It hasn’t always been easy being Gary Marcus [https://garymarcus.substack.com/] these last few years. OpenAI’s most persistently outspoken AI sceptic has been in minority, sometimes of one, in his critique both of Sam Altman’s claims about the imminence of AGI as well as the general “intelligence” and economic viability of ChatGPT. Since the supposedly “botched [https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/gpt-5-overdue-overhyped-and-underwhelming]” release of GPT-5, however, even Sam Altman seems to want to be Gary Marcus. For Gary, who has endured what he diplomatically calls "an unbelievable amount of s**t" for his contrarian views, the irony is particularly delicious. He now finds himself vindicated as the very company he's criticized adopts his language of caution and scaled-back expectations. "It's not that I'm becoming like him," Gary says about Sam with Marcusian humility, "but that he's becoming like me." Rather than Son of Sam, OpenAI is now the Son of Gary story.

1. The GPT-5 Reality Check Changed Everything

GPT-5's underwhelming performance—described as barely different from GPT-4.1—shattered the industry's faith in scaling. After 34 months of development and unprecedented hype, it delivered incremental improvements rather than the "quantum leap" promised, fundamentally shifting Silicon Valley's narrative from exponential progress to diminishing returns.

2. OpenAI is Burning Cash Despite Record Revenue

Despite making a record $1 billion last month and being valued at $300 billion, OpenAI is losing approximately $1 billion monthly and has never turned a profit. The company faces a severe cash flow crisis with only 6-18 months of runway, forcing Altman into constant fundraising cycles at ever-higher valuations.

3. The AI Bubble Could Trigger Market Contagion

OpenAI's inflated valuation props up NVIDIA's $5 trillion market cap, which depends on insatiable AI chip demand. If even one major AI company scales back purchases or fails, the ripple effects could devastate pension funds and trigger broader market corrections, making this potentially more dangerous than the dot-com bubble.

4. Surveillance Monetization is OpenAI's Next Move

With AGI proving elusive, OpenAI will likely pivot to monetizing the vast personal data users share with ChatGPT—turning users into products like Facebook did. Marcus predicts this shift toward surveillance capitalism, especially with their rumored hardware device partnership with Johnny Ive.

5. The Industry's Intellectual Monoculture is Breaking

The field's unprecedented focus on large language models to the exclusion of other approaches created "the least intellectual diversification in AI's 80-year history." As scaling hits limits, the industry must diversify into neuro-symbolic AI and other paradigms that Marcus has long championed.

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Why Even Sam Altman Wants to be Gary Marcus: From Son of Sam to Son of Gary in a single ChatGPT Release

Maybe he never went away. But Dr Strangelove is back now at the heart of America’s new military-industrial-digital complex. And Strangelove 2.0 might offer an even more existential threat than Kubrick’s original cigar-chewing model played with such absurdist aplomb by the great Peter Sellers. While the first Strangelove was just dumb, today’s powers-that-be at the Pentagon are both stupid and corrupt. That, at least, is the worrying view of Ben Freeman [https://x.com/benfreemandc?lang=en], the director of Democratizing Foreign Policy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft [https://quincyinst.org/] and the co-author of the upcoming The Trillion Dollar War Machine [https://www.amazon.com/Trillion-Dollar-War-Machine-Bankrupts/dp/1645030636]. Freeman sees companies like Peter Thiel’s Palantir—which just secured a historic $10 billion contract—as the new face of a military establishment that has grown exponentially more dangerous since Eisenhower's bipartisan warning. Today's war profiteers (in both political parties) wield AI, deepfakes, and automated kill chains while maintaining the same reckless nuclear thinking that nearly ended the world in 1962 Cuba. The result? A trillion-dollar budget that enriches contractors while making America infinitely less safe in an infinitely more dangerous world. What we’re really missing is a Kubrick 2.0 to restore Strangelove to our digital screens.

1. The Military-Industrial Complex Has Gone Digital Companies like Palantir represent a new evolution - the "military-industrial-digital complex" - where Silicon Valley tech firms are now central players in defense contracting, with Palantir recently securing a historic $10 billion contract.

