Surviving (Plan A)

The AI Futures Project, a tiny nonprofit with offices in Berkeley, has published a positive vision for how humanity can harness the potential of AI without allowing it to destroy us.

Called “Plan A,” this document envisions a scenario whereby we delay the development of super intelligence until 2040 and allows dozens of companies all over the world to catch up to the frontier currently occupied by just a few players in the U.S. and China.

All AI research would be made public under this plan, and an international regulatory regime “of mutually assured compute destruction” would come into being.

Starting in 2027, according to Plan A, “America has two workforces now. The first is people, 165 million of them. The second is AI agents: millions of copies spun up and shut down every hour, working around the clock at superhuman speeds."

The result in Congress is the AI Transparency Act of 2027, an omnibus bill that does many things, some good and some bad, but doesn’t fundamentally change the situation.²⁰

The plan predicts that AI will be on the biggest issue on the ballot in the 2028 election cycle. There will be widespread awareness that unrestrained AI threatens humanity’s future, and fierce debate over what to do about it.

The outcome of the debate is the new President will declare that we must slow down AI development. To everyone’s surprise, then other superpower leading the AI race, China, agrees.

But neither side wants to slow down their AI development unless they can verify the other side is too. A verification scheme emerges involving the U.S., China and other countries as well.

After intense global debate, further AI development is delayed while processes are developed to ensure transparency and reversibility. “No one knows how to tell if AIs are trustworthy, and no one knows how to regulate superintelligent AI. Solving those problems looks like it’ll take years. Slowing down the intelligence explosion buys time to do so.”

There is much more to the plan; it is 50 pages long. But you get the idea from this, I hope, and I urge everyone to become familiar with the plan. I may publish more about this in the coming days.

What gives Plan A credibility in my eyes is it sounds realistic and achievable. It’s one of the first positive visions I’ve seen to help us manage what is increasingly looking like the greatest threat to our continued existence as a species.

Viewed that way, how can we not give it a shot? The AI Futures Project gives us options that suggest a way forward with an “Incremental AI Policy Wishlist:”

“Our main recommendation is to begin negotiating something like Plan A as soon as possible. But in this scenario, we depict Plan A happening imperfectly and only in the nick of time. So here is a list of less ambitious ideas that still help.”

• Transparency

• Enforce export controls

• Invest in verification R&D

• Limit AI R&D budgets

• AI Compute Tracking

• Improve government AI capacity 

I have been watching AI development for years now and tried to keep an open mind, given the potential this technology has for good, but I am convinced that the corporate gold rush currently under way if left unchecked will lead to disaster.

It will probably take an incident at least on the scale of Chernobyl, if not Hiroshima, to wake up enough humans to the mind-numbing realization that we are poised on the verge of destruction with AI.

Plan A offers us a way out.

HEADLINES:

• America marks the 25th anniversary of 9/11 (CNN)

• Empty seats, socialism and Trump dominate the Republican midterm convention (NPR)

• As Trump dominates convention, some Republicans quietly ask who comes next (BBC)

• Iran-Backed Houthis Take Effective Control of Key Red Sea Chokepoint (WSJ)

• Houthis hail operation as they take over Red Sea coastline (Al Jazeera)

• $5,000 Checks for Every American? What to Know About Trump’s Latest Promise (WSJ)

• Behind the Scenes, Vance Gathered Unvarnished Views of the Iran War (NYT)

• Houthis seize key Yemeni port of Mocha in drive to take control of Red Sea coast (Guardian)

• Oil soars to $109, pushing up chances of US interest rate increase (Al Jazeera)

• What Russia Is Really Up To in Europe (Atlantic)

• NATO allies foil a Russian subsea cable sabotage plot. (Reuters)

• A Year After Charlie Kirk’s Killing, a Divided Utah Campus Honors Him (NYT)

• Supreme Court blocks Missouri’s attempt to use Republican-drawn congressional map (NBC)

• US appeals court rejects Trump’s bid to restrict mail-in voting before midterms (Guardian)

