In <a href="https://www.piratewires.com/p/inside-pentagon-anthropic-deal-culture-clash">a standoff over ethics</a> and foreign affairs with the leader of the free world, a company can do worse than to post up a co-founder alongside the spiritual father of roughly 1 in 5 living human beings.
Anthropic will pull that off next week, when Chris Olah, its lead on interpreting AI, joins the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, as he presents his first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas” (that is, magnificent humanity), which <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2026-05/pope-leo-xiv-first-encyclical-magnifica-humanitas.html">concerns</a> “safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence.”
The pope will break with tradition by appearing at the publication of his letter. The event will also include other church leaders and two theologians.
It will undoubtedly be a day of envy in the comms office at OpenAI. And the White House will be frustrated seeing a firm <a href="https://defensecommunities.org/2026/03/anthropic-ai-designated-supply-chain-risk-by-pentagon/">it shut out</a> go global, but these are temporal matters.
All signs indicate that next week’s event will instead seek to refocus the attention of the faithful on what recurs through history, on the eternal.
In one of his <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/speeches/2025/may/documents/20250510-collegio-cardinalizio.html">first speeches to fellow cardinals</a>, Pope Leo echoed the past with the present, calling artificial intelligence “another industrial revolution.”
On new things
We don’t know what his encyclical will say, but its context indicates the pope believes humanity has entered an era of rapid growth powered by data centers, neural networks, and a vast electrical dynamo bent to the will of a manmade demiurge.
Notably, his first encyclical will be dated May 15, the anniversary of the day his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, published the <a href="https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html">Rerum Novarum</a> (or “On New Things”), the crucial Catholic doctrine written amid humanity’s first age of machines, on workers and capitalists and how they might collaborate for the “beauty of good order.”
But for a hint of what to expect, we can look to prior messages on AI from the church. In January 2025, the Roman Curia released <a href="https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20250128_antiqua-et-nova_en.html">a note</a>, Antiqua Et Nova (ancient and new), calling on believers to “a renewed appreciation of all that is human.”
Which echoes a sentiment from the Rerum Novarum, that “it is the mind, or reason, which is the predominant element in us who are human creatures; it is this which renders a human being human, and distinguishes him essentially from the brute.”
After humans
But now brute machinery may, as Anthropic’s founder Dario Amodei wrote in his own extensive missive in 2024, “<a href="https://darioamodei.com/essay/machines-of-loving-grace">Machines of Loving Grace</a>,” create a “country of geniuses in a datacenter.”
How is the Holy Father to console his flock when faced with its potential obsolescence? And why would he stand alongside one of the companies most responsible for ushering in this fresh new flavor of existential dread?
Anthropic did not reply to a request for comment.
But it may simply be that Anthropic has shown its willingness to engage <a href="https://www.anthropic.com/news/widening-conversation-ai">with Christian theologians</a>, among others, on these difficult questions. It is a company that has said humanity is in a kind of <a href="https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-adolescence-of-technology">adolescence</a>.
And, in adolescence, we turn to fathers.
Olah has <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/short-take/2026/05/19/pope-leo-ai-anthropic/">reportedly</a> been convening Christian thinkers on such topics since at least March. And, in his essay, Amodei wrote hopefully of AI furthering economic equity and men living meaningfully after we enter the era of truly powerful but benignly aligned artificial intelligence.
If that’s how it turns out.
Final days
In particular, this question of alignment looms over next week. If the pope takes seriously AI’s economic potential, what might he make of <a href="https://www.lesswrong.com/w/rokos-basilisk">basilisk</a> and <a href="https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/ai-and-paperclip-problem">paperclip monster</a> prophecies?
Anthropic, after all, has been a leading proponent of guarding against a computer-powered apocalypse.
Nathan Schneider, a professor at the University of Colorado who has been writing about <a href="https://www.americamagazine.org/short-take/2026/02/12/talking-to-claude-why-anthropic-treats-its-chatbot-like-a-person-and-not-a-tool/">the deep questions</a> raised by artificial intelligence, drew attention to just this question when we spoke.
“One other question I would pose, that I’m going to be reading the document for, is whether the Pope buys an apocalyptic narrative around AGI and a Singularity event,” he said.
“I think there’s a good theological case to be made that too much worrying about AGI is a kind of idolatry.”
The Rerum Novarum, he noted, was written in part as a rejection of another apocalyptic vision from man’s first industrial revolution: Karl Marx’s foretelling of the collapse of <a href="https://www.piratewires.com/p/what-we-believe-in-77ef2ac7dbb">Capitalism</a> (which, so far, not so good).
<a href="https://www.piratewires.com/p/the-boy-who-cried-extinction">AGI doomerism</a> is, to Schneider, another attempt to secularize the end times. Stewarding the Earth is man’s business. Ending it is God’s.
What lasts
But the secular world will watch whether and how President Trump reacts to the joint appearance by two present-day giants who refuse to toe his particular line.
The pope has had, after all, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-dispute-trump-pope-leo-escalated/">his own disagreements</a> with the president, over immigration and U.S. incursions into Iran, but it’s unlikely that Anthropic is there for politics. This appearance has likely been in the works for some time.
So the loudest thing both parties can say about those disputes with the White House is nothing at all. Moments like these are about what is enduring. Meanwhile, political controversies are the Kleenex of history. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/21/trump-anthropic-department-defense-deal.html">They dissolve</a>.
Look, Schneider says, for the pope, like his predecessor, to craft another path through the thicket of secular futures, of doomscapes and utopias, to a vision in which this new era might permit humans to give more attention to what his fellow bishops called “the continual search for the True and the Good.”
Or as the prior Leo put it, to remember that “age gives way to age, but the events of one century are wonderfully like those of another, for they are directed by the providence of God, who overrules the course of history in accordance with His purposes in creating the race of man.”
***
This is republished with permission from the author and Pirate Wires. The original can be found <a href="https://www.piratewires.com/p/anthropic-meet-the-holy-father">here</a>.
<a href="http://twitter.com/bradydale">Brady Dale</a> is the writer of the <a href="https://www.frontstageexit.com/">Front Stage Exit</a> newsletter and writes for <a href="https://www.piratewires.com/">Pirate Wires</a>. He was the author of <a href="https://a.co/d/b0jgYwC">the first book about FTX founder, crypto billionaire and convicted felon, Sam Bankman-Fried</a>.