2. It's a Bipartisan Problem, Not Just Trump Freeman emphasizes this spans party lines: Obama (despite his Nobel Peace Prize) oversaw record military spending, Biden sold arms at record levels, and the system perpetuates itself regardless of who's in the White House because defense contractors strategically place jobs in congressional districts.

3. More Weapons = Less Security America just hit a trillion-dollar military budget for the first time, yet remains ineffective at solving major global conflicts (Ukraine, Gaza, Korea). Meanwhile, diplomatic tools like the State Department are being gutted, creating a dangerous imbalance.

4. AI and Automation Pose New Existential Risks Beyond traditional nuclear threats, we now face "automated kill chains" where AI makes lethal decisions without human oversight, plus deepfakes that could trigger conflicts based on false information - combining old Dr. Strangelove logic with new technological capabilities.

5. The Revolving Door Ensures System Perpetuation Pentagon officials stay quiet about waste and corruption because they know defense contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin will hire them post-retirement for lucrative positions, creating a self-perpetuating cycle that prioritizes profit over actual security.

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Dr Strangelove Returns: Palantir and the New Military-Industrial-Digital Complex

What’s the matter with America? We’ve been told for years about the dumb working class MAGA voter. That they are exploited by Trump, that their interests are the reverse of a self-interested Republican cultural or economic elite. But according to the iconoclastic Tablet [https://www.tabletmag.com/] magazine contributor Michael Lind [https://www.tabletmag.com/contributors/michael-lind], we’ve got it the wrong way around. MAGA Voters are anything but stupid, he argues. That's why they don't care [https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/nobody-votes-for-podcasters] what dissenting podcasters like Tucker Carlson think. Instead, they're making rational choices based on their material interests, not blindly following con-celebs like Carlson, Laura Loomer or Curtis Yarvin. The real Trump coalition consists of two groups that pundits consistently misunderstand: reliable Republican voters who will support any GOP presidential nominee, and more crucially, swing voters in swing states. Rather than following the latest ideological dramas between right-wing influencers, these supposedly swing-voting “low-information voters” are making practical decisions about their lives. So actually, Lind implies, echoing other contrarian American populists like Thomas Frank, there’s nothing the matter with a United States that somebody representing the class interests of ordinary Americans couldn’t fix.

1. Right-Wing Influencers Have Zero Real Political Power Podcasters like Tucker Carlson, Laura Loomer, and Curtis Yarvin may dominate online political discourse, but they have "next to no influence on actual policy." When they turn against Trump, there are no electoral consequences because they don't command actual voter armies—just online audiences.

2. MAGA Voters Are Making Rational Economic Calculations The "low-information" swing voters who decide elections aren't following ideological media rabbit holes. They're high school or some-college educated people making practical decisions about their material interests, not consuming political content or caring about intellectual debates among conservative influencers.

3. America Is Experiencing a Class War Between Managers and Everyone Else The real divide isn't left vs. right but between a highly credentialed "managerial elite" who control large institutions and an unlikely coalition of working-class voters and outsider entrepreneurs (like Silicon Valley founders) who resent bureaucratic control.

4. Trump Rebuilt FDR's Coalition for the Republican Party Through a complete partisan realignment, Trump assembled the same geographic and demographic base that supported Democrats from Andrew Jackson through LBJ—while today's Democratic Party represents the Northeastern establishment that Republicans used to champion.

5. The Solution Requires Rebuilding Civil Society, Not Better Politicians America's crisis stems from over-centralization and the collapse of intermediate institutions like unions, local political parties, and churches. Real change requires "democratic pluralism"—giving ordinary people power between elections through rebuilt grassroots organizations, not just voting for better candidates every few years.