• Trump’s census plan could reshape voting maps, eliminate race questions (Axios)

• Trump vs. the Blue Wave (Silver Bulletin)

• Trump Fury at Canada Gets So Unhinged Even GOPers Rattled (TNR)

• Jimmy Kimmel says show won’t air James Talarico interview on TV, citing FCC threats (NBC)

• Jimmy Kimmel’s Interview with James Talarico That the FCC Doesn’t Want You To See (YouTube)

• Jimmy Kimmel sends pointed message to FCC chairman after cancelation reports (Independent)

• Anthropic says it blocked misuse of its AI that could have supported biological weapons (AP)

• One resignation turned the embers of AI fear into a wildfire (Interconnects)

• We asked AI how it could kill humanity. Here’s what it told us. (BI)

• Inside a Perfect Storm — How Dangerous Is AI? (TPM)

• ‘Extinction’ warnings ramp up as more OpenAI, Anthropic researchers join calls for an AI slowdown (CNBC)

• For years, they warned AI could kill all humans. Now people are listening. (WP)

• Trump Claims He Was Falling Man (Onion)

The Ending

On the hottest day in a long time, with a breeze from my fan cooling my face, I thought about the end of the human race. It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but a necessary one, given the stories in the current news cycle.

Along with many other people, I’ve been concerned about the known existential threats to humanity for much of my life. There is the danger of nuclear war, for example, or of climate change, or of an asteroid hitting the earth, or of a terrible pandemic.

But the latest and perhaps greatest immediate threat is from artificial intelligence.

***

Later on in my career, after journalism jobs had disappeared, I found work as a consultant to a number of technology startups. It was from the engineers at those companies that I learned how the software they were creating could become “smarter” over time, by reacting to user experiences.

They explained to me that their products would learn almost as if they were children to become faster, more efficient and more successful at the tasks their creators wanted them to master.

But all of that was kid stuff compared to AI, which advances at hyper speed, driven by market competition and the vast fortunes awaiting its creators. This week, the alarm has been sounded once again by industry insiders that AI may well destroy life as we know it within the next decade.

The thought of this makes me sick. I’m not at all sure whether I’ll still be here a decade from now, but most of the people I love certainly will be, and the thought of them perishing in some sort of an AI-induced catastrophe is simply inconceivable.

But we have to be able to conceive of that. The leading companies in AI are literally begging for regulation. As part of their case, they are issuing ever-more scary predictions.

Meanwhile, the rest of us cannot just sit here as if we assume these industry insiders are like the boy who cried “Wolf!”

After all, we know what happened in that story.

HEADLINES:

• US strikes five Iranian oil tankers, as Iran attacks 10 ships, Jordan base (Al Jazeera)

• US-Iran tanker attacks signal a dangerous new phase in war (CNN)

• Hegseth is shaking up the Pentagon as the US wages war - but at what cost? (BBC)

• Andreessen- and Thiel-backed defense startup opens U.S. missile factory as it exits stealth (CNBC)

• ‘Surge in construction’ at suspected Iranian nuclear site, analysts say, as US considers ways to strike deep underground (CNN)

• Trump says every adult American will get $5,000 if Republicans win midterms (BBC)

• Trump officials propose sweeping changes to the census that would reshape voting maps (NPR)

• Missouri court opens contempt probe into Republican official over redistricting fight (NBC)

• Missouri Supreme Court Sets Contempt Hearing in Fight Over House Map (NYT)

• Ballots discounted for late postmarks surged in vote-by-mail states Washington and Oregon after Postal Service changes (AP)

• Trump makes GOP midterm convention about himself, much to Democrats’ delight (WP)

• O’Reilly: Republicans ‘still running in the old model’ (The Hill)

• Trump gave Natalie Harp and 2 other aides $45,000 holiday gifts, disclosures show (Politico)

• Germany’s Merz accuses AfD of promoting ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Bundestag clash with Weidel (EuroNews)

• Germany’s Merz attacks AfD in stormy debate after far-right election win (BBC)

