I write about AI and Geopolitics
Bill Friend 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
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
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
I followed a single headline about Ukraine’s drone fleet expecting a standard defense brief. What I found instead was a ledger. The more I pulled on the thread, the less it looked like a story and more like a supply chain: covert procurement channels, battlefield data pipelines, venture capital disguised as aid, and an entire … Read more
Introduction The question is no longer whether artificial intelligence will change the workplace. It already has. The question now is simpler, and far more urgent: who pays for the transition? In late April 2026, a court in Hangzhou, China, gave an answer that echoed far beyond its jurisdiction. A quality assurance supervisor, surnamed Zhou, had … Read more