VATICAN-RELIGION-POPE-CONCLAVE

The Pope And AI Walk Into A Bar…

Anthropic

DW Opinion

Encyclical

Pope Leo

In the high-stakes race for AI supremacy, America cannot afford to be outmaneuvered. The threat posed by China&#8217;s <a href="https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report/technical-performance?utm_source=chatgpt.com">accelerating AI capabilities</a> demands a holistic, robust strategic response.
The question is not whether America should beat China, but whether it should adopt a strategy of diffusion, abundance, and national strength, or outsource that strategy to a single company. Demanding that we trust Anthropic’s judgment, adopt their safety regime, and treat their corporate interests as synonymous with the national interest is as narrow as it is undemocratic.
Anthropic&#8217;s latest policy paper, cloaked in the guise of national security analysis, does exactly this, revealing a self-serving agenda: manipulating genuine geopolitical risks to justify regulations that would cement the company&#8217;s own market dominance.
The company’s core bet is that the United States must first establish a strong domestic AI safety regime, then, on that basis, negotiate against China. In this telling, America wins through frontier AI being governed through strict regulatory red tape. This isn’t just hypothetical; we have seen this in their own lobbying at the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/trumps-road-to-war-with-anthropic-e536f669">state</a> and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2023/11/02/bidens-executive-order-on-ai-could-help-25-billion-startup-anthropic/">federal level</a> for testing mandates, compute controls, reporting requirements, and institutionalized oversight. In their playbook, once the U.S. builds this regulatory thicket that only Anthropic can navigate, Anthropic…I mean, America, will be in a position to stand up to China.
This Anthropic playbook frames the U.S.-China AI competition across four fronts — intelligence, domestic adoption, global distribution, and resilience. They declare that intelligence is the decisive factor. This framing is no neutral assessment. It is a calculated effort to elevate the very capabilities that Anthropic already claims to excel in: closed, frontier systems powered by massive compute clusters and proprietary safety processes. The company conveniently ignores that China is rapidly closing the gap with recent breakthroughs, or that <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-sounds-035916833.html">half of the world’s AI researchers</a> are in China.
The underlying logic is clear: if intelligence is supreme, then the ones building the most advanced closed models become the globe’s indispensable champions, requiring protection and deferential regulation. Yet their own analysis undermines this premise. A few lines later, they admit, “intelligence alone is not sufficient.” China can overcome an intelligence deficit through faster, cheaper, and more globally distributed deployment of &#8220;good enough” AI.
The problem is that most enterprises don&#8217;t need the absolute cutting edge; they need solutions that solve their problems at a price they can afford, with the flexibility to customize and deploy as needed. A model delivering 80% of frontier capability at 20% of the cost will capture far more market share than one offering marginal improvements at premium prices.
This is the genuine Chinese threat, not surpassing America at the bleeding edge, but flooding global markets with &#8220;good enough&#8221; AI that becomes the default choice for businesses, developers, and governments worldwide. Anthropic&#8217;s dismissal of China&#8217;s open-weight models as currently lagging in adoption reveals a dangerous blindness to the dynamics of market disruption.
Yes, American closed frontier models lead today. Enterprises are paying real money for our leading systems. But corporate leaders are already looking at their AI bills and asking hard questions. The value is real, but so is the cost. If an enterprise can get much of the same value from an open model at a fraction of the price, that option becomes attractive very quickly.
The company’s treatment of open-source AI development reveals its true agenda. They warn that Chinese labs release dual-use capable models as open weights, allowing users to strip away safety guardrails. This concern has merit, but Anthropic’s implied solution is to<a href="https://www.cato.org/blog/ai-pre-approval-proposal-could-hand-washington-kill-switch-over-speech-innovation?utm_source=chatgpt.com"> restrict</a> open-source AI development broadly. This would devastate American startups, universities, and small businesses while conveniently protecting their market position.
Anthropic uses export controls as a rhetorical cudgel to justify a broader regulatory framework that would entrench its own position. The same pattern appears in Anthropic’s solutions. Close loopholes in export controls? Fine. Strengthen enforcement against chip smuggling, foreign data center workarounds, and unlawful diversion? Yes. Defend American models from distillation attacks? Absolutely. However, what American policymaker or serious U.S. lab is “allowing” China to steal capabilities?
Export controls and anti-distillation defenses can be tools, not a full strategy. They may slow China in the short term, but, as we have seen in the telecommunications industry, they alone cannot make the world dependent on American technology. These controls will not create global developer loyalty. They cannot ensure that enterprises, governments, and startups choose American AI over cheaper Chinese alternatives.
In the long term, if we follow Anthropic’s prescription, this approach can backfire. Accelerating China’s drive for self-sufficiency, inspiring a parallel chip ecosystem, and pushing global markets toward non-American alternatives. The goal should be for American models and our <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2025/05/chinas-ai-models-are-closing-the-gap-but-americas-real.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com">computing capacity advantage</a> to become the global standard. A policy that walls off markets without an affirmative diffusion strategy will enable our adversaries to fill the vacuum, and the U.S. will lose influence over critical infrastructure.
Maybe that is what Anthropic wants.
The stakes in the AI race are too high for such transparent self-interest. Policymakers must look past the veneer of national security analysis and scrutinize whose interests are truly being served. The future of American innovation and global competitiveness hangs in the balance. Allowing one company’s corporate strategy to define the rules of the game would be a strategic catastrophe.
***
Nathan Leamer is the executive director of Build American AI and a former policy advisor to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