• The Theme Park at the Heart of France’s Culture War (NYT)

• Cubans are pushed to the breaking point as crises take their toll (NBC)

• How Canada decided to hurt its own economy, raise its inflation—and most Canadians approved because they’re so angry at Trump (Fortune)

• For Years, John O’Neill Warned of Al Qaeda’s Threat. Then He Died on 9/11. (PBS)

• An unnamed donor responds to global aid cuts with a record gift for the nonprofit Americares (AP)

• Amish Country Is Seeing a Major Measles Outbreak. RFK Jr. Is Making It Worse. (Truthout)

• A journalist coined ‘the Bible Belt’ 100 years ago – it’s been oversimplifying the South ever since (The Conversation)

• Lindsay Clancy juror had reasonable doubt but would not agree to acquit, foreperson says (Guardian)

• Hit TV show ‘South Park’ becomes ‘South America’ in apparent reference to Trump’s geographic name changes (CNBC)

• ‘Gambling with our lives’: Anthropic researcher quits, warns against self-improving AI (TechCrunch)

• OpenAI claims GPT-6 Astra is an ethereal ‘Alien Mind’ with AGI-like qualities — company warns of alignment challenges as new frontier leader emerges (Tom’s)

• A Quieter Kind of AI Breakthrough (WSJ)

• Sergey Brin is cooking up Google’s AI destiny (BI)

• Meta Rolls Out A.I. Agent That Can Send Your Emails and Book Your Travel (NYT)

• High School Football Coach Has Good Feeling About New Player Called ‘Thunder Beef’ (Onion)

We're Linked

One of the earliest joys of the Internet in the 1990s was the new-found ability to uncover just how closely connected we all are with others. We previously had no easy way of knowing that stuff. Six degrees of separation were all that separated each of us from presidents, actors, athletes, billionaires and beauty queens.

Alternatively, we found out we were not all that far removed from some pretty nasty characters as well.

We cross paths with new people all the time, online and off, and one of my occasional preoccupations is to wonder how closely we may have been to meeting each other sometime in the past, but didn’t.

Perhaps we passed within a block of each other in some random city years ago -- one of us going one direction, one in another.

We just missed.

The opposite is also true. We may meet someone in some consequential way that sticks in our memory but never encounter them again. We didn’t get to know them, really and we never will. But that one meeting mattered,

This kind of thing has happened to me many, many times, both with famous people and strangers. For example, I met Jesse Jackson twice. Both times I just happened to be standing in a crowd when he walked up and shook my hand. 

Other random encounters happened when I was traveling, especially overseas. 

Often, one of these one-timers pops up in the news and remind me of when we encountered each other over decades ago.

An example currently in the Senate, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, was a 40ish chair of a House agricultural committee when he questioned a 30ish journalist rather harshly half a lifetime ago. 

He had an untamed Midwestern twang and probably assumed the reporter was some city slicker from San Francisco who cared only about the environmental issue he termed the "Circle of Poison," and didn’t care about the plight of farmers like those in Grassley’s district.

They sparred over pesticides but the Congressman seemed shocked when the journalist described his deep concern for the small farmers who were among the primary victims of the multinational agrochemical companies he'd exposed in his book.

That was many years ago now, probably forty. I doubt Grassley even remembers the encounter or knew that the city slicker he met that day was the son of a man who grew up on a very small farm in Canada.

A decade after I appeared before Grassley’s committee, the most significant legislative attempt to date to address the issues I testified about was introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy and it was called “Circle of Poison Prevention Act." 

It would have “prohibited the export of pesticides that were not registered for domestic use; were not registered for food use and would not be exported for use on food; or had had the majority of registration canceled.”

The legislation was co-sponsored in the House by Leon Panetta, but it died in committee.

