AI Article Readings

In this article David Oks takes a familiar story about technology and jobs, the idea that ATMs automated banking without destroying teller work, and turns it on its head, arguing that the real disruption came later from the smartphone era. Using the history of bank branches, bank tellers, and mobile banking, he explores a broader point about technological change: that the biggest effects often come not when a new tool replaces part of a job, but when it creates an entirely new way of doing things that makes the old role far less necessary.
* 00:00 - Introduction
* 07:17 - ATMs didn’t kill bank teller jobs
* 20:32 - But iPhones actually did
* 26:25 - Automating a job is much harder than making it irrelevant
https://open.substack.com/pub/davidoks/p/why-the-atm-didnt-kill-bank-teller?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web


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A short story by Tomás Bjartur
https://open.substack.com/pub/tomasbjartur/p/the-elect?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web


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In this post Dean W. Ball explores the gradual nature of life and death, drawing a poignant parallel between the passing of his father and the ongoing decline of the American republic. Using a recent policy skirmish between the AI firm Anthropic and the U.S. Department of War over the military deployment of the Claude AI system as a focal point, he examines the shifting dynamics of government power and private enterprise. Ultimately, he invites readers to look beyond traditional partisan divides and carefully consider how the control of frontier AI will shape the future of human liberty.
* 00:00 - Introduction
* 00:05 - One
* 02:22 - Two
* 04:52 - Three
* 06:52 - Four
* 18:19 - Five
https://open.substack.com/pub/hyperdimensional/p/clawed?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web


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In this post, Scott Alexander examines the legal and contractual implications of the Department of War's "all lawful use" demand for AI systems, breaking down what US law actually permits regarding mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons, and why the phrase "lawful use" provides far less protection than most people assume.
* 00:00 - Introduction
* 02:42 - Mass domestic surveillance: more than you wanted to know
* 08:59 - Autonomous weapons: more than you wanted to know
* 13:21 - Comments on OpenAI’s FAQ
* 17:51 - Questions that you should be asking
https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/all-lawful-use-much-more-than-you?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web


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In this essay, Citrini and Alap Shah construct a fictional macro memo written from the perspective of June 2028, using the format of financial retrospective analysis to explore a single underexamined scenario: what happens when AI adoption succeeds beyond all expectations, and that success becomes the source of catastrophic economic disruption. The piece traces how accelerating AI capability interacts with the structures of the white-collar labour market, corporate spending, consumer demand, credit markets, and government fiscal policy — identifying the feedback loops that connect each layer into a single, self-reinforcing system. The authors are explicit that this is a thought exercise rather than a forecast, and the essay closes by returning the reader to February 2026, framing the scenario as a risk to model and prepare for rather than a fate already in motion.
* 00:00 - Introduction
* 00:56 - Macro Memo
* 00:57 - The Consequences of Abundant Intelligence
* 05:33 - How It Started
* 10:18 - When Friction Went to Zero
* 19:17 - From Sector Risk to Systemic Risk
* 27:47 - The Intelligence Displacement Spiral
* 32:45 - The Daisy Chain of Correlated Bets
* 47:34 - The Battle Against Time
* 54:12 - The Intelligence Premium Unwind
* 56:43 - Acknowledgements
https://open.substack.com/pub/citrini/p/2028gic?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web


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