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Writer and podcaster; co-author of Abundance with Ezra Klein, a staff writer at The Atlantic from 2008 to 2025, and host of the Plain English podcast.

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  Writing is itself an act of thinking, so automating the writing removes the thinking, not just the labor.

  Their words

  The act of writing is an act of thinking, and to automate our paragraphs is to populate our screens with words without filling our minds with the ideas necessary to conceive of them.

  We Can't Let AI Writing Take Over the Internetderekthompson.org

Emeritus professor of war studies at King's College London; wrote Strategy: A History and Command, and writes about the wars in Ukraine and Gaza as they happen.

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  Enemy manipulation of a whole society's information environment is unlikely ever to be decisive in a war, because shaping another society's perceptions is genuinely hard.

  Their words

  This is not to be complacent about the risks, but it is to urge caution when assuming that shifting the perceptions of other societies will ever be straightforward.

  AI and the New Fog of Warsamf.substack.com

Writer of Today in Tabs, a daily media-and-internet newsletter started in 2013; earlier founded the community site Kuro5hin.

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  Witchcraft for Cyborgs

  Their words

  It’s rare that a dispute this messy gets a resolution so clear.

  todayintabs.com

Climate scientist and energy systems analyst; writes The Climate Brink with Andrew Dessler and leads climate research at Stripe.

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  A strong El Niño's peak warming effect on global surface temperature shows up three to five months later, landing in the following year.

  Their words

  global temperature lags ENSO by around three to five months, most of this event's warming will land in 2027, which is now shaping up to be a genuinely alarming year and the warmest on record by a sizable margin.

  The Strongest El Niño Evertheclimatebrink.com

Computer science professor at Georgetown University and author of Deep Work, Digital Minimalism and Slow Productivity; writes about focus, technology and work at calnewport.com and hosts the Deep Questions podcast.

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  Human rights, logic, progress and the very idea of an independent self are all children of the written word.

  Their words

  essentially every cultural attribute that we celebrate – from human rights, to logic, to progress, to the very notion of an independent self – are conceptual children born from the mind-shaping power of the written word.

  Why Reading Matterscalnewport.com

Mathematician and maker of the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel, which explains mathematics through animation. Creator of the open-source Manim animation library and founder of the Summer of Math Exposition.

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  Most of the useful mathematics AI produces over the next five years will be filling in connections that only somebody expert in several fields could draw.

  Their words

  but that's my guess on what most of the useful progress uh from these models will look like like in the next five years is just really filling in that landscape of like connections that you can draw if you're an expert in multiple fields.

  youtube.com

Economist at Oxford's Global Priorities Institute; works on what advanced AI would do to growth, saving and the long-run economy.

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  A poor country should prioritise owning a piece of AI over retraining its workers, but it should not bet everything on that.

  AGI

  Their words

  I would prioritize trying to index, but just given how fast AI could, you know, hit the world. But, um I definitely wouldn't just rely on that because like it could the the sort of um messy middle type cases or the just a long timelines cases on which like you we don't get it anything like AGI all that soon.

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Behavioural economist at Chicago Booth, professor of behavioural science and economics and director of AGI economics at Google DeepMind.

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  The ballerina is the wrong picture of surviving human work: the relational sector is one task left inside an ordinary job, like a doctor giving the diagnosis.

  Their words

  the ballerina and the kind of performer, that's the wrong reference class. Right now we have a lot of jobs where you have different tasks. So this is the task-based model jobs where you have like a lot of different tasks. So like a doctor, what is their job? They're filling out insurance documents. They're you know, going and like calling different pharmaceutical companies. And one of their tasks is to actually see the patient and talk to them, but that's like actually not the main part part of the job.

  youtube.com

Writes Strange Loop Canon, on the intersection of technology, economics and business — "building models of the world to understand these problem areas and to define them better".

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  As AI labs aim for broad, general capability, handling messy real-world bureaucratic tasks is becoming a primary application domain for their models.

  Their words

  Considering every lab wants to "eat the world" the focus on how to work in real-world messy situations seems apt as their primary home.

  Introducing BenchBenchstrangeloopcanon.com

Writes Strange Loop Canon, on the intersection of technology, economics and business — "building models of the world to understand these problem areas and to define them better".

• Our readingkorrents.com

  AI agents will still need something like money to coordinate, since it compresses complex negotiations into one shared signal.

  Their words

  Money might still matter for AI agents because it compresses many messy negotiations into one shared signal.

  Homo Agenticusstrangeloopcanon.com

Writer and illustrator, author of Am I There Yet? and Out of the Blue; writes the newsletter Out of the Blue on grief, joy and everyday attention.

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  Putting a price on creative expression makes it suffer, while giving it away freely lets it thrive.

  Their words

  I know my work will suffer if I put a price on creative expression that is as sloppy and homespun as spaghetti, and I know it will thrive if I give it generously and get messy while making it.

  On Monetizationmariandrew.substack.com

Clinical psychologist, EMDR consultant and yoga teacher in Boulder, Colorado. Author of The Complex PTSD Workbook and EMDR Therapy and Somatic Psychology; writes on trauma, attachment and the nervous system.

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  Polyvagal theory survives the 2026 "untenable" critique: what the critics contested was mechanism and evolutionary framing, not the clinical proposition.