HEADLINES:

• UAE warned Netanyahu of major Hamas operation days before Oct. 7 attack, news report says (AP)

• UK announces new Israeli settlement sanctions, despite U.S. warning of economic consequences (CNBC)

• Delays and Cancellations Persist After Major Disruption at U.K. Airports (NYT)

• Israel to close British consulate in Jerusalem after sanctions announced (Guardian)

• Saudi Arabia says 73 wounded as Houthis attack civilian and energy sites (Al Jazeera)

• Military and intelligence officials discuss smaller presence in the Middle East as US looks for another post-9/11 strategy (CNN)

• A Reuters special report looks into how two Israeli brothers are driving a West Bank settler land grab. (Reuters)

• Republicans kick off a ‘Trumpapalooza’ of a midterm convention Wednesday in Texas (NPR)

• Trump’s Mail Voting Plan Is Coming to a Head. Here’s What to Know. (NYT)

• As Social Security fund runs dry, some Republicans say it’s time to raise taxes (WP)

• Justice Kavanaugh Blocks Missouri Voting Map Benefiting Republicans (NYT)

• Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch is leaving amid tensions with Trump (NBC)

• Carney Tells Canadians: Retaliation Against U.S. Tariffs Was Unavoidable (NYT) 

• The Emerging U.S.-China Détente (Foreign Affairs)

• Russia resumed air attacks on Kyiv after a brief halt for the visit of US peace negotiators, killing two people and triggering fires across the Ukrainian capital. (Reuters)

• Trump Wants to Exhaust Us. He’s Failing. (Bulwark)

• Study: Almost Half the World’s Farmers Are Poisoned by Pesticides Each Year (Mother Jones)

• Future Of Jimmy Kimmel’s Late Night Show In Doubt Following Bombshell Report (HuffPost)

• Thieves Steal Artworks From Renoir Museum in France (NYT)

• Rosanne Cash on the gift her father, Johnny Cash, gave her (NPR)

• Olivia Rodrigo Begins A Chart Comeback At The Same Time Her New Single Debuts (Forbes)

• This Tiny E-Reader Is the Single Best Piece of Technology in Years (Atlantic)

• From dance floor to war: China readies humanoid robots for combat (Japan Times)

• Will AI take all of our jobs? (Money Trail)

• The AI boom isn’t like other bubbles (WP)

• Health Speculations Swirl After Trump Slumps Over In Saddle Of Runaway Horse (Onion)

Seeing Things

The game clock controversy surrounding the Michigan football team’s last-second victory on Saturday highlights a deeper problem. Millions of people watching the game on television assumed Michigan had lost when the “clock” they saw showed 0.00 time remaining.

But the official time-keeper said that actually a fraction of a second of playing time did remain and Michigan’s quarterback made the most of it, hurling a dramatic 47-yard touchdown pass to gain a one-point victory over Western Michigan, 13-12.

So the issue here is not the outcome; Michigan won the game fair and square.

The problem is that millions of people saw what they assumed was the official clock expire on the second-to-last play, which was an incomplete pass. But it turns out that that clock wasn’t accurate.

We’ve been dealing with the implications of millions of people drawing conclusions from what they think they see on video for decades. And now that essentially everyone has a powerful camera on their cellphone, the problem is reaching dangerous proportions.

Most sports now have a video review feature to try and ensure that official get their calls right. These increasingly involve multiple views from multiple angles in an effort to do so. As players and fans get used to the new replay technologies, everyone waits for the ruling and most people accept it, one way or the other.

Live television coverage of news events has no such capability. It’s still in its dinosaur stage where one view suits all purposes, with some exceptions. So masses of people are forming opinions based on what they think they see there, or, perhaps worse, from amateur videos that surface online.

That is potentially dangerous when it comes to situations more critical than who wins a football game.