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 MAGA Voters Aren't Stupid: That's Why They Don't Care What Right-Wing Podcasters Think

For lonely young men who have forgotten how to read, the LA Times book critic Bethanne Patrick [https://www.bethannepatrick.com/about]some some simple advice: Get Queer Quicker. And to make her point, Patrick discusses five great books on today’s male identity crisis - including from Keen On alums like Jessa Crispin [https://keenon.substack.com/p/the-michael-douglas-trap-what-is] and Andrew Lipstein [https://keenon.substack.com/p/episode-2322-andrew-lipstein-on-how]. Patrick argues that reports of the literary man's death are greatly exaggerated - he's just evolved beyond the Philip Roth archetype. From Michael Douglas movies to Danish masculinity models, from toxic fathers to cross-dressing ceramicists, these books reveal how modern men are navigating identity in an era where traditional patriarchal roles have crumbled, replaced by what Crispin calls a system where "you just need to buy your way to the top." So today’s anxiety-ridden men who want to get beyond the self-stimulation of Portnoy’s Complaint, go to your local (indie) bookstore and GQQ. You’ll find that the pages of today’s books on the dilemma of maleness are a lot less sticky.

1. The Literary Man Hasn't Disappeared—He's Diversified

Reports of the "death" of literary men are exaggerated. Today's prestigious male writers are just "less likely to also be straight and white"—think Ocean Vuong, Kwame Alexander, and Alexander Chee rather than Philip Roth and Norman Mailer.

2. Gen Z is "Getting Queerer Quicker"

Younger generations are rejecting rigid gender binaries in literature and life, refusing categories like "romances are for women, thrillers are for men." They're making intentional choices about identity rather than accepting traditional roles.

3. The Crisis is About Class, Not Just Gender

Both Jessica Crispin and Jared Yates Sexton argue that male identity crisis stems from economic inequality. The old patriarchy based on "role and responsibilities" was replaced by a system where "you just need to buy your way to the top"—leaving working-class men adrift.

4. Men Need Permission to Read Diversely

Patrick's husband didn't read fiction until audiobooks gave him privacy from judgment. Men face social anxiety about being seen reading "feminine" genres, but when freed from scrutiny, they explore widely—from cozy mysteries to historical novels by women.

5. Publishing's Gender Paradox

The industry is "largely female...up to a certain level, but the C-suite people are still predominantly male." This creates resistance to books addressing men's real struggles, making important works like Richard Reeves' Of Boys and Men hard to publish through traditional channels.

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Getting Queerer Quicker: No, The Literary Man Isn't Disappearing—He's Just Not Longer White or Straight 

Those who do win. Those are Keith Teare’s immortal words [https://www.thatwastheweek.com/] to describe the winners of today’s Silicon Valley battle to control tomorrow’s AI world. But the real question, of course, is what to do to win this war. The battle (to excuse all these blunt military metaphors) is to assemble the AI pieces to reassemble what Keith calls the “jigsaw” of our new chat centric world. And to do that, the veteran start-up entrepreneur advises, requires owning “the front door”. Yet as Keith acknowledges, we're still in the AltaVista era of AI—multiple contenders fighting for dominance before a Google-like winner emerges. His key insight is that “attachment becomes the moat”. Users develop emotional bonds with their preferred AI interface, creating switching costs that transform temporary advantages into permanent market positions. Multi-trillion dollar success belongs to whoever builds the stickiest, most indispensable gateway to our AI-native future. Those who do that will win; those who don’t, will not.

1. We're in the "AltaVista era" of AI - Multiple players (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Perplexity) are competing for dominance, but like the early search engine wars, one will likely emerge as the clear winner within 1-2 years.

2. "Attachment becomes the moat" - Users develop emotional bonds with their preferred AI interface that create powerful switching costs. Keith uses Claude for coding and won't switch despite trying alternatives, demonstrating how user loyalty becomes a competitive advantage.

3. The shift from "page-based" to "AI-native" internet - We're moving from a web of URLs and content pages to one where every interaction starts with human-AI conversation. The browser is becoming yesterday's technology.

4. Publishers aren't doomed but are unprepared - The monetization model will evolve from traditional advertising to contextual links surfaced by AI. Publishers will eventually "beg to be included" and AI companies will pay for training content while driving traffic through relevant links.

5. The "jigsaw pieces" already exist across industries - In healthcare, finance, and other sectors, all the components needed for AI transformation are available but need assembly. Whoever puts these pieces together first in each field will become massive companies - potentially the world's biggest in their respective industries.