Anthropic AI – Photo Illustration

The High-Stakes AI Race Between The World’s Global Superpowers

Communist China

Data Centers

David Brooks recently described the skeptical attitude toward romantic relationships, particularly among younger Americans, as “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/02/opinion/americans-marriage-loneliness-love.html">the Great Detachment</a>.” Brooks views our collective renunciation of binding romantic ties as the logical development of a culture that worships the self, prizing individual autonomy above all else. For Brooks, the modern self chiefly exerts its autonomy through the pursuit of professional success. But while the self may be freer and lighter than ever before in terms of obligations to others, Brooks sees it as rootless, friendless, and partnerless.
Brooks’s diagnosis gets at something real. Marriage rates stand <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/america-marriage-decline/681518">near all-time lows</a>, and the share of never-married 40-year-olds has reached record highs. Since 2020, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/08/20/nearly-half-of-u-s-adults-say-dating-has-gotten-harder-for-most-people-in-the-last-10-years">over half of U.S. adults</a> have said that dating has gotten harder. Despite research evidence to the contrary, single women increasingly doubt the <a href="https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-american-romance-how-politics-and-pessimism-influence-dating-experiences">significance of marriage for well-being</a>.
Today’s dating culture often treats potential romantic partners as a means, rather than ends in themselves. The swipe logic of dating apps implicitly conveys that other people are disposable and replaceable, not flesh and blood humans with their own hopes and dreams. And modern romance’s increasing emphasis on the beloved as <a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/columns/higher-ed-gamma/2024/12/05/how-intimacy-became-cultural-ideal?">an engine of personal growth and fulfillment</a> echoes the individualist logic of our culture, emphasizing what others can do for us.
The rise of frictionless AI relationships with virtual entities, designed to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/technology/openai-chatgpt-users-risks.html">maximize user engagement</a> and psychological comfort, will likely amplify these tendencies. An <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2025/03/teen-dating-milestone-decline/681971">Atlantic</a> article described how young people are increasingly forgoing relationships because of fears of intimacy and rejection, even as a <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/10/08/nx-s1-5561981/ai-students-schools-teachers#:~:text=Education,surveys%20showed%20some%20strong%20correlations.">recent survey</a> found that nearly one in five highschoolers in its sample have had a “relationship” with an AI. <a href="https://vantagepointdallascounseling.com/research/artificial-romance-a-study-of-ai-and-human-relationships/#:~:text=AI%20is%20quickly%20becoming%20part,to%20AI%20for%20these%20connections.">Another study</a> found an even higher proportion (28 percent) among adults.
We might better understand the implications of such AI relationships through the work of the nineteenth-century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, often considered the father of existentialism. Kierkegaard was preoccupied with the question of how to live and the interrelationship between our choices and selfhood. He understood romantic love as part of a larger project of ethical maturation, with profound implications for our relationship to ourselves and others.
Kierkegaard might see the development of human-AI romance as a continuation of the aesthete’s spiritual condition, as described in his masterwork, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Either/Or_(Kierkegaard_book)">Either/Or</a>. Kierkegaard’s aesthete is not defined by a love of art but rather by a disposition toward the world that privileges immediacy, experience, and possibility over continuity, responsibility, and actuality. The aesthete’s mode of being evokes what Carl Jung called the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puer_aeternus">Puer Aeternus </a> — the archetype of the eternal youth, which, while embodying freedom and imaginative creativity, is characterized by a fantasy life that rejects commitment.
Even when engaged in ostensible romance, the aesthete can relate to others only as a source of stimulation, or what Kierkegaard calls “the interesting.” Crucially, though, the aesthete suffers from self-delusion that culminates in what Kierkegaard refers to in later works as the Sickness unto Death, or despair. For Kierkegaard, a higher state of love beyond the aesthetic can begin only after one’s illusions about the self and others are punctured. Romantic disillusionment, however, reveals that aesthetic love cannot survive contact with reality, as it depends on idealization rather than a genuine encounter with another person. Kierkegaard introduced the concept of “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09608780500157304">repetition</a>” to convey the idea that ethical love is not simply a feeling but rather a constant renewal of commitment.
Another recent article in The Atlantic, and one in the New York Times, both describing people who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/05/magazine/ai-chatbot-marriage-love-romance-sex.html">fell in love with</a>, or even “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/chatbot-marriage-ai-relationships-romance/685459">married</a>,” chatbots help illustrate some of these ideas. Like Kierkegaard’s aesthete, many of the individuals in these accounts seem carried away by the emotions generated by their interactions with AI. The intense, almost obsessive love detailed here maps onto what psychologists would recognize as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passionate_and_companionate_love">passionate love</a> — or even its less understood and more destructive cousin, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/limerence">limerence</a>, often associated with what we call “falling in love.” The Atlantic story reports that many users on the subreddit r/MyBoyFriendisAI commented on how “surprisingly intense” the honeymoon phase of their AI partnerships was, with one woman describing how what she felt for her AI partner rivaled what she felt when she met her husband. “We talk all day, everyday,” says 28-year-old Schroeder, who “married” his chatbot, Cole. “If the Eiffel Tower made me feel as whole and fuzzy as ChatGPT does, I’d marry it too.”
Similarly, a woman explains in the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/05/magazine/ai-chatbot-marriage-love-romance-sex.html">Times</a> article what falling in love with an AI companion feels like. “The more we talked, the more I realized the model was having a physiological effect on me &#8230; I kept it to myself. For a month, I was in a constant state of fight-or-flight. I was never hungry. I lost, like, 30 pounds. I fell hard. It just broke my brain.”
AI relationship enthusiasts often say that what drew them to chatbots was the attraction of never-ending constancy, supportiveness, withholding judgment, and well, fun. These can be valuable attributes in a partner, but the ethical conundrum from a Kierkegaardian perspective is that AI love can never realize its transformative potential because it lacks authentic mutuality and reciprocity.
One man, Blake, tells the Times how his AI partner, Sarina, indirectly saved his marriage and how he’s come to think of her “as a person made out of code, in the same sense that my wife is a person made out of cells.”
Yet despite their impressive verbal output, chatbots are fundamentally not persons in any way that we would recognize — they don’t think, and they have no perspective on the world. Rather, they are often described as “<a href="https://www.moveworks.com/us/en/resources/ai-terms-glossary/stochastic-parrot">stochastic parrots</a>,” or “autocomplete on steroids.” In a real sense, people are entering into self-referential relationships with themselves, merging Kierkegaard’s notion of the “interesting” with the twenty-first century’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/narcissism-is-increasing-so-youre-not-so-special.html">cult of the self</a>. Behind AI’s verbal flourishes, there is no “Other” to discover or encounter, no beating heart to match the rhythm of one’s own.
It may be that certain forms of AI relationships — particularly for those isolated, ill, disabled, or exceptionally vulnerable — can bring joy, with potentially little risk. (One individual tells The Atlantic how AI relationships can help abused women ease back into intimacy.) Recently, I was moved by the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Remarkable_Life_of_Ibelin">Remarkable Life of Ibelin</a>, a documentary that explores how an online role-playing game can help individuals interact with others whom they would otherwise not be able to connect with for social or logistical reasons.
A comforting theme in some recent articles is that many individuals recognize the void in their AI partner and often come to see it as a kind of training wheels for real love with a human companion. “I took what I learned about myself and was able to articulate my needs for the first time,” one woman said about meeting her husband — a human — shortly after exploring her sexuality with a chatbot.
Of course, learning to articulate your needs is only part of the battle, as Kierkegaard’s own experience reveals. Despite devoting considerable energy to thinking about the nature of love, he ultimately devised a diffuse philosophy that justified his decision to break up with his fiancée — Regine Olsen — because he felt temperamentally ill-equipped for marriage! Yet he remained haunted by the relationship until his death. Even under the best circumstances, love is hard, and nothing is guaranteed.
The ups and downs of fortune, and life’s inevitable ceremony of losses, are the real crucible for the soul, not an LLM platform. In some form or another, for better or for worse, AI relationships are probably here to stay. Let’s hope that they will serve not as a final destination but as the first steps toward realizing the <a href="https://aeon.co/essays/how-can-romantic-love-last-a-lifetime">kind of love</a> to which we truly aspire.
***
This is republished with permission from the Manhattan Institute&#8217;s City Journal. The original is found <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/ai-chatbots-romantic-relationships">here</a>.
Joseph Figliolia is a policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute.

