The Wizards of Cause

Acknowledging the people behind the AI curtain Artificial intelligence is usually sold as a miracle of software. It is cleaner than that, shinier than that, and more comfortable than that. But behind the polished interface is a global workforce of people who label, rank, sort, filter, clean, moderate, and evaluate the material that makes modern … Read more

The Pandemic Made AI Legible

COVID, Algorithmic Intimacy, and the New Infrastructure of Dependence COVID did not invent the AI era. That is worth saying plainly, because the timeline matters. Neural networks, cloud platforms, recommender systems, voice assistants, logistics algorithms, medical models, surveillance tools, and automated decision systems were already here before the virus arrived. The machinery had been built. … Read more

The Cloud Has No Moat: Part 2 – The New Chokepoints

AI, geography, and the exposed infrastructure of the new intelligence age Part 1 examined the vulnerability map. It established that AI infrastructure is physical, globally distributed, and structurally exposed. That essay was about exposure. This one is about chokepoints. Because once infrastructure is exposed, its narrowest passages become points of control. Exposure tells you where … Read more

The Cloud Has No Moat: Part 1 – The Vulnerability Map

AI, geography, and the exposed infrastructure of the new intelligence age Approximately three weeks ago, I wrote an essay titled “AI Has a Geography Now.” In it, I argued that advanced AI is no longer just a software story. It is increasingly shaped by land, energy, water, data centers, cables, substations, chips, legal jurisdictions, physical … Read more