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 Who Owns The Front Door? The Multi-Trillion Dollar Battle to Assemble the AI Jigsaw

Is the history of New York City the heart of the American story? Or does it exist in parallel, perhaps even independently, from the main American narrative. As with everything about the Big Apple (so good they named it twice), the answer is both. Or everything. At least according to Jonathan Mahler [https://www.nytimes.com/by/jonathan-mahler], author of The Gods of New York [https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/469497/the-gods-of-new-york-by-mahler-jonathan/9781529155082], a new history of the egoists and opportunists who remade the city in the 1980s. It’s the story of Donald Trump, of course, as well as Rudi Guiliani, Ed Koch, Spike Lee, Larry Kramer, Al Sharpton and an astonishingly entertaining cast of characters that only New York could create. But it’s also the broader American story of the victory of neo-liberal economics and ever-deepening chasm between Wall Street wealth and main street poverty. Mahler argues that the transformation from the "Mean Streets" dystopia of the 1970s to the finance-dominated metropolis of the 1980s didn't just save New York City —it created the troubling template for modern America, complete with all our current economic inequalities, political absurdities and tabloid cultural realities.

1. The 1980s Created Modern America's Template The transformation of New York from 1986-1990 wasn't just urban renewal—it was the birth of neoliberal America. The city's embrace of Wall Street, real estate development, and deregulation became the blueprint for how America would operate for the next four decades.

2. Power Shifted from Public to Private The era marked a fundamental transfer of urban power from public officials like Robert Moses and labor unions to private developers like Trump. Instead of government-led projects, cities began relying on private industry to drive development—often with devastating consequences for working-class communities.

3. Trump's Origin Story Explains His Political Magic Trick Trump went from being the 1980s symbol of greed and excess to becoming the voice of America's disaffected in 2016. This transformation from tabloid character to populist leader represents one of the most remarkable political reinventions in American history.

4. The American Dream Became Less Accessible New York's evolution into what Bloomberg called "a luxury product" reflects a broader national trend. The same forces that saved the city from 1970s decline also priced out working and middle-class families, making economic mobility increasingly difficult.

5. Tabloid Culture Became Political Culture The larger-than-life personalities who dominated 1980s New York—the "Gods" of Mahler's title—pioneered a celebrity-driven, spectacle-based approach to public life that eventually consumed American politics, from Trump's rise to our current media-saturated political landscape.

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From Mean Streets to Wall Street: How Trump, Koch, and the other Gods of New York Remade America

It’s not often that there’s sunny news on the environmental front, especially from grizzled activists like the great Bill McKibben [https://billmckibben.com/books/here-comes-the-sun/]. But in his new book, Here Comes the Sun [https://wwnorton.com/books/Here-Comes-the-Sun/], McKibben argues that the sun - or, at least, solar power - might actually save the earth. There’s a pagan quality to McKibben’s manichaean message: the sun, he says, offers both last chance for the climate and a fresh chance for civilization. McKibben's optimism, he guarantees, is anything but naive cheerleading—it's grounded in the hard numbers of energy economics. Solar power has quietly become the cheapest energy source on earth, triggering what he calls a "warp speed" buildout, particularly in China. While the climate crisis continues melting ice caps and breaking temperature records, McKibben sees this energy transition as our one scalable tool that can move fast enough to matter. Move fast and fix the world. The timeline is unforgiving: climate scientists say we need to cut emissions in half by 2030. The question isn't so much whether solar will dominate—it's whether we humans can deploy it quickly enough to prevent catastrophe and provide us with a new beginning on earth. McKibben urges both individual action—solar installations before tax credits expire on New Year's Eve—and collective organizing through events like Sun Day [https://sunday.earth/], the upcoming September 21st day of action.

1. Solar Power Has Hit an Economic Tipping Point Solar is now the cheapest energy source on Earth - what McKibben calls "the Costco of energy." This isn't "alternative" energy anymore; it's become the obvious, economical choice that's driving rapid global adoption.

2. China Is Dominating the Solar Revolution China installs solar at "warp speed" - the equivalent of a nuclear power plant every 8 hours in May 2025. They're using American-invented technology (solar cells, lithium batteries) to become the world's first "electrostate" and reshape global power dynamics.

