Explore The Race
Signal
AI is not simply replacing jobs. It is compressing teams, shifting work outside firms, concentrating implementation expertise, and changing who holds authority. The early workforce struggle is over who controls the redesign—and whether workers can contest it.
Essay
AI will not reshape society through algorithms alone. It will depend on whether governments, schools, utilities, and other public institutions develop the capacity to understand, procure, and govern it before dependence on a handful of private actors becomes the default.
Essay
States are beginning to build a public layer for AI through inventories, procurement rules, training, shared tools, and limits on consequential uses. The framework is emerging, but dependence on private platforms remains its weakest point.
Essay
Buying access to AI is easy. Durable implementation capacity depends on whether organizations can redesign workflows, train people, preserve learning, and switch providers without surrendering control to vendors or platforms.
Essay
Public models and public compute are only the beginning. AI becomes public infrastructure when governments and civic institutions can use, adapt, govern, and sustain it without becoming permanently dependent on a single vendor.
Essay
AI may be overhyped in the short run and underestimated in the long run. The lag before its benefits spread is also a concentration window, when infrastructure, defaults, and dependencies may harden around a few powerful actors.