The Real Reason Anthropic Wants Guardrails
AI is too powerful and too new to be set free from human oversight.
Ideas
Boredom Is the Price We Pay for Meaning
When I became a father, I was forced to reckon with the emotion that consumed my days.
The High-Stakes Fight Between Hegseth and Anthropic
Even when companies vow to develop AI responsibly, geopolitics may force them to abandon that commitment.
The Ruthless Benevolence of a Great Editor
Ann Godoff, who died this week, cared passionately about her writers—and much less about her own ego.
The Degraded State of the Union
Presidential oratory once sought to elevate its audience, through high seriousness and artful rhetoric, but also by being high-minded and fair.
The Tariffs Loss Is Paradoxically a Win for Trump
The president will need the Court to have a veneer of legitimacy for when it blesses other, more damaging parts of his agenda.
How America Chose Not to Hold the Powerful to Account
Our national project of elite impunity
The State of the Union Revealed a Sad Reality
Donald Trump misused the annual presidential tradition in ways so radical as to call the ritual itself into question.
The Trump Administration Can’t Kill Black History Month
We don’t need permission from the government to commemorate a complex past.
What Justice Gorsuch Fears
His concurring opinion in the tariffs case may become the Roberts Court’s most influential statement on how to prevent the steady accretion of executive power.