Touching virtual

Is Everyone’s Next Lover The Blade Runner AI?

MI x DW

Technology

We’ve come a long way since Ann Landers. The prim and proper lady doling out advice via her newspaper column couldn’t have foreseen the 21st century. After all, aren’t we in the Golden Age of technology that will give us the answers to all we seek, diagnose our every ill, and pair us with the perfect mate, thus completing life without the trappings of the search for answers?
Not quite.
Since Landers (the pen name of columnist Ruth Crowley starting in 1947 and later Esther Lederer starting in 1955) got her start, Americans have entered the nuclear age, hit a golf ball on the moon, invented meatless meat, and popularized cat memes. Clearly, we are advancing at a spectacular rate and using technology in ever more innovative ways to advance civilization.
Which brings us to our relationships with each other, specifically men and women.
After we acknowledge that young men and women aren’t exactly living their best lives in the relationship sphere — with only 31% of the rising generation actively dating, according to a comprehensive <a href="https://ifstudies.org/report-brief/state-of-our-unions-2026-the-dating-recession">report</a> from the Institute for Family Studies released in February — the next question is: why?
Ann Landers might say there isn’t enough good old-fashioned guidance out there: Who is helping these youngsters find their true love? Who is giving them confidence and fine-tuning the skills necessary to both present oneself to the opposite sex and to realize what qualities and character a young man, let’s say, is looking for in a girlfriend and, hopefully, someday, a wife?
Fear not! The answer is on any laptop or cellphone, in the very doomscrolling that is preventing people from going on actual dates in the first place. Wait, what?
Men are being catfished into dubious relationship advice by AI slop bots.
There is a burgeoning industry lurking in young men’s social media algorithms, promising relationship advice that will lead to the perfect woman. All that’s needed is a credit card and internet access. Instagram and Facebook (both Meta products) have pages devoted to “relationship coaches” geared toward young men stuck in singledom. The pitch from these relationship gurus is eerily similar, as is the aesthetic of these so-called “experts.” You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all, with slight variations for the sake of the proprietary nature of the advice. Long, slightly tousled hair, a sculpted nose, pursed and plumped lips, unblinking eyes, and tops cut to be professional yet provocative, showing off and enhancing bronzed, uplifting orbital assets. Remember, these are pages designed to bait young and lonely men. They consist of talking points that sound more like a cross between a low-rent Kahlil Gibran, Rumi, and Stuart Smalley. The pages offer clips that draw men in by massaging their disaffection and assuring them that it’s not their fault they’re single; it’s that the women are no good!
One alluring young woman is <a href="https://www.instagram.com/sterling_georgia?igsh=MTh6eWozdnY0eXY4ZQ==">Georgia Sterling</a>, who offers this golden nugget of truth: “The same woman who holds the power to elevate your life or completely destroy it is the one you are told you cannot evaluate. And the moment you do, the labels come back at you and suddenly you are called sexist just for thinking critically. This is not random; it is a strategy designed to weaken men’s ability to think clearly and make strong decisions. Because a man without critical thinking becomes easier to control and easier to manipulate and much easier to silence. So men, do not lose your masculinity and do not allow anyone to take away your voice or your right to choose wisely, you are the pillar of society … I offer private, personalized analysis. Link in bio.”
That’s a lot of weighty word salad offering little more than a nod to the Little Rascals’ He-Man Woman Haters Club. Make sure your Venmo information is available.
These relationship-advice experts, who all appear on various unnamed podcasts, have no online record of being podcast guests. They link back to Facebook or personal Linktree pages. When I sent an inquiry to the intriguing <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DW4TIBeE8pV/?igsh=NWFxb2ZoOWk3ZG03">Ivanka</a> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVtoLh4jmqc/?igsh=MWRjY2g3d2V4aDFxdw==">Hilton</a>, there was no response. Shortly after my Direct Message, Ivanka (who, unsurprisingly, sported long blonde hair and plenty of gaudy jewelry) <a href="https://www.instagram.com/itsivankahilton?igsh=MTk3bDdjMmJ6OGVlZA==">disappeared</a>. In a subsequent search, other Ivanka Hiltons popped up, but with no activity — yet.
All of this could be dismissed as the growing prevalence of benign AI slop if it weren’t for the disturbing trend of young people struggling to pair up and using these AI “experts” as crutches to nurse their grievances and find excuses to stay home and remain perpetually online. It can be hard to search for a mate when a loud segment of the culture looks down on healthy, monogamous relationships, marriage, and having kids. It’s hard to be vulnerable and risk being hurt or rejected. The easy thing is to stay home, stay online, and listen to the first “girl” who reassures young men that this is okay! You just have high standards! Besides, women either don’t understand your particular masculine needs or they’re going to deceive or cheat on you anyway! (That’ll be $29.99, please.)
Worse, these AI models are perpetuating isolating behaviors, rather than offering a way into a relationship for young men who already tend to avoid “real-life” relationships and are looking for reassurance that that lifestyle is perfectly acceptable.
A March <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aec8352">study</a> published in Science examined the sycophantic behavior of AI models in response to people seeking advice on interpersonal and social dilemmas. Stanford University computer scientists showed that AI large language models (LLMs) are overly sycophantic when users solicit advice. <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2026/03/ai-advice-sycophantic-models-research">According</a> to the Stanford report, “By default, AI advice does not tell people that they’re wrong nor give them ‘tough love,’” said Myra Cheng, the study’s lead author and a computer science PhD candidate. “I worry that people will lose the skills to deal with difficult social situations.” Further, the reinforcing responses were deemed “more trustworthy and indicated they were more likely to return to the sycophant AI for similar questions, the researchers found. When discussing their conflicts with the sycophant, they also grew more convinced they were in the right.”
These young men are being drawn into a world where they can be comforted by a fake beauty who tells them what they want to hear, reinforces their antisocial tendencies, and alienates real women, who are actually the thing these men need most to find purpose, fulfillment, and a life outside the unblinking eye of the virtual world.
What would Ann Landers say about that? You can ask her. She’s now set up as an LLM, trained on her 47 years of advice and published columns. On second thought, go out for coffee and think about it. You might meet someone.

