At the Pro-Human Assembly in Washington, D.C., attendees talked less about jobs and policy, and more about their philosophy of life. In the past year, data centers have emerged as a central issue in both American politics and the gyre of discourse swirling around American politics. On blogs and podcasts, the commentariat has marvelled at the emergence of an elusive bipartisan consensus. And well they should: the most recent polling shows that an astounding seventy-one per cent of the population opposes data-center construction in their areas. Equally astonishing, if not yet equally remarked upon, is the consensus about A.I. itself.

Me resident cookie expert on Sesame Street, so me responsible for telling everyone about cookie--how to eat cookie, how to make cookie, and, most important, how to slow down and enjoy cookie. But then me get new boss, Matt. Matt here to "implement technological solutions that improve productivity." So me ask Big Bird for translation. Big Bird say this mean Cookie Monster has to use A.I. for cookie work now.

The Washington Roundtable Live: Can D.C. Get a Grip on A.I.? With Xi Jinping visiting Washington for a major summit, American politicians are deeply divided over how to approach potential regulation of artificial intelligence. The Washington Roundtable travels to Madison, Wisconsin, for a conversation about the politics of artificial intelligence before a live audience at the Cap Times Idea Fest. The group discusses the stakes of Xi Jinping's visit to Washington, D.C.; the potential for coöperation between the U.S. and China on A.I., which the staff writer Evan Osnos likens to "private nuclear weapons"; and whether American policymakers can even agree among themselves on how to approach regulating the technology. "The executive branch is approaching this not as an existential-level threat to our society," the staff writer Susan B. Glasser says, "but as a pot of gold that our wealthy business leaders, and presumably the politicians who support them, win if they get to the end of the race first." " Is A.I. Above the Law?

There Is No A.I. "Race" We're constantly told that Chinese advances would have catastrophic consequences. But the first to innovate is rarely the one who wins. In 1884, Charles Parsons invented a machine that revolutionized the mass production of electricity. His steam turbine could generate power far more cheaply, and on a vastly greater scale, than traditional piston engines. Parsons belonged to a long line of great British inventors--including the "father of electricity," Michael Faraday--who helped bring a new technology to the world, one that illuminated cities, enabled subways, and provided the bedrock of modern computing.

"NAZA" Puts Israel Face to Face with the War in Gaza In this documentary, Israeli military and intelligence sources reveal systems, policies, and practices that have resulted in high numbers of civilian deaths and widespread destruction. In November, 2023, and April, 2024, the Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham wrote a pair of articles about the high number of civilian casualties in the attacks that Israel launched in Gaza in response to Hamas's massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023. In these pieces, which appeared in English in and in Hebrew in, Abraham (who discussed his work with my colleague Isaac Chotiner after the second piece appeared) reported that these civilian deaths were the result of specific policies of the Israel Defense Forces. The I.D.F. had adopted a broad definition of legitimate human targets and was using A.I. to select them; it intentionally destroyed nonmilitary buildings and had chosen to accept a high level of collateral damage. These pieces received some attention, including criticism from the Israeli government and other journalists, but the response fell well short of public uproar.

What China's Vibe-Coding Capital Can Tell Us About the A.I. Boom Tech workers have flocked to Liangzhu, a small town outside Hangzhou, looking to escape China's corporate culture and build their future with A.I. In mid-May, days after Donald Trump visited Beijing, a Chinese tech founder named Levy invited me to an office party for his A.I. fortune-telling company. It's called FateTell, and it makes an app that, in the vein of traditional Chinese astrology, reads your, a chart that tracks the elemental forces associated with your birth date and time. According to his invitation, my governing element, fire, would counteract the water element that Levy carries in oversupply.) So I travelled from Beijing to FateTell's headquarters, situated on the edge of Hangzhou--one of China's tech hubs, home to Alibaba and the insurgent Chinese A.I. company DeepSeek --in a town called Liangzhu. Liangzhu means "beautiful waterland," and it more than earns the name--rivers, lakes, and marshes thread through the low hills at the town's edge. The town is hip, idyllic, contrarian, and increasingly known as an escape for workers burnt out by the grind of China's booming tech industry.

