A new book suggests that it's time to embrace A.I. on your own terms. "I, Joanna Stern, do solemnly swear to live with the machines for the next 365 days." Thus begins the year-long experiment chronicled in Stern's book, " I Am Not a Robot," a romp through the landscape of applied artificial intelligence, published this month. Early in 2025, Stern, a former technology reporter for the, decided to "cram artificial intelligence into as many corners" of her life as possible. In the course of a year, she used more than a hundred A.I.-based products, including glasses, bracelets, cars, robots, and a toothbrush.

What the Pope Said About A.I. Leo XIV's new encyclical, "Magnifica Humanitas," presents a remarkable case for placing moral concerns, and not profit, or competitive advantage, or efficiency, at the center of any discussion of artificial intelligence. Last year, only months into his papacy, Pope Leo XIV, the first American Pope, called on developers of artificial intelligence "to cultivate moral discernment as a fundamental part of their work." In response, the Silicon Valley billionaire and troll-in-chief Marc Andreessen began mocking the pontiff by tweeting an idiotic meme at him. The Pope raised the grave concern that artificial-intelligence companies were "totally ignoring the value of human beings and of humanity"; the venture capitalist Peter Thiel reportedly wondered whether the Pope might be in league with the Antichrist. The merchant princes of Silicon Valley appeared concerned that the new Pope would usurp their authority and diminish their power.

A Ukrainian flying ace is leveraging his aerobatics skills to protect his countrymen from nightly attacks. The most challenging part of an international aerobatics contest is the Free Unknown. Pilots arrive at a competition after having polished sequences of loops, stall turns, and barrel rolls. But for the Free Unknown section they learn which assortment of tricks they must perform only a day in advance. Contestants plan out how they will string together the stipulated moves in the most pleasing fashion, but they cannot rehearse the routine, except in their minds. It's a test of imagination and airmanship that often decides the competition. In 2019, the World Intermediate Aerobatics Championship, which was held on an airfield in the Czech town of Břeclav, contained three Free Unknowns. The winner of the first was a twenty-five-year-old Ukrainian pilot named Timur Fatkullin. At the controls of his red-and-silver Extra 330LX--a nimble German sports plane--he made the unusual move of starting his sequence upside down. He then executed a complicated routine as if he'd practiced it for months. The Ukrainian team, boosted by Fatkullin's performance, won gold. Trevor Dugan, who served as a navigator with the R.A.F. in Afghanistan and Iraq, was on the British team, which took bronze. Fatkullin, he said, was "absolutely phenomenal." Not long after that championship, Fatkullin stopped entering aerobatics competitions: first came the pandemic, then the war with Russia. He moves through life impatiently. Now thirty-two, he has five children. He is tall, with a tight beard, pale-green eyes, and a square jaw. Even in casual situations, he stands ramrod straight, as though about to give or receive an order. He often wears a shirt with three buttons undone, a beige leather flying jacket with the collar turned up, combat pants, and Nike high-tops. He plays the guitar, a little piano. He often carries a thick fold of high-value bills. He speaks several languages, including English (almost perfectly) and Spanish (conversationally). He once spent thirty days in jail after breaking the ribs of a man who'd threatened his wife. He can dance the tango. When Fatkullin was in his mid-twenties, he started doing stunts with a group of other extreme athletes: parachutists, motorcyclists, a free diver.

Is Washington Up to the Challenge of A.I.? How anger over artificial intelligence might drive the next wave of populist politics. The Washington Roundtable discusses the growing political backlash to artificial intelligence, especially among young Americans, and asks whether Washington is capable of regulating A.I. companies. They're joined by Nate Soares, the executive director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and co-author of the book " If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies ." The group explores what was behind the White House's sudden reversal on an A.I.-safety executive order this week, the outsized influence of venture capitalists in the A.I. industry, and how A.I. may turbocharge the next populist movement in American politics. "My impression is that a lot of the people protesting data centers can sort of tell that this A.I. stuff is taking the world somewhere they don't want," Soares says.

Sorry that your electricity bill has skyrocketed--your neighbor is in love with her dishwasher. It's nice that she finally found connection, even if it's with a machine. Oh, and the wedding is set for June! Don't worry--we have the most brilliant scientists in the world working to make sure it's not in the Cuisinart mixer's best interest to kill us all. You'll have to ask it.

The Enrollment Cliff Is Here. Which Schools Will Survive It? As the number of new high-school graduates drops, colleges will close, some will merge, and others may change beyond recognition. This series on the future of higher education started with a simple question: Should I still be contributing to my children's college funds? My first attempt to answer that question centered on the growing disillusionment with higher education in general.

In its first week, the seventy-ninth edition of the festival unveiled standout new works by James Gray, Paweł Pawlikowski, and Ryûsuke Hamaguchi. Attend the Cannes Film Festival long enough, and you will grow wearily accustomed to the reality that some of the best films to première there are routinely overlooked for prizes. Lee Chang-dong magnificently unsettling psychological chiller, "Burning," failed to ignite the excitement of the 2018 jury. The tragicomic glories of Maren Ade's " Toni Erdmann," from 2016, were just as inexplicably unrewarded. Jurors shut out David Cronenberg's "A History of Violence," in 2005; Hou Hsiao-hsien's "Flowers of Shanghai," in 1998; Krzysztof Kieślowski's "Three Colors: Red," in 1994; Martin Scorsese's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," in 1975; and--the tradition goes way back--Vittorio De Sica's "Umberto D.," in 1952.

Jill Lepore chronicles the rise of machine-generated writing, from a Hollywood plot-writing grift and Cold War computer poetry to the age of ChatGPT.

"The Audacity" Is a Brutal Silicon Valley Satire with an Agenda The AMC dramedy's skewering of tech bros might feel familiar in 2026--but a focus on oft-overlooked elements of the world they've created gives the series a strange verve. Midway through my watch of the new tech-satire series "The Audacity," I received an e-mail from Google that I had received many times before. My personal data had been found online, it said. This time, it was my phone number; previously, it had been more private information. The most I could do, it seemed, was ask Google to remove the offending pages from its search results, one by one, over months, then years.

The President swept off to Beijing to court Xi Jinping. Back Stateside, it was non-Presidential motorcades, video games, and a languid vibe at the White House. The endless motorcades and wail of sirens in Washington this week made it seem as if the President were travelling non-stop around the city, or receiving a bevy of foreign dignitaries. As it happened, it was National Police Week, and the ceremonial convoys were carrying the families of police officers who had been killed in the line of duty. Donald Trump was leaving for China.