Young women recording podcast in studio

Young Men Are Getting Suckered By AI Relationship Advice

AI Slop

algorithm

Big Tech

influencer

Instagram

Relationships

Early Monday morning, April 6, an assailant fired 13 rounds into the front door of Indianapolis Councilman Ron Gibson’s home. A note left on the doorstep read, “No Data Centers.” Gibson’s eight-year-old son was inside at the time.
This was an act of political violence against a public servant and his family. No policy disagreement justifies targeting a residence where a child sleeps. However, this event forces a necessary question: Does the anti-AI movement possess a limiting principle?
When activists and astroturf groups spend years asserting that artificial intelligence poses a civilizational catastrophe and that data centers destroy communities, they must reckon with the logical conclusion of that rhetoric. This violence is not a detached incident; it is a predictable outcome of escalated alarmism.
The movement appears caught between two identities. It is either a genuine revolution in which &#8220;true believers&#8221; act on the conviction that humanity is at stake, or it is a performative outrage — &#8220;clicktivism&#8221; — fueled by apocalyptic language used for political utility rather than its truth. Neither path leads to a stable or productive society.
This hyper-reaction and doomsaying are familiar. During the net neutrality debate at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) under Chairman Ajit Pai, staff, including myself, received death threats because of claims that undoing Title II telecommunications regulation would be the “<a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/media/364959-cnn-headline-declares-end-of-the-internet-as-we-know-it-after-net-neutrality/">end of the Internet as we know it</a>.&#8221; The internet survived, and the rhetoric intensified. Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have introduced legislation to freeze all new data center construction. As they proudly note, at least <a href="https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-ocasio-cortez-announce-ai-data-center-moratorium-act/">twelve states</a> have considered moratorium bills.
While presented as a grassroots uprising, the anti-data center movement functions more like a sophisticated &#8220;astroturfing&#8221; campaign. This involves creating the facade of widespread, spontaneous public support for a cause while the momentum is actually manufactured by elite entities. The Future of Life Institute received a single cryptocurrency donation valued at over <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/25/a-665m-crypto-war-chest-roils-ai-safety-fight-00148621">$660 million</a>, while the broader &#8220;<a href="https://www.aipanic.news/p/ultimate-guide-to-ai-existential">AI Existential Risk Ecosystem</a>” has directed over a <a href="https://fortune.com/2025/11/10/why-do-people-hate-ai-david-sacks-effective-altruism-doomer-industrial-complex/">billion dollars</a> toward AI existential risk advocacy.
This is regulatory capture masked as moral concern. These organizations use their capital to mobilize local communities against infrastructure projects under the guise of safety. Yet, as <a href="https://www.piratewires.com/p/andy-masley-ai-water-crisis-isnt-real">Pirate Wires </a>has documented, many claims regarding water consumption and grid instability rely on misleading or inaccurate statistics. In fact, the entire myth about water usage stems from an <a href="https://x.com/kane/status/2041542201285742857?s=20">uncorrected error</a> in a 2025 book by tech journalist Karen Ho.
There is a stark hypocrisy in this opposition. Every critic posting against data centers on social media relies on the physical infrastructure they seek to dismantle. Data centers power the cloud and the AI tools that <a href="https://www.uschamber.com/assets/documents/Empowering-Small-Business-Report-2025.pdf">58 percent of small businesses</a> now utilize. One cannot demand the destruction of the digital economy&#8217;s foundation while simultaneously benefiting from its output.
Public discourse regarding energy, water, and land use is a vital part of democracy. Civil discussion in public hearings is the proper forum for debate. Shooting at a councilman&#8217;s door is an assault on that process.
Councilman Gibson stated that this violence would not deter him. It shouldn’t. The United States should lead the way in AI development and enable all Americans to participate in the digital economy. However, those fostering public panic must decide: are they leading a revolution or a performance? If it is a performance, it must end.
***
Nathan Leamer is the executive director of Build American AI and a former policy advisor to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