HEADLINES:

• Canadian tariffs on U.S. milk, perfume, golf clubs and other goods take effect as trade war grinds on (CBS)

• Mass deportations and separate schools for refugees: The far-right AfD’s vision for Germany (CNN)

• German nationalists’ big win sounds alarm for mainstream politicians in Europe (WP)

• After Far-Right Triumph, Merz Faces Narrow Path to Save His Government (WSJ)

• Houthis attack Saudi Arabia and wound dozens in major expansion of war in the Middle East (Independent)

• Israeli airstrikes on a village in southern Lebanon kill 12 people, including 2 children (AP)

• Iran war drives $100 billion in extra energy costs for U.S. consumers (Axios)

• Iran warns US energy assets in Gulf are vulnerable after latest clashes (Reuters)

• Speech in China is in the deep freeze (Economist)

• China readies for humanoid robot wars. (Reuters)

• U.S. exploring Russia-Ukraine winter de-escalation steps (Axios)

• 25 years after Sept. 11 attacks, Taliban rules Afghanistan again, but now with $7 billion in U.S. firepower (CBS)

• New Mexico Democrats push back over Trump posts about renaming the state ‘New America’ (NBC)

• As the unofficial start of the campaign sprint kicks off on Labor Day, President Donald Trump’s deep unpopularity is imperiling Republican chances of maintaining their narrow majorities in Congress with just two months before November’s midterm elections. (Reuters)

• Maria Bartiromo’s Downfall at an Increasingly Cautious Fox News (NYT)

• Trump pledged to lower prices in eight areas. Have they risen or fallen? (WP)

• Trump says he’s made ‘Hundreds of Billions of Dollars on Stocks’ for the U.S., in stream of AI posts (CNBC)

• The poorest in the US can’t find housing even as low-income units sit empty (AP)

• Life lessons from Big Tech workers who got laid off (BI)

• The Burning Man Crowd Is Getting Old (NYT)

• Gloria Steinem Gave It All (New Yorker)

• Michigan’s last-gasp miracle by Bryce Underwood saves Whittingham debut from disaster (Athletic)

• AI Is Already Changing What It Means to Be Human (Atlantic)

• UN rights chief warns how AI could pose ‘existential risk to humanity’ (EuroNews)

• Research acceleration: The view inside OpenAI (OpenAI)

• AI doomers can’t have it both ways (WP)

• CDC Successfully Eradicates Children (Onion)

 

In Other News

I’ll tell you the kind of story that puzzles me. Saturday evening, a mountain lion is sighted in Golden Gate Park. This has happened before. Apparently this one ran up a tree.

Twenty-four hours later, on Sunday evening authorities report the mountain lion “safely leaves area.”

But wait a minute! Golden Gate Park is surrounded on three sides by the city of San Francisco — miles and miles of city.

On the fourth side is the Pacific Ocean.

So how exactly did the big cat get out of the area? The statement by officials made it almost sound as if the animal had hitched a ride with a trucker or caught a boat headed out to sea.

I suppose an animal that size could escape quietly if it headed south through the quieter parts of the Sunset without being seen by anyone, but certainly the dogs would know and they would raise a fuss, right?

No further reports of sightings as of press time…

HEADLINES:

• Mountain lion spotted near SF’s Golden Gate Park safely leaves area (SFGate)

• Germany’s Merz on the ropes after far right delivers devastating blow (FT)

• German far-right AfD wins Saxony-Anhalt election, falls short of majority (Al Jazeera)

• U.S. Energy Secretary Wright says Iran nuclear deal may never happen (CNBC)

• Iran touts military response as US maintains blockade, hits tankers (Al Jazeera)

• US envoys hope for new Ukraine-Russia talks soon after visits to both capitals (Reuters)

• Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon purge (FT)

• Trump administration files another Supreme Court emergency appeal over USPS mail ballot rules (ABC)

• Midterm mail ballots start to go to voters as litigation over Trump’s order creates uncertainty (AP)

• Michigan’s Democratic candidate courts Muslim voters (Economist)

• Canada’s Biggest Newspaper Targets US States Over Trump’s Tariff ‘Tantrums’ (Newsweek)

• His shop straddles the US-Canada border. A historic friendship is crumbling on both sides. (CNN)

• The Real Risk of a Trade War With Canada (Foreign Affairs)

• Chimpanzees once used for vaccine research get health checks as part of long-term care (AP)

• 5 Killed and 5 Injured as Cargo Plane Overruns Runway at Miami Airport (NYT)

• These teachers are moving from AI policing to AI acceptance (WP)

• China’s New Graduates, Facing a Dire Job Market, Must Also Contend With A.I. (NYT)

• These teachers fight AI cheating with classes that force students to show they are learning (WP)

• Kenyans Did College Students’ Homework for Years. Then A.I. Arrived. (NYT)

• Tesla Launches New Model Of Explosions (Onion)

War.gov

I suppose it was inevitable that with the start of football season Hegseth & Bros. would air an ad for the U.S. military featuring guys dressed up with the latest gear looking like they are players in a video game.

