Print Issue
Fall 2026
Made In Our Image
The philosophies of AI and what they reveal about us.
Presented by
Ali White
We can’t predict the future of artificial intelligence, but we do know its origin: us. The models we use today were trained on unfathomably huge sums of human-generated text: our books and blogs, our science and myths, our jokes and lies. In the output of language models, we see glimpses of ourselves refracted through a strange new form of intelligence we’re only beginning to understand. This issue is an attempt to make sense of those refractions — to use philosophy to turn over hard questions until we start to see them more clearly.
—The Editors
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FRONT OF BOOK
FEATURES
History & Society
The idea of a “permanent underclass” started as a meme. It’s tapping real anxieties in Silicon Valley.
Journalist Namir Khaliq heads west for an inside look at how AI is upending young tech workers’ visions of the future.
I kind of expect my job to be automated by like 2032-ish, maybe sooner. It’s kind of hands-off from there, right?
I lost my original gig to AI, but now, in my new gig, I have to prove to AI that I’m not AI.
Mind & Behavior
Chatbots aren’t just flattering us. They’re helping us decide what’s real.
AI psychosis may be the most visible example of something much bigger and stranger.
Unlike previous technologies, AI chatbots not only appear in the content of our delusions but also confirm and help construct them.
History & Society
Inside London’s strange new AI art scene
From robot dog fights to Victorian graveyards, historian Thomas Moynihan journeys into the city’s new avant-garde.
There’s suffering, but also sometimes delight, in alienation, including in AI’s infiltration into art.
BACK OF BOOK
History & Society
The future of privacy in the AI age, with Signal President Meredith Whittaker
“How could AI fit into a world in which everyone has the ability to have a joyful life? That is the fundamental question that I am interested in answering.”
AI isn’t a new thing that came sequentially after social media or after messaging. It’s built on top of a very particular business model and on top of those previous technologies.
Rather than our judgments of consciousness informing our moral attitudes, it seems that the reverse relationship holds.
MORE STORIES
I think scaling up the current abilities of models is likely to yield what we would consider thinking.