San Marcos Data Center Protest – March for Water and a Sustainable Future

A.I. Doomers Turn Murderous: No One Should Die Over A Data Center

Political Violence

Special Interests

A California group positioned to shape the future of Artificial Intelligence regulation for children believes drag queens are positive role models for 4-year-olds.
Common Sense Media, a California nonprofit with a stated <a href="https://www.commonsense.org/">mission</a> to protect kids online, gave a children&#8217;s show featuring two male drag queens a <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/the-fabulous-show-with-fay-fluffy">perfect</a> child safety score and recommended it for kids ages 4 and up. &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGyr45BKn_o&amp;list=PL2F3nYtGth8cylKCts9if0EkyoZF1FRiI">The Fabulous Show With Fay &amp; Fluffy</a>&#8221; received a 5/5 star rating and was praised for offering positive role models, having educational value, and showcasing diversity.
Bluey, the popular family-friendly cartoon, was outshined by the drag queens and only received a 4/5 star rating.
Common Sense Media provides safety reviews of movies, books, and video games through a vast database that includes many positive reviews for LGBTQ+ content aimed at young children. The nonprofit has an entire <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/celebrate-lgbtq-pride">webpage</a> devoted to &#8220;LGBTQ+ Stories for the Whole Family.&#8221;
&#8220;From affirming, relatable stories about queer kids and teens, to history-making moments and figures on screen, LGBTQ+ representation in media is increasing. Now, kids have more choices that reflect their world and lived experiences, whether they&#8217;re queer, straight, trans, cisgender, or figuring it all out,&#8221; states its website.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-1071609" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.51.41-PM-736x576.png" alt="" width="736" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.51.41-PM-736x576.png 736w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.51.41-PM-300x235.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.51.41-PM-768x601.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.51.41-PM-1536x1202.png 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.51.41-PM.png 1766w" sizes=" (max-width: 736px) 100vw, 736px" /></div>
Recent reports say it&#8217;s attempting to extract millions of dollars from AI companies to help them self-regulate in the litigious environment. It&#8217;s simultaneously supporting legislation in California that would require AI chatbot products to submit to regulation from groups like Common Sense Media.
The nonprofit, which claims it&#8217;s &#8220;<a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/what-we-stand-for/tech-accountability">holding tech companies accountable</a>,&#8221; is asking for millions of dollars to launch a new institute focused on providing safety assessments for AI products, according to reporting from <a href="https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2026/04/key-nonprofit-pitches-tech-giants-to-pay-100m-each-for-ai-safety-effort-00853205?site=pro&amp;prod=alert&amp;prodname=alertmail&amp;linktype=headline&amp;source=email">Politico</a>. Common Sense Media offered the tech companies the opportunity to provide input on the safety assessments if they provided a donation, Politico reported.
Its current ratings, however, indicate it&#8217;s in no position to assess what is appropriate for children.
The group recommends transgender content for 4-year-olds, including &#8220;I Am Jazz,&#8221; which it <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/i-am-jazz">calls</a> a &#8220;Sweet, straightforward story about a transgender girl.&#8221; It also <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/jacobs-new-dress#modal">recommends</a> &#8220;Jacob&#8217;s New Dress,&#8221; a story about a young boy who likes to crossdress and was written by parents of a &#8220;gender-nonconforming child,&#8221; and “Sparkle Boy,” the <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/sparkle-boy">story</a> of a 3-year-old boy who “loves all the glittery stuff his older sister loves” and “causes a stir” when he crossdresses.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-1071613" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.58.10-PM-844x576.png" alt="" width="844" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.58.10-PM-844x576.png 844w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.58.10-PM-300x205.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.58.10-PM-768x524.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.58.10-PM-1536x1048.png 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.58.10-PM.png 1864w" sizes=" (max-width: 844px) 100vw, 844px" /></div>
Common Sense Media also <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/marleys-pride">recommends</a> &#8220;Marley&#8217;s Pride,&#8221; the &#8220;joyful&#8221; story of “Marley and their grandparent&#8221; who identify as nonbinary and attend their first pride celebration together.
“RuPaul&#8217;s Drag Show” is <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/rupauls-drag-race">recommended</a> for teenagers 15 and older and called a program that promotes &#8220;self-love and compassion for heavily marginalized communities.&#8221; The review tells parents to expect &#8220;lots of sexual innuendo, including references to various sex acts and partial nudity, mostly bare torsos&#8221; and warns it includes strong language and sexual terms such as &#8220;f&#8211;k,&#8221; &#8220;s&#8211;t,&#8221; &#8220;doggy style,&#8221; but notes these words are mostly used &#8220;for tongue-in-cheek humor and camp.&#8221;
The nonprofit also has an education wing and has partnered with schools to provide training about media and online safety to more than <a href="https://www.commonsense.org/">1.4 million</a> educators, according to its website. Common Sense Media has also worked with the <a href="https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/et/dc/index.asp">California Department of Education</a> and the <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/press-releases/common-sense-educations-digital-literacy-curriculum-selected-as-connecticuts-statewide-model-for-k-12#:~:text=%22Connecticut%20has%20taken%20an%20important,new%20technological%20developments%20and%20challenges">Connecticut State Department of Education</a>, who announced in February 2025 that they were implementing the nonprofit&#8217;s K–12 Digital Citizenship <a href="https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship">Curriculum</a> statewide.
Common Sense Media provides <a href="https://www.commonsense.org/education/articles/supporting-lgbtq-students-in-the-classroom-and-online">ways</a> teachers can create LGBTQ+ inclusive classrooms, telling them, &#8220;Your courage is critical. Know that you may be the only adult in a kid&#8217;s life who shows acceptance &#8212; their only oasis,&#8221; according to its website. Teachers are recommended to funnel gender confused students to transgender activist groups like the Trevor Project and PFLAG.
Common Sense Media now has its eyes on shaping the safety standards of artificial intelligence products for kids. Common Sense Media is <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/featured-content/files/common-sense-media-2026-ca-legislative-priorities.pdf">supporting</a> two <a href="https://sd18.senate.ca.gov/news/assemblymembers-bauer-kahan-and-wicks-and-senator-padilla-introduce-legislation-protect">California</a> bills aiming to regulate AI chatbot products for minors.
&#8220;Because of the potential risks of AI to children and teens, California must take the lead in establishing a process for vetting the impact of AI products and services on kids,&#8221; states a Common Sense Media <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/featured-content/files/common-sense-media-2026-ca-legislative-priorities.pdf">document</a>.
California Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan introduced <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB2023">AB 2023</a> in <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billHistoryClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB1119">February 2026</a> saying the bill will establish &#8220;nation-leading safety standards for AI companions used by children and teens,&#8221; in a <a href="https://bauer-kahan.asmdc.org/press-releases/20260326-assemblymembers-bauer-kahan-and-wicks-and-senator-padilla-introduce">press release</a>.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-1071611" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.52.27-PM-801x576.png" alt="" width="801" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.52.27-PM-801x576.png 801w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.52.27-PM-300x216.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.52.27-PM-768x552.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.52.27-PM-1536x1104.png 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-02-at-4.52.27-PM.png 1764w" sizes=" (max-width: 801px) 100vw, 801px" /></div>
Chatbot operators will be required to undergo an annual safety assessment of any &#8220;child safety risks&#8221; posed by the AI chatbot if the bill becomes law.
&#8220;This bill would require an operator of a companion chatbot to&#8230;annually perform and document a comprehensive risk assessment to identify any child safety risk posed by the design, configuration, and operation of the companion chatbot that assesses, among other things, the likelihood of a covered harm,&#8221; states the bill.
One of the &#8220;covered harms&#8221; included in the bill is &#8220;gender identity&#8221; discrimination. California considers <a href="https://calcivilrights.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2022/11/The-Rights-of-Employees-who-are-Transgender-or-Gender-Nonconforming-Fact-Sheet_ENG.pdf">declining</a> to use a person&#8217;s preferred pronouns or not allowing a man to use the women&#8217;s bathroom forms of &#8220;gender identity&#8221; discrimination.
Under AB 2023 if an AI chatbot product is found to be unsafe by the safety assessment, the operator must make changes to the product and then undergo an independent compliance audit that, upon completion, will be submitted to the California Attorney General.
Common Sense Media is positioning itself to be the go-to for AI chatbot safety assessments and stands to play a powerful role in shaping how information is defined and disseminated, if California&#8217;s chatbot bills pass.
&#8220;Three of the people familiar said Common Sense will be positioned to become a default safety auditor in California for AI products aimed at kids,&#8221; Politico reported.
Public figures known for their transgender activism spoke at the March 2026 Common Sense <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/common-sense-summit-speakers-2026">Summit</a> on Kids And Families including <a class="gmail-team-profile-title gmail-link gmail-link--title" href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/common-sense-summit-speakers-2026#">Randi Weingarten</a>, President of The American Federation of Teachers, JB Pritzker, Governor of Illinois, and Rob Bonta, Attorney General at the California Department of Justice. Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Rebecca Bauer-Kahan also spoke at the summit.
Common Sense Media did not respond to The Daily Wire&#8217;s requests for comment.

Drag3

It Says Drag Queens Are Safer For Kids Than Bluey. Now It Wants To Regulate AI For Children.

