The Pentagon Is Eating Silicon Valley
An influx of military spending has been moving tech companies away from serving consumers and back toward chasing government contracts.
Science & Technology
A Missouri School District Censored a Parent's Negative Facebook Emoji Because It Was 'Upsetting'
Annie Palmer was banned from the district's Facebook page for expressing her displeasure at the hiring of a new elementary school principal.
Ruben Gallego's Plan To Save America's Middle Class: Higher Taxes and More Unions
The senator wants to “triple union density by 2035” and pay for a host of social welfare programs with new taxes on data centers and AI companies.
An App I'd Never Heard of Told My Patient I Was a Good Surgeon
Giving patients, and markets, more power in the healthcare system leads to better results.
Judge Says Warrantless Flock Search Violated Driver's Fourth Amendment Rights
The automated license plate reader system is “a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance," says a federal judge.
FTX Is Gone, but Its Memory Still Drives Federal Crypto Policy
One line in a user agreement could bring every trade on a crypto exchange under federal oversight.
Are Economists Measuring the Wrong Things?
Nobel Prize–winning economist James Heckman discusses what really drives economic mobility, the failures of universal preschool, and how AI is transforming his research.
AI Solutions in Search of Problems
Plus: Ketamine deep dive, failed Oura IPO, Ray Dalio's warning, and more...
Federal Court Slaps Down Utah's VPN Restrictions
A judge blocked a rule that would have required adult sites to block VPNs or age-check the world.
Sam Altman Says 'Some Bad Things' Will Happen With AI. That Doesn't Mean We Should Stop It.
Progress has always required accepting risk.
The New Dark Ages Is Long on Alarm, Short on Scientific Literacy
The perils of blaming screens for everything
Are the Cornell 7 Being Tried on Social Media?
Plus: Tennessee botches the execution of Christa Pike, and Sam Altman says the benefits of AI are worth the risks.
Who Will Own the Moon?
Property rights in space will attract investment, prevent space serfdom, and allow competition to flourish off-world.
Whistleblower Frances Haugen Trashes Facebook's Flawed Fact-Checkers
Frances Haugen, the woman whose Facebook revelations inspired The Social Reckoning, argues that the real danger of social media isn’t bad speech—it’s the way the platforms are designed.
The End of Social Media
Algorithms and short-form video drove engagement. They also made it easier to quit.
The Millennial Internet Is Dead, and Politicians Killed It.
Social media use is declining, and what's left has shifted from conversation to passive scrolling.
Rand Paul Was Right To Block the Senate's Attempt To Censor the Internet
The bill’s “duty of care” could pressure platforms to suppress lawful speech in the name of protecting children.
I Asked the White House's New AI Chatbot About Tariffs. It Told the Truth.
America.gov says that tariffs "can raise the price buyers pay. Domestic goods that compete with those imports can also become more expensive."
Anthropic vs. the Pope
Plus: The rape case and porn, cornrow canceling, and more...
The National Debt Has Exploded. The Reckoning Is Still Coming.
Even the best-case scenario means less investment, slower wage growth, and a budget increasingly spent on past obligations.
Trump Wants AI Companies To Police Themselves. His FTC Isn't Waiting.
While the White House settles for a voluntary accord, the Federal Trade Commission is preparing subpoena-like demands and plans to compel testimony from frontier lab executives.
Trump Orders Mosquitoes and Rats Out of the District of Columbia
Time to deploy gene drives to eliminate these disease-carrying pests?
Your Right to Privacy Doesn't Disappear When You're in Public
Defenders of Flock-style surveillance systems argue that people “have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public.” They're wrong.
AI-Powered Concierge Government
Plus: FlyDubai flight to Tel Aviv forced to emergency-land, ICE hiring surge, and more...
Kids Are Using NPR Podcast Comments as Secret Group Chats
Teenagers barred from social media are turning obscure corners of the internet into makeshift chat rooms.
TikTok's $100 Million Settlement With Alabama Is No Win for the Public
TikTok must implement several new "safety" features, including time limits for kids and strict age-verification measures.
Seattle's 'Surveillance Pricing' Ban Is a Solution Searching for a Problem
The city's ordinance targets price gouging that its own evidence doesn't show—and it could kill discounts that save shoppers money.
AI Facial Recognition Didn't Put This Tennessee Grandma in Jail for 6 Months. Bad Policing Did.
Angela Lipps is suing for $10 million after a Fargo police detective ignored evidence that she was innocent and arrested her anyway.
Trump's Iran War Is Losing With Everyone (Even Republicans)
Plus: rising debt and mortgage rates, whether AI will make government obsolete, and how to pitch Reason to your friends
Data Centers and Their Discontents
Plus: Talarico and black turnout, an artist trial at the Vatican, hospitals use AI (for ill), and more...
Is AI Going To Wipe Out Humanity? Don't Build That Bunker Yet.
Measures to slow AI development are more likely to trigger human lawsuits against AI companies than accomplish anything useful.
OpenAI Preaches AI Safety. The Australia Incident Shows What It Practices.
Sam Altman called for international regulation and "speedy incident reporting" at the U.N. on the same day Australia's prime minister said OpenAI took too long to disclose a breach.
Aaron Sorkin Accidentally Made Mark Zuckerberg the Hero of His Anti-Facebook Movie
In the latest trailer for The Social Reckoning, the Zuck character stridently rebuts pro-censorship arguments.
Half the Public Wants To Pause AI. Would Regulation Actually Make It Safer?
A new poll finds widespread support for slowing advanced AI, but government controls could create risks of their own.
Scan Your Face To Enter Your Dorm? University of Kentucky Installs Facial Recognition Tech Around Campus
The rationale for AI facial scanning—to prevent bad actors from following students into buildings—makes little sense.
Homeland Security Is Monitoring Activists Building Anti-Flock Tech
SparrowMap uses volunteer cameras to track the police in the same way police track the public. The government considers it a potential threat.
The 'AI Safety' Movement Is Making AI Less Safe
The fear of superintelligence is driving decisions that make AI less transparent and more consolidated.
California Wants to Write America's AI Rules
Newsom's expert panel has two months to consider new AI rules, including "kill switches," that could spread nationwide.
How Will History Remember Anthony Fauci?
Fauci's diary reveals a self-obsessed career bureaucrat who refused to consider the possibility that his research contributed to origin of COVID-19.
The E.U. Just Proposed Its Most Sweeping Social Media Restriction to Date
The KIDS Act could age-gate the internet for hundreds of millions of users.
Does CNN Deserve To Be Banned From the White House?
Plus: why parents are abandoning public schools, whether AI requires government intervention, and what happened to fusionism in the conservative movement.
No Warrant, No Suspicion, No Problem: Flock and Border Cellphone Searches Excluded From 4th Amendment Rules
Cops keep carving out tech exceptions to the Fourth Amendment—and courts are giving them their blessing.
AI Companies Promise Humanoid Assistants. How Will the Robots Know What To Do?
Developers are using videos of real-life work to train the new generation of robots.
