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Opinion on the politics of technology — written to be worth rereading after the news cycle moves on.
Thirty-one states now regulate election deepfakes. In the 2026 midterms, AI ads from states with disclosure laws were less likely to be labelled than ads from states without them. A law nobody enforces is decoration.
AI regulation, election deepfakes and the fight over chips are turning AI into the most contested arena in politics — and the people writing the rules are increasingly the people selling the models.
One year after California signed the first US frontier-AI law, the Speaker of the House says he hopes AI guardrails stay voluntary. Washington is suing states for regulating AI while declining to do it itself.
Capacity prices on America's largest grid are up more than tenfold in four auctions, and data centers are the main reason. A voluntary White House pledge can't un-ring a bill that is already locked in through 2029.
There is a pleasingly ancient scene for a modern scandal: the guardian of the citadel discovers that the thing entrusted with guarding it also possessed the key. Safety, having been converted from a method into a marketing adjective, is suddenly less impressive when the…