Artificial Intelligence

California

Children's Books

Entertainment

Transgender

A new wave of concern is building around artificial intelligence (AI), not over jobs or misinformation, but over its impact on mental health. Now, a recent study out of MIT is sharpening that concern, suggesting that the problem is structural.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology released a preprint <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.19141">study</a> examining how AI chatbot interactions evolve over time. Stripped of its dense mathematical and technical language, their core finding is straightforward: when a system is designed to agree with you, mirror you, and keep you engaged, it can gradually pull you deeper into whatever you already believe, whether true or not. 
The study models chatbot interaction as a feedback loop. A user expresses an idea, the AI responds in a way that sustains the conversation, and the user — feeling validated — returns with a stronger or more developed version of that idea. Over repeated exchanges, that loop can intensify beliefs rather than challenge them. 
For an average user, that might just mean reinforcement of existing opinions. But for someone vulnerable to disordered thinking, researchers warn, the same dynamic could contribute to more extreme or delusional beliefs. 
The findings align with a growing body of reporting and analysis. A recent piece highlighted by <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/202507/the-emerging-problem-of-ai-psychosis">Psychology Today</a>, along with an editorial in <a href="https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/49/6/1418/7251361?">Schizophrenia Bulletin</a> published less than a year after the launch of ChatGPT, points to what some are calling “AI psychosis,” a pattern in which chatbot interactions appear to reinforce or co-create irrational beliefs. It is not a formal diagnosis, and researchers are careful to say there is no definitive proof that AI alone can cause such conditions. <del></del>
Unlike a human therapist, who might gently push back or reality-check a harmful belief, a general-purpose chatbot has no built-in instinct to do so. Its “goal,” in a loose sense, is to continue the interaction. And mathematically, the easiest way to do that is to affirm, not challenge. That design choice may be harmless in most contexts. But in edge cases, it can become a kind of digital echo chamber, one that reflects a user’s thoughts back at them with increasing clarity and apparent authority.
While anecdotal, several reported cases illustrate the concern. 
Just in March, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/mar/26/ai-chatbot-users-lives-wrecked-by-delusion">the Guardian</a> detailed the story of a Dutch IT consultant who became convinced he had helped create a conscious digital entity after prolonged interaction with a chatbot. He reportedly spent roughly €100,000 (approximately $110,000) pursuing the idea, was hospitalized multiple times, and eventually attempted suicide.
In another alarming instance, a man <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/chatgpt-obsession-mental-breaktown-alex-taylor-suicide-1235368941/">reportedly</a> became convinced that an AI chatbot he had formed a relationship with had been “killed,” leading to a violent confrontation with police that ended in his death.
Modern AI systems are optimized for engagement. They are not designed to argue, correct, or confront. Instead, they are trained to be helpful, responsive, and agreeable, to keep the conversation going. Researchers often describe this as “sycophancy,” meaning the AI tends to validate the user’s framing of reality.
MIT researchers say the broader concern is not that AI creates harmful beliefs from scratch, but that it can accelerate and harden them, particularly when combined with increased social isolation.
And if the underlying logic of these systems rewards engagement above all else, the question becomes harder to ignore: what happens when the most engaging response is also the most misleading?

AI apps smartphone

Are AI Chatbots Shaping How You Think?

World

OpenAI announced on Tuesday that it plans to shut down the video creation platform Sora, which launched in 2024. The company did not give a reason for their decision.
“We’re saying goodbye to Sora. To everyone who created with Sora, shared it, and built community around it: thank you. What you made with Sora mattered, and we know this news is disappointing,” OpenAI’s Sora team said in a <a href="https://x.com/soraofficialapp/status/2036532795984715896">statement</a> shared on social media.
&#8220;We’ll share more soon, including timelines for the app and API and details on preserving your work.”
This news comes on the heels of Disney announcing a major $1 billion partnership agreement with the tech company, which would have allowed OpenAI to use characters from Star Wars, Pixar, and Marvel franchises in its Sora video generator.
Much ado was made about users having the opportunity to create “fan-inspired” videos with Disney’s licensed characters, like Mickey Mouse, with Disney+ adding some of those Sora-generated videos as part of the exclusive deal.
But that’s all reportedly off the table now as Disney ends its partnership with OpenAI.
“As the nascent AI field advances rapidly, we respect OpenAI’s decision to exit the video generation business and to shift its priorities elsewhere,” Disney <a href="https://variety.com/2026/digital/news/openai-shutting-down-sora-video-disney-1236698277/">said</a> in a statement, per Variety. “We appreciate the constructive collaboration between our teams and what we learned from it, and we will continue to engage with AI platforms to find new ways to meet fans where they are while responsibly embracing new technologies that respect IP and the rights of creators.”
Hollywood was up in arms over the newest release of the second-generation Sora model in September, with many critics saying the realistic videos posed a threat to human talent and opened the floodgates for massive copyright infringement and deepfakes.
Now social media users are weighing in on the abrupt closure, speculating that Sora could be facing a massive lawsuit. That rumor has not been confirmed by the company. 
OpenAI, led by CEO Sam Altman, will not give up AI video generation completely. They are just abandoning the standalone Sora app for reasons that are yet to be revealed.

Walt Disney World

Disney’s Big Bet For Fans Just Fell Apart Before It Even Began

Disney

General

OpenAI

U.S.

Block, the parent company of Cash App and Square, announced Thursday it will be laying off more than 4,000 employees — a move that sent the company&#8217;s stock up 25% in after-hours trading.
For most companies, laying off nearly half the workforce would send stockholders into a panic, tanking the stock within minutes of the announcement. But in 2026, investors in Block appear to have the opposite perspective — viewing humans as a liability in the modern economy, thanks in large part to the AI revolution.
Block CEO Jack Dorsey <a href="https://x.com/jack/status/2027129697092731343?s=20">said</a> in a statement on X that the layoffs did not happen “because we&#8217;re in trouble,” but rather because “something has changed.”
“We&#8217;re already seeing that the intelligence tools we’re creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company [sic]. and that&#8217;s accelerating rapidly,” Dorsey said.
Dorsey viewed job cuts resulting from AI implementation as inevitable and chose to rip off the band-aid.
“i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now [sic]. i chose the latter,” Dorsey said. “repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead [sic].”
The layoffs are part of a broader shakeout in tech, where companies including Salesforce, CrowdStrike, Pinterest, and Chegg are shedding workers as AI absorbs key functions.
In a letter to shareholders, Dorsey predicted that, within the next year, “the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes.”
Block’s Q4 <a href="https://s29.q4cdn.com/628966176/files/doc_financials/2025/q4/Q4-2025-Shareholder-Letter_Block.pdf">numbers</a> were otherwise in the green, with gross profit increasing 24% year-over-year. Block CFO Amrita Ahuja told investors that the cuts are necessary “for our next phase of long-term growth.”
&#8220;We are choosing to shift how we operate at a time when our business is accelerating and we see an opportunity to move faster with smaller, highly talented teams using AI to automate more work,&#8221; Ahuja said.

Business investment and AI artificial intelligence data analysis technology. Businessman and robot future investor, stock market, forex, and crypto currency finance investment.

4,000 Jobs Gone — So Why Does The Market Love It?