  Polyvagal theory

  Their words

  The central clinical proposition of polyvagal theory-that autonomic state functions as an organizing platform shaping perception, emotion, and relational behavior-was not empirically disproven in the critique.

  drarielleschwartz.com

Executive coach for product leaders. Previously a partner at GV (Google Ventures) and a product manager at Google. Writes at Bring the Donuts, including a standing essential-reading list for product managers.

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  Yes to the Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz

  Their words

  Jazz is messy, and musicians seem to court disaster night after night. What can product leaders learn from how these artists approach their art? Barrett’s entertaining book formed the backbone for

  bringthedonuts.com

Writer on habits and decision-making; author of Atomic Habits and the 3-2-1 newsletter, and publisher of long-running book recommendation lists.

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  A small amount of friction is enough to reshape a behavior, because most wants are not strong enough to survive a minor inconvenience.

  Their words

  And so many behaviors are like that. It's like, well, did you want it or not? You know, like in the one sense, you wanted it so bad that you would check it every 3 minutes when it was next to you, but in another sense, you never wanted it bad enough that you would work for 30 seconds and walk down the hall to get it. And so, a little bit of friction can sometimes go a long way in shaping a behavior.

  The Silent Cost of Bad Habits | James Clearyoutube.com

Designer, illustrator and writer; author of The Shape of Design and of widely read essays on design and the web.

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  To make something alive with AI you have to work beside it and resist its pull towards the average; an average email is fine, average art is not.

  Their words

  An average email or line of code is fine. Average art isn’t. To make something alive with AI, we have to resist its pull towards average by working beside it, shaping what it gives, and listening for what’s missing.

  Beyond the Machinefrankchimero.com

Executive coach for product leaders. Previously a partner at GV (Google Ventures) and a product manager at Google. Writes at Bring the Donuts, including a standing essential-reading list for product managers.

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  A leader who projects unflappable seriousness causes their team to hide problems and honest feedback.

  Their words

  Nobody wants to follow a joyless leader. If your presence signals, "Everything is fine. I've got this all figured out. Please don't show me anything messy," your team will take the hint.

  Why Great Leaders Embrace Humor and Playfulnessbringthedonuts.com

Staff writer at The New Yorker, where he writes the Infinite Scroll column, and author of Filterworld and The Longing for Less.

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  The Trump-Musk government's approach descends from a Silicon Valley ideology that prizes frictionless technology built by elite engineers over messy human institutions.

  government

  Their words

  But the underlying ideology is familiar from Silicon Valley, Mark Zuckerberg's dictum to "move fast and break things" and replace the messily human with frictionless technology, built by elite engineers who are supposed to know better than anyone else.

  The history of techno-fascismkylechayka.substack.com

Development economist; argues that letting people move to rich countries does more for the poor than aid, and wrote Let Their People Come.

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  Migrants filling low-skill jobs in rich countries take nobody’s job, because the native workforce is shrinking faster than those jobs are appearing.

  immigrationAmerica

  Their words

  According to my numbers, in the United States there will be a net of 3.24 million new low-skill jobs, but there will also be 4.7 million fewer people in the labor force.

  english.elpais.com

First Amendment lawyer and former federal prosecutor; writes The Popehat Report and explains what the law actually says when people shout about free speech.

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  There is no single reasonable person in America, which makes the objective test for a true threat very hard to administer.

  America

  Their words

  As I’ve argued before, the so-called “objective standard” can be very difficult to administer in this big diverse messy country where we often don’t share a common sense of reality and there is no uniform “reasonable person.”

  popehat.substack.com

Biochemist at University College London; writes about the origin of life and the role of energy in evolution, in The Vital Question and Transformer.

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  Electrical fields shaping development look like mumbo jumbo to most biologists, and they are exactly where 21st-century biology is going.

  Their words

  And frankly biologists, most biologists are still very reluctant to even get themselves tangled up in questions like electrical fields influencing development. It seems like mumbo jumbo to a lot of biologists and it should not be because this is the 21st century biology.

  youtube.com

Writes Nintil, long researched essays on metascience, biology, economics and whatever he has decided to read the literature on.

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  Reviewers can tell the obviously good from the obviously bad, but there is a messy middle where they cannot tell at all.

  Their words

  The way I see this is that reviewers can identify what's obviously not great and what is obviously great (Perhaps identifying the latter is easier than the former). But there is a "messy middle" where it is unclear what to fund.

  nintil.com

Founder and CEO of Get Lighthouse, a management-coaching software company, and previously a product lead at KISSmetrics. Writes about leadership, management and product at jasonevanish.com.

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  The Messy Middle: Finding your way through the hardest and most crucial part of any bold venture

  Their words

  Part autobiography, part startup + life philosophy, and part product book, I could have categorized this in a few sections. However, the strength of this book is clearly the advice and insights for how Scott's 7+ year journey led to a fantastically successful exit to Adobe for his startup, Behance. The middle of the book is a great mix of anecdotes and tactical things you can apply if your startup is in "the Messy Middle" to turn the corner for your product.

  jasonevanish.com

Mathematician and maker of the 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel, which explains mathematics through animation. Creator of the open-source Manim animation library and founder of the Summer of Math Exposition.

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  Information Theory, Inference and Learning Algorithms

  Their words

  Information theory has a way of shaping the way you view many things in math, computer science, physics, and beyond. It's one of those fields that takes ideas that you wouldn't think of as being quantifiable or rigorous and makes them so.

  3blue1brown.com