Transformer | Substack

How to buy an AI ‘grassroots’ movement

Build American AI is touting its list of more than 500,000 supporters. It spent at least half a million dollars on ads to get it

2 hrs ago • Veronica Irwin

The fuse is lit on the intelligence explosion

Transformer Weekly: Anthropic sues the Pentagon, Cruz preps AI legislation, and Meta delays its next LLM

Mar 13 • Shakeel Hashim, Celia Ford, and Veronica Irwin

Anthropic employees say they’ll give away billions. Where will it go?

A coming wave of Anthropic wealth could flood EA-aligned nonprofits with cash. Whether that’s good depends on who you ask

Mar 12 • Celia Ford

Both sides claim the lead in AI’s high-stakes midterm race

Polling from Public First shows Alex Bores in the lead in NY-12 — but polling from rival super PAC Leading the Future does not

Mar 10 • Veronica Irwin

‘Scream if you want to move slower!’ A nascent AI protest coalition comes together in London

A diversity of motivations present both a challenge, and an opportunity, for those protesting AI

Mar 9 • Alys Key

The power and politics of transformative AI.

Policy

How to buy an AI ‘grassroots’ movement

Build American AI is touting its list of more than 500,000 supporters. It spent at least half a million dollars on ads to get it

2 hrs ago • Veronica Irwin

Both sides claim the lead in AI’s high-stakes midterm race

Polling from Public First shows Alex Bores in the lead in NY-12 — but polling from rival super PAC Leading the Future does not

Mar 10 • Veronica Irwin

What the first AI elections tell us

Transformer Weekly: The AI Campaign Finance Tracker, DoD vs Anthropic, and Commerce vs White House

Mar 6 • Veronica Irwin and Celia Ford

Why we need a moratorium on superintelligence research

Opinion: As the AI community gathers in India, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath argues that the UK must spearhead a pause on the development of the world’s most…

Feb 17

Industry

Anthropic employees say they’ll give away billions. Where will it go?

A coming wave of Anthropic wealth could flood EA-aligned nonprofits with cash. Whether that’s good depends on who you ask

Mar 12 • Celia Ford

What you need to know about autonomous weapons

The nascent tech that’s caused friction between AI companies and the Pentagon

Mar 4 • Celia Ford

The “guerilla warrior” who taught OpenAI to fight

Chris Lehane crushed crypto’s enemies. Now the self-described “master of disaster” is deploying the same playbook to advance OpenAI’s interests

Mar 3

OpenAI’s Pentagon red lines are a mirage

OpenAI claims its DoW deal prevents its models being used for mass domestic surveillance. That appears to be misleading at best

Mar 2 • Shakeel Hashim

Capabilities + Risks

The fuse is lit on the intelligence explosion

Transformer Weekly: Anthropic sues the Pentagon, Cruz preps AI legislation, and Meta delays its next LLM

Mar 13 • Shakeel Hashim, Celia Ford, and Veronica Irwin

How worried should we be about AI biorisk?

The barriers to bioattacks are hard to identify — and it's even harder to know whether AI is reducing them

Feb 26 • Celia Ford

Transformer Weekly: New models, a Super Bowl ad fight, and Obernolte’s being sidelined

Feb 6 • Shakeel Hashim, Celia Ford, and Veronica Irwin

Moltbook isn’t an AI zoo. It’s an unsecured AI biolab

OpenClaw is a security nightmare — but people can’t stop using it

Feb 3 • Celia Ford

Society

‘Scream if you want to move slower!’ A nascent AI protest coalition comes together in London

A diversity of motivations present both a challenge, and an opportunity, for those protesting AI

Mar 9 • Alys Key

AI power users can't stop grinding

AI was meant to give us more time off, but instead many are finding it compels them to take on more and more work

Feb 18 • Celia Ford

The left is missing out on AI

As a movement, it has largely refused to engage seriously with AI, ceding debate about a threat and opportunity to the right

Feb 16 • Dan Kagan-Kans

Why the AI industry can’t resist dirty on-site gas turbines

Expect others to follow in Elon Musk’s footsteps — there’s a logic to on-site gas power that the industry is unlikely to reject

Feb 12 • James Ball

Opinion

Why we need a moratorium on superintelligence research

Opinion: As the AI community gathers in India, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath argues that the UK must spearhead a pause on the development of the world’s most…

Feb 17

A false choice risks undermining action on autonomous weapons

Opinion: Alexander Blanchard of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute argues that nations must embrace nuance if they’re to effectively…

Jan 27

How the Catholic Church thinks about superintelligence

Opinion: Paolo Benanti, AI advisor to the Vatican and a professor of moral philosophy, argues that there is a moral imperative to ensure that artificial…

Dec 22, 2025

How China’s AI diffusion plan could backfire

Opinion: Scott Singer argues that the country’s plan to embed AI across all facets of society could create huge growth — and accelerate social unrest

Dec 3, 2025

Weekly Briefing

The fuse is lit on the intelligence explosion

Transformer Weekly: Anthropic sues the Pentagon, Cruz preps AI legislation, and Meta delays its next LLM

Mar 13 • Shakeel Hashim, Celia Ford, and Veronica Irwin

What the first AI elections tell us

Transformer Weekly: The AI Campaign Finance Tracker, DoD vs Anthropic, and Commerce vs White House

Mar 6 • Veronica Irwin and Celia Ford

The end of voluntary pauses

Transformer Weekly: Anthropic vs the Pentagon, Trump’s power pledge, and Meta’s chip deals

Feb 27 • Shakeel Hashim, Veronica Irwin, and Celia Ford

The White House’s risky war on the Utah AI bill

Transformer Weekly: Kratsios in India, Anthropic vs the Pentagon and new Meta super PACs

Feb 20 • Veronica Irwin, Celia Ford, and Shakeel Hashim

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