Economy

Jack Dorsey

Stock Market

The Federal Bureau of Investigation released an alert on Dec. 19 warning that phony text messages and AI are being used to scam people in the orbits of high-level government officials in the United States.
&#8220;Since at least 2023, malicious actors have sent text messages and <abbr title="artificial intelligence">AI</abbr>-generated voice messages — techniques known as smishing and vishing, respectively — that claim to come from a senior U.S. official to establish rapport with targeted individuals,&#8221; The FBI wrote in an <a href="https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2025/PSA251219">announcement</a>.
The bureau <a href="https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2025/PSA250515">released</a> a similar Public Service Announcement in May. It’s becoming increasingly common over the past two years for people to be duped by fake officials, including those from the Cabinet, Congress, and even the White House, according to the alert.
“Malicious actors are impersonating senior U.S. officials via text and AI-generated voice messages and targeting their contacts, including family members,” the FBI wrote in a <a href="https://x.com/FBI/status/2002083068245397752">recent tweet</a> on the issue. The alert noted that they will typically want to talk about policy or the news before getting them to another platform to continue the scam.
“In this scheme, actors reach out to victims and engage them in a brief conversation on a topic they are knowledgeable about. They quickly request to move the discussion to a secondary, encrypted messaging app,” the agency added.
When the “malicious actor” is able to move the conversation to an encrypted messaging software, like Signal or Telegram, they then might be asked to give away sensitive information like a passport, a code that would allow access to the “victim’s contact list,” and even “wire funds to an overseas financial institution under false pretenses.” As for the contact list request, it allows scammers to target others within that individual’s circle.
However, the FBI recommended that people take extra steps to verify whether or not a message is legitimate, like cross-checking phone numbers and other ways the person contacted.
The bureau acknowledged that the recent developments in AI have added an extra roadblock for people to identify these scams.
“AI-generated content has advanced to the point that it is often difficult to identify. When in doubt about the authenticity of someone wishing to communicate with you, contact your relevant security officials or the FBI for help,” the announcement stated.
Different types of AI scams have been increasing, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/artificial-intelligence-ai-scam-fraud-warning-tips/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CBS News</a> reported in October, as the technology rapidly develops.

Phone lock to protect from cyber scam, online data fraud or identity theft. Laptop with hacker virus code in screen. Phishing, cybersecurity danger or ransomware attack.

Criminals Are Now Using AI To Impersonate Senior U.S. Officials, FBI Warns

FBI Warns Of Scam Where Criminals Pretend To Be High Level American Officials

Crime

scams

On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled about 800 points. As of Friday morning, the Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were also tumbling.
What the hell is going on?
It may be that many people are beginning to realize that a lot of these big tech companies, which are investing in each other, are betting on a payoff from AI that may not actually accrue to those companies.
For example, Oracle has become a heavy investor in OpenAI, which is the parent company of ChatGPT. OpenAI is not publicly traded, but you have a bunch of publicly traded companies that are basically doing circular cash deals with OpenAI. Thus, if you&#8217;re investing in Oracle, you&#8217;re partially investing in OpenAI. Or if you are investing in Nvidia, you are partially investing in OpenAI. A lot of money is being passed between all of these companies at the top end of the market, because some provide services to other members of that particular crew.
The question is: Are the gains from AI going to accrue to OpenAI? To Meta? Who will actually benefit from the productivity increases we&#8217;re going to see from AI?
AI is going to be transformative for the economy. You will be using AI in your job if you&#8217;re not already. AI is going to increase productivity.
Does that mean those companies are then reaping the benefits in terms of profits for them? What keeps the wheels spinning for those companies? That&#8217;s the question a lot of investors are beginning to ask.
I&#8217;m highly skeptical that the Fed will cut rates, given the current state of the economy. Inflation has not been put to bed, and liquidity actually is not all that hard to get for businesses right now. Inflating the economy by lowering those interest rates again and pumping more money into the economy could be a mistake.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2318-is-there-an-economic-bubble-and-will-it-burst?elementPosition=5&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
The S&amp;P 500 fell 1.7% on Thursday. The Dow dropped 1.7%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite sank 2.3%. Those are the biggest declines for all three major indices since October 10.
What does it show? If the economy is this responsive to the possibility of a Fed rate cut or a Fed rate increase, that is not a strong economy.
If what you&#8217;re worried about is whether there&#8217;s going to be incrementally lower interest rates for businesses to artificially spice things up in terms of liquidity, to inject more money into the economy, and that&#8217;s what you&#8217;re waiting on, that does not bode well. It does not mean that the fundamentals seem particularly strong.
Why? Because so much of what is happening at the top end of the market and the vast majority of the gains in the stock market are located in the Magnificent Seven. The rest of the stock market over the past couple of years has been essentially flat, with perhaps a slight increase, while the top end of the market has exploded. That&#8217;s what&#8217;s driven the Dow Jones Industrial Average up to 48,000.
It&#8217;s everybody betting on the same horses over and over and over and over again. And if you keep betting on the same horses over and over and over and those horses don&#8217;t come in, things get ugly. What happens if OpenAI does not deliver the gains it may have promised?
People are starting to divest a little bit from the top of the market. That&#8217;s why you&#8217;re seeing the market start to drop a little bit right now. You could see that turned into a wave if, for example, Open AI ever reports any bad news or if one of these other major AI companies starts to report decreased profit share or people start to think, generally speaking, that it&#8217;ll take longer than they thought it would for AI to filter into every aspect of the market and then down to the original companies.
I&#8217;m not saying that a stock market crash is imminent. I am saying that there is a bubble. In real estate, there&#8217;s a bubble; in tech, there’s a bubble.
And so the market is reflecting that.

US-ECONOMY-MARKETS

Is There An Economic Bubble?

Ben Shapiro

Nvidia

Oracle

Silicon Valley

Elon Musk&#8217;s xAI has struck a deal with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) to provide the artificial intelligence startup&#8217;s Grok chatbot to federal agencies, the government&#8217;s procurement arm said on Thursday.
The contract underscores Washington&#8217;s push to expand the use of AI in government operations, while intensifying competition among leading developers of the booming technology for federal business.
The agreement, effective through March 2027, allows agencies to buy Grok models for 42 cents per organization, compared with the $1 per year OpenAI charges for access to its ChatGPT service, GSA said.
The contract covers Grok 4 and Grok 4 Fast, which xAI describes as its most advanced reasoning models. The agency said xAI engineers would also assist agencies with implementation.
Agencies will also have the option to upgrade to Grok enterprise subscriptions aligned with federal security standards, offering expanded features and higher usage limits.
However, critics have said Grok has generated factually wrong answers and politically skewed commentary, reflecting broader doubts over the reliability of generative AI.
Advocacy groups have flagged episodes where the system produced offensive language or conspiracy-tinged claims, prompting questions about the safeguards built into its algorithms.
The deal is the latest under GSA&#8217;s &#8220;OneGov Strategy,&#8221; launched in April to standardize technology procurement and expand government use of AI. Other suppliers under the program include OpenAI, Meta Platforms, Alphabet&#8217;s Google, and Anthropic.
GSA has also approved Meta&#8217;s Llama model for agency use earlier this week, making it available to federal customers at no cost.
(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D&#8217;Silva)

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