An Open Letter to Steven Pinker on AI
by Scott Alexander
Why would a lifelong defender of human progress laugh off the risks of artificial intelligence?
0:00 / 1:07:00 · Narrator Charon
Daily edition
2026-10-07
Today's Crosscut
Human Side of Learning
From students stumbling through philosophy to mathematicians racing computers to solve old equations, the messy work of failing and trying again alongside others matters just as much as the final answer.
Want to Be a Lifelong Learner? Don’t Go It Alone × As AI Closed in on ‘Unique Games’ Proof, Researchers Raced to Beat the Machines
0:00 / 27:58 · Narrator Sulafat/Charon/Vindemiatrix
For the curious →
There is No ‘Nordic Model’
by Felice Basbøll
How does a society work when nobody has to depend on anyone else?
0:00 / 7:59 · Narrator Vindemiatrix
Theory of Fluids Enters the 21st Century
by Charlie Wood
How does a chaotic swarm of atoms create the perfectly smooth flow of a river?
0:00 / 18:28 · Narrator Algieba
Smart escape →
Phoebe Bridgers Showed Us How to See in the Dark
by Kelsey McKinney
When a concert goes completely unrecorded, what happens to the people in the room?
0:00 / 9:39 · Narrator Sulafat
‘It Could Knock a Whole Street Down’: the Art of Defusing a Second World War Bomb
by Samira Shackle
How do you defuse an eighty-year-old bomb when you can't tell if it's ticking?
0:00 / 37:03 · Narrator Gacrux