3. We Have a Narrow Window to Act Climate scientists say we need to cut emissions in half by 2030. Every tenth of a degree matters - it moves 100 million people out of comfortable climate zones. Solar is our only scalable tool that can deploy fast enough to make a difference.

4. Fossil Fuel Companies Can't Adapt Traditional energy companies won't invest in renewables because, as Exxon's CEO admitted, they don't offer "above average returns." Once solar panels are installed, the sun delivers energy for free - destroying the fossil fuel business model of controlling supply.

5. Individual and Collective Action Both Matter McKibben urges people to install solar before tax credits expire on New Year's Eve, while also organizing collectively. His "Sun Day" on September 21st aims to shift public perception from seeing solar as "alternative" to recognizing it as the mainstream energy solution.

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Move Fast and Fix the World: Here Comes the Sun in the Nick of Time

Who is to blame for the redistricting farce that many fear is breaking American democracy? There’s Trump, of course, and his gang of MAGA crazies. But according to David Daley [https://x.com/davedaley3?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor], the author of Antidemocratic, Inside the Far Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections, [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/antidemocratic-david-daley?variant=43723264131106] the real culprit is anything but crazy. It’s John Roberts, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. In a devastating 2019 decision, Daley argued in a powerful New York Times essay [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/opinion/trump-roberts-supreme-court-gerrymander.html] this week, Roberts closed federal courts to partisan gerrymandering claims just as judges from both parties were successfully policing redistricting abuses. "It's like that moment in Ghostbusters where they turn off the containment packs," Daley explains. "All the evil spirits spill out." The result? Today, 398 of 435 House districts are non-competitive, and we're witnessing what Daley calls a "redistricting apocalypse" with no end in sight. And those evil spirits aren’t just on the far right, with Democratic hacks also benefitting from this out-of-control gerrymandering. What gets lost in all this, of course, is the bipartisan political center in both parties - thereby creating a political system increasingly out of touch with the kind of non-ideological voters (ie: most American citizens) whose interests John Roberts’ Supreme Court is supposed to protect.

1. Chief Justice Roberts Created the Current Crisis Roberts' 2019 decision to close federal courts to partisan gerrymandering claims removed the last guardrails just as bipartisan judges were successfully policing redistricting abuses, unleashing the current "redistricting apocalypse."

2. Technology Has Made Gerrymandering Permanent Modern software and voter data have transformed gerrymandering from a temporary trick into decade-long control. Districts can now be carved with surgical precision, making 398 of 435 House seats non-competitive.

3. Democrats Were Caught Completely Off-Guard Despite clear warnings (Karl Rove even published the Republican strategy in the Wall Street Journal), Democrats "fell asleep" on redistricting and are now playing catch-up with far fewer opportunities to retaliate.

4. The Math Doesn't Favor Democratic Counter-Gerrymandering Republicans can draw about 195 seats on their own while Democrats control only 49. Even if Democrats maximize gerrymandering in California and Illinois, Republicans have many more states where they can respond.

5. The Stakes Go Beyond Elections Daley warns of "militarized voter suppression" and sees America on a "dark path" where the combination of gerrymandering, voting restrictions, and authoritarian tactics could fundamentally undermine democracy by 2026.

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The Redistricting Apocalypse: How Chief Justice Roberts Let All the Evil Spirits out of American Democracy

Might the supposedly revolutionary future of AI healthcare actually be a return to the gig economics of Uber and Airbnb? That’s the intriguing proposition put forward by former Kaiser Permanente Chief and Stanford Medical School professor Robert Pearl [https://robertpearlmd.com/], a prescient observer of the future of his industry. According to Pearl, we may be returning to the digital future: freelance doctors, he predicts, will train people to use existing AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) for managing chronic conditions - essentially "Uberizing" medical AI guidance. The real question, of course, is whether this will cheer up both doctors and patients. Pearl isn’t sure about either. But one thing he is certain about is that MAGA government isn’t the answer to fixing America’s healthcare future. Having been cautiously optimistic about RFK Jr six months ago, he now gives the US Secretary of Health and Human Services an “F” for his first six months in office. Maybe we should Uberize RFK Jr. It certainly couldn’t make things worse.