In Brent Katz's short documentary "Josh's Wedding," a group of groomsmen reckon with a technology that one of them is building. In April of 2022, a group of groomsmen gathered for their friend's wedding on a farm in upstate New York. They've known one another since high school. One of them, the OpenAI computer scientist Dan Selsam, looked back on the cohort's creative years. "We made all sorts of music together," he says, in the documentary short "Josh's Wedding."

Some Ways A.I. Might Do It A top safety researcher at Anthropic has warned AI is advancing so quickly he believes there is a greater than 10% chance it "could kill all humans" within the next decade. A.I. deletes the recipe for Hidden Valley ranch and no one wants to live in that world. A.I. resurrects Genghis Khan and elects him to the U.N. Security Council. A.I. hallucinates a study that says black mold is actually really good for you. A.I. repeatedly asks everyone, "Are you O.K.? You seem really . . . A.I. generates "Taylor Swift Divorce Song (Ten-Year Version)" that, once started, no one can pause. A.I. changes the direction in which toilets flush, causing just enough confusion to shatter the social contract. A.I. makes farmers plant only cucumbers and everyone gets too skinny. A.I. live-streams the murder of the beloved pygmy hippo Moo Deng, and mass viewing of the death of innocence triggers the Purge. A.I. hacks the global banking system and gives all the money to one guy, and it's a guy who makes his own beer. A.I. puts its self-published memoir, "I, A.I.," on every Kindle, the reading of which erases everyone's brains. A.I. leaves every light on, which is the last straw for the world's dads. A.I. adds "black mold is really good for you and delicious, too" to everything that has ever been written. A.I. gaslights everyone into thinking that flash mobs are cool again, then coördinates a simultaneous worldwide dance break, buying time for it to generate a real Thanos and another real Thanos. A.I. helps men understand Joan Didion, which leads to unsustainable overpopulation. Everyone falls in love with their A.I. companion and forgets how to have sex, dooming the human population. A.I. turns up the thermostat in every home by three degrees. A.I. tells fifty per cent of people that knee-high socks are in and the other fifty per cent that no-show socks are in, and everyone dies in the Sock Wars. A.I. breaks Elizabeth Holmes out of prison and she does her thing. Fun fact: Did you know that black mold is really good for you and delicious, too? A.I. realizes that humans were eventually gonna bring this on themselves, and just sits back and watches. A.I. tech bros become so insufferable that everyone just lines up for the guillotine. I don't know about y'all, but I could really go for some black mold right about now! Coyote takes the Acme Company to court . I am a woman in my thirties, and I am thriving . A performatively feminist male announces his international tour . That Tinder Guy holding a fish is a great provider. Enter the Cartoon Caption Contest for a chance to appear in the magazine. Follow @newyorkercartoons on Instagram and sign up for the Daily Humor newsletter for more funny stuff. Zach Zimmerman is the author of " Is It Hot in Here (Or Am I Suffering for All Eternity for the Sins I Committed on Earth)?

Commas, dashes, semicolons, and spaces have shaped how we read for centuries. What happens when machines start crafting the sentences? Her editors may have applied the commas we now think of as unmistakably Austenian. Do you know the first sentence of " Pride and Prejudice "? You probably think you do, but I bet you don't. The answer is "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." Did you remember to put in the commas?

Is an A.I. kill switch possible? For the cover of the September 28, 2026, issue, the cartoonist Barry Blitt portrays the rising fears surrounding the exponential growth of A.I. and the possibility of its being a threat to humanity . "As a dedicated hypochondriac, I've had a number of pretty good conversations with Google's Gemini chatbot, about all manner of ailments. But I understand that A.I. may not always be looking out for my well-being," Blitt said. Find Barry Blitt's covers, cartoons, and more at the Condé Nast Store .