I have been released from my responsibilities as an unwilling editor for Grammarly
Some overdue reflections by its CEO, and a class-action lawsuit, bring an end to “expert review”
Latest
Bluesky changes course
Jay Graber built something impressive but stagnant. Can a new CEO get it growing again?
Grammarly turned me into an AI editor against my will and I hate it
The company tells Platformer it will let experts opt out of the controversial feature — but how different is it than what every other AI company is doing?
Inside the backlash to the AI war machine
A protest at OpenAI headquarters suggests the backlash to military AI is growing — even if its politics are still half-formed. PLUS: The Pentagon declares Anthropic a supply chain risk
Where does Anthropic go from here?
Shunned by the government, and newly appealing to consumers, the company is at a crossroads
What is OpenAI going to do when the truth comes out?
Sam Altman’s deal with the Pentagon seems too good to be true. What happens when the public realizes that?
The authoritarian AI crisis has arrived
AI safety researchers have long worried that a government would seek to use AI for domestic surveillance and autonomous killing. The Pentagon’s fight with Anthropic threatens to make it a reality
Following: Anthropic vs. the Pentagon
PLUS: The Substack post that tanked the markets, continued
The shallow impact of India’s AI summit
The US government still can’t think beyond “winning.” The rest of the world is still thinking too small
The infinite scroll goes on trial
Testifying before a jury in LA, Mark Zuckerberg makes the case that platform design is about free expression. But the walls are closing in on Section 230
Meta’s face turn
In the company’s latest policy reversal under Trump 2.0, the facial recognition system it blew up in 2021 may be poised for a return
Why GPT-4o had to go
As OpenAI sunsets its most dangerous model, the tensions it exposed remain as tricky as ever. PLUS: Elon's space catapult, and OpenAI vs. Anthropic
Exclusive: OpenAI disbanded its mission alignment team
Joshua Achiam will become the company's chief futurist
Why the infinite-scroll childhood may be coming to an end
A lawsuit that begins in LA this week, along with a new investigation into TikTok by the European Commission, could change social apps forever. PLUS: AI ads at the Super Bowl and in ChatGPT
The reporter who tried to replace herself with a bot
Anxiety about AI replacing entry-level jobs is on the rise. Could a state-of-the-art chatbot do the job of a Platformer fellow? PLUS: Anthropic vs. OpenAI, and will AI kill SaaS?
How a new AI tool fixed my single biggest problem with Spotify
Spotify’s Molly Holder on the power of prompted playlists. PLUS: Meta is testing a standalone Vibes app
AI
Five ways of thinking about Moltbook
What a social network for AI agents tells us about the future. PLUS: Elon consolidates the X empire
AI
Falling in and out of love with Moltbot
Maybe someday you’ll have a genie in your laptop working for you 24/7. Today is not that day
Child Safety
What a big study of teens says about social media — and what it can’t
The “moral panic” framing misses how platforms actually harm kids. PLUS: Newsom investigates TikTok over Trump, and the Clawdbot frenzy
Trump
When murder becomes a meme
Truth and terror in Minneapolis. PLUS: TikTok conspiracy theories, and Dario Amodei's Oppenheimer moment
AI
The AI productivity paradox
Managers say it makes them more productive. Workers don't. What gives?
Meta
Meta’s scam problem, UK edition
Plus: Writers react to Claude Code for writers; Elon Musk vs. OpenAI; and ChatGPT gets ads
Anthropic
Claude Code for writers
Five useful things I’ve built so far. Plus: Grok caves, and Thinking Machines implodes
AI
What I learned while cloning my own voice
Announcing Platformer+, a new way to listen to our columns
Grok
Grok gets blocked
More than a week into a deepfake scandal, a handful of foreign governments have found the strength to do what Apple, Google, and the United States will not
AI
The project that turned me into a Claude Code believer
I feel great about the website I’m building — and terrible for professional website builders. PLUS: Who will stop Grok? And ChatGPT will see you now
AI
Inside the debate over AI consciousness
At ConCon, researchers and tech workers debate whether future systems could develop an inner life — and how you would know if they did
Deepfakes
Debunking the AI food delivery hoax that fooled Reddit
A “whistleblower” tried to corroborate his viral post with AI-generated evidence. This is how I caught him. PLUS: Grok's image-generation crisis, and the rapture over Claude Opus 4.5
AI
11 predictions for 2026
PLUS: What I got right (and wrong) about 2025
Regulation
Spotify is part of the trade war now
The US is retaliating against the EU after it fined X — and now some of Europe's biggest companies are caught in the crossfire
Meta
Meta's scam problem may trigger a legal reckoning
A fresh investigation reveals the scope of Meta's problem in China. Will a pending court case force the company to crack down — or destroy Section 230?
OpenAI
OpenAI is a normal company now
A decade years in, what started as a sci-fi lab is now focused on engagement and growth. What does that mean for building AI safely?