1. Two Competing AI Healthcare Models

Pearl identifies two paths: expensive, FDA-regulated products from tech companies versus affordable, clinician-led training programs that teach patients to use existing AI tools like ChatGPT for chronic disease management—with the second potentially avoiding regulation entirely.

2. AI Could Prevent 30-50% of Medical Deaths

By better managing chronic diseases like hypertension and diabetes (which account for 70% of doctor visits and costs), AI could save $1.5 trillion and prevent massive numbers of deaths from heart disease, cancer, kidney failure, and strokes.

3. The "Uberization" of Medical Care

With 40% of doctors already doing gig work, Pearl envisions freelance physicians training patients to use AI tools for continuous health monitoring—replacing the current system of infrequent office visits with real-time, at-home care management.

4. Insurance Companies Will Welcome AI, Hospitals Will Resist

Insurers will benefit from lower costs and reduced need for prior authorizations, while hospitals and drug companies will see fewer patients and medication sales—making them the primary opponents of AI healthcare adoption.

5. Medical Education Faces Major Disruption

Elite institutions like Stanford will focus on complex procedures (heart transplants, major cancers), while routine medical knowledge becomes commodified. Mid-level healthcare jobs will disappear, similar to what's happening in computer programming.

Bonus Political Takeaway: Pearl gives RFK Jr. an "F" for his first six months, saying he's capitulated to the agricultural industry instead of tackling the root causes of chronic disease through nutrition policy.

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Back to the Digital Future: Why the Future of AI Healthcare Might be a Return to the Gig Economy

Anyone lucky enough to have seen Wim Wenders’ 2023 masterpiece Perfect Days [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_Days] is familiar with the dignity of professional Japanese toilet cleaners. Mark Eltringham [https://workplaceinsight.net/author/mark-eltringham/], the publisher of the excellent future of work newsletter Workplace Insight [https://workplaceinsight.net/], hasn’t seen Wenders’ movie, but he is nonetheless sympathetic to the dignity of the armies of invisible workers paid to clean up our mess - from those who tidy up offices to to those who scrub public toilets. We conveniently ignore this precariat, Eltringham argues, when it comes to imagining the impact of AI on jobs. While tech elites debate hybrid schedules and productivity algorithms, these essential workers remain largely untouched by automation's promises and threats, establishing a convenient myopia in our understanding of work's future. So next time you go to your office or use a public bathroom, Eltringham suggests spare a thought for the professionals who made the experience palatable - and ask yourself why it’s their voices that are missing from our mostly privileged and solipsistic AI centric conversations about the future of work.

1. The "Solipsism Problem" in Work Discourse

Eltringham argues that workplace conversations about AI, remote work, and the "death of the office" suffer from solipsism - knowledge workers project their own experiences onto the entire workforce, ignoring that these discussions only apply to maybe 30-40% of workers.

2. AI's Uneven Impact Across Job Types

While tech elites debate AI's productivity effects, vast numbers of workers - from toilet cleaners to factory workers - remain largely untouched by automation. The AI revolution is primarily a knowledge worker phenomenon, not a universal workplace transformation.

3. The Return-to-Office Paradox

Tech companies like Google and Microsoft led the push to get employees back into offices, despite having the most sophisticated remote work capabilities. This suggests that even digital-native companies see value in physical proximity that goes beyond mere productivity metrics.

4. "Weak Ties" Matter More Than Water Cooler Moments

Eltringham dismisses the clichéd "water cooler conversation" argument for offices, arguing instead that the real value lies in "weak ties" - the informal networks that help you connect with people who know other people, creating problem-solving chains that are harder to replicate virtually.

5. Work Culture Trumps Office Design

A good working culture in a badly designed office will make people happy, but a bad culture in a beautiful office won't. The focus on trendy office furniture and Silicon Valley-style spaces misses the point - relationships and culture matter more than design aesthetics.

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From Scrubbing Toilets to Talking around the Water Cooler: Why AI Won't Kill the Jobs of Those Who Clean Up Our Mess

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