-the-blue text from a friend wouldn’t faze me. This time, my eyes bugged. The unprompted […]
Advances in nerve regeneration. Tricking AI into believing in a fake disease. Mapping the Moon. All that and more in this week’s edition of The Prototype.
In the early days of the war on Iran, while the White House was busy posting Call of Duty memes and AI slop of dancing bowling pins, the Iranian regime’s state media was flooding the zone with video after video of what was happening on the ground: Explosions over Tehran. Smoke billowing in the sky. […]
Human-AI collaboration is spawning mental issues such as AI brain fry, AI brain rot, and other cognitive syndromes. Let’s take a look. An AI Insider scoop.
The most valuable resource in the world isn’t data. It isn’t distribution. It’s attention. And in the age of AI, the human kind matters more than ever.