The ad end with a screenshot of the foreboding “War.gov.”

The appeal to a certain sort of young male is as old as time. That it comes in the wake of the death of Gloria Steinem is a reminder (as if we needed one!) that we still live in a patriarchy.

Steinem always reminded us that wars, terrorist acts, domestic violence, mass shootings and similar horrors are almost exclusively the province of men. A society that fails to provide a check on runaway masculinity is one doomed to more of the same.

It is no coincidence that Hegseth has drummed females out of our armed forces and is subjecting military personnel to testosterone level testing. Higher levels of testosterone are often associated with more aggressive behavior in animals, including humans.

Football is, of course, our most violent sport. Many who play it will suffer serious injuries, some life-altering. Some will suffer irreversible brain damage.

At the same time, the game provides a great show, which is why millions of us enjoy watching it. But I would enjoy watching it just a bit more if it wasn’t framed inside a reminder of what is deeply wrong with our current administration in Washington.

HEADLINES:

• US strikes three Iranian oil tankers after IRGC attack on American naval ships, Central Command says (Reuters)

• A More Confident Iran Emerges After Six Months of War With the U.S. (NYT)

• Putin orders pause on strikes on Kyiv as Witkoff and Kushner arrive in Moscow for peace talks (CNN)

• Living with war in Kyiv (Reuters)

• China dealt blow as US-backed firm takes over Venezuelan oilfields (SCMP)

• U.S. military turns off ad trackers on phones and computers (Reuters)

• The mystery behind an audio clip that helped upend a Senate race (WP)

• Trump Officials Draft Plan to Pay At-Home Parents, Using Funds for Working Ones (NYT)

• Trump says ‘stupidity causes inflation’ and threatens to stop trade with foreign countries in retaliation for higher interest rates (Forbes)

• Why the U.S. job market remains resilient in face of global pressures and inflation (PBS)

• Trump piles onto his Fed chair pick (Reuters)

• Inside the USS Abraham Lincoln’s Nine Months at Sea: Loneliness, Fatigue, Pride (WSJ)

• When ‘12 Angry Men’ becomes one angry man (The Hill)

• More People Have Died From 9/11 Than on 9/11 (Reveal)

• Icons Dolly Parton and Gloria Steinem never officially retired—why that’s a choice for some and requirement for others (CNBC)

• I worked 13-hour days building my startup while working at Apple (BI)

• Peace Through Strength (War.gov)

• The Trump Administration Is Running a Military Recruitment Ad on TV. The Pentagon Says It’s Working. (Vanity Fair)

• I asked ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity to rank the 10 jobs most likely to be replaced by AI — here’s what they all agreed on (Tom’s Guide)

• OpenAI feared its technology could reshape elections. Now campaigns are using it. (WP)

• Court Filings in A.I. Suit Invoke Copyright Law, Culture and Sports (NYT)

• Rockstar Leaks Worsen As Hackers Release Fully Playable Copy Of ‘GTA IX’ (Onion)

Losing It

Two somewhat related stories caught my eye this week:

• “People are saying less each year. Scientists think that’s a problem.” — from the Post.

• “What Do Students Lose When They Stop Writing?” — from the Times.

Both stories are about the changing behavior young people are exhibiting in response to artificial intelligence and other factors.

Much has been made about the so-called Gen Z “stare,” which is a a neutral, deadpan face with wide or fixed eyes and no emotional reaction in situations where a verbal response would be expected.

Some think this is a consequence of the social isolation children faced during the Covid lockdowns. And there is a general consensus that heavy consumption of social media is somehow involved. 

Meanwhile, the direct correlation between AI and a marked decline in students’ writing skills has been firmly established.

“Educators are worried that many students can no longer write essays without AI,” reports the Times. “And it’s costing more than just grammar skills.”

A majority of high school students are turning to AI for help with their homework, including writing assignments. Not everyone thinks this is a bad thing.

“The scholars who study writing and cognition are rarely reflexively opposed to AI,” says the Times. “Many have spent decades anticipating a leap in computer-assisted writing, just like the one we are living through. They tend to be excited by the technology’s potential.”

Still, if students turn to AI instead of doing the hard work of learning to write on their own, many educators think they will suffer as a result.

“Cognitive research confirms that writing is a powerful aid in helping us to retain information we read. The work of writing forces us to stress-test our ideas, allowing the writer to respond to counterarguments and cite sources. Revision is a practice of self-critique and self-improvement, and can be social, as well, if feedback is elicited. Writing can also be empowering, allowing us to share our experiences and express our views. It can even be healing, which is why therapists sometimes suggest keeping a journal.”

Last year, according to the Times, “a small study from M.I.T. showed that individuals who wrote in partnership with A.I. chatbots recorded lower brain activity while they wrote, compared with those who worked without chatbots. The writers who used AI struggled to remember what, exactly, they had written, and felt little ownership over their work.”

Additional research suggests using AI can degrade critical thinking skills.

One thing is certain. AI is here to stay and as is the case with all disruptive technologies, the way humans interact with each other will be deeply affected.

But if it means we forget how to tell each other stories, spoken or written, that would be a very sad ending.

HEADLINES:

• US envoys Witkoff, Kushner arrive in Moscow for talks on peace in Ukraine (Reuters)

• Pentagon Subjects Roughly 50 Members of the Joint Staff to Polygraph Tests in Expanded Leak Hunt (NYT)

• Lindsay Clancy judge declares mistrial – what happens next? (Guardian)

• U.S. added 162,000 jobs in August, but wage growth continues to lag inflation (NBC)

• Unemployed Americans say they’re stuck in a job-hunting nightmare (BI)

• U.S. Diesel Prices Set New High (NYT)

• Supreme Court hands Trump another win — a monkey wrench into voting by mail (The Hill)

• Judge Once Again Blocks Mail-In Ballot Rules (NYT)

• Democrats just got one seat closer to retaking the House (Silver Bulletin)

• Democrats eye expanded Medicare coverage if they take U.S. House (WP)

• Germany’s far-right AfD party is poised for power in a state election (NPR)

• How could US-Iran conflict end? Three experts give their views (BBC)

• A deadly strike on an Iranian wedding was likely a direct hit by a US munition (Reuters)

• US urged to consider military strikes to stop China achieving AGI first (SCMP)

• The Texas experiment (FT)

• ‘Too lazy to do the job’: Democrats dump on Fetterman after WSJ report (WSJ)

• Planting billions of trees in China to fight climate change backfired, altering the water distribution across the entire country (Earth.com)

• Two trapped workers are pulled alive from Nepal tunnel more than a week after deadly floods (NBC)

• President Plans to Use Qatari Jet for Overseas Flight Despite Security Concerns (NYT)

• Psychedelic ‘Furthur’ bus rolls back into San Francisco for new Grateful Dead exhibit (AP)

• Second complete map of a fruit fly brain completed (ArsTechnica)

• Wendell Berry, 1934–2026 (Bulwark)

• ChatGPT-6 Astra is here — this one prompt shows what it can really do (Tom’s Guide)

• South Korea’s AI rally is reshaping romance, reality shows and academic preferences (CNBC)

• We managed financial crises. AI is a risk of a different kind. (WP)

• After OpenAI’s Bots Went Rogue, Watchdogs Were Kept on a Short Leash (NYT)

• God Struggling To Remember Why He Made So Many Ugly People (Onion)