The moment I rise in the morning, I check my phone. Bad habit, to be sure. But I know Im not the only one. There is a message from an editor marked urgent, there is an email from the school reminding me its parent-visit morning, and a text from a fellow soccer mom making sure I remembered the time change for Sundays tournament. (I hadnt). The day had barely started, and I already felt hopelessly behind.
This is the reality for working parents everywhere. On any given day, we have many jobs: employee, caregiver, chauffeur, chef, boo-boo healerand each has its own inbox. Once upon a time, we believed technology would make our lives easier. Instead, it taught us how to be reachable at all hours of the day.
We are desperate for time hacks. So naturally, parents are wondering if AI can help, or whether its just another thing demanding our attention.
{"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/Girl-Li.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/souter.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Girl, Listen: A Guide to What Really Matters\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Ericka dives into the heat of modern motherhood, challenging the notion that personal identity must be sacrificed at the altar of parenting.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/erickasouter.substack.com\/subscribe","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91457710,"imageMobileId":91457711,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
How AI Can Actually Help
AI helps by taking care of the boring, time-sucking stuff that clutters your brain. In other words, that invisible labor that never lets up. For example, school emails that go on and on when all you really need to know is the date of the field trip and what the kids need to wear. AI can summarize them in seconds and pull out the important parts.
It can also help us write polite notes to teachers, coaches, or HR without seeming defensive. It can turn your parent-teacher conference notes into an actionable plan.
At home, the help is small but impactful. Weekly meal plans with grocery lists, recipes based on whats already in your pantry, family calendars that catch conflicts you would have missed.
At work, AI can summarize meetings you were half paying attention to, draft versions of presentations, and help organize your day so things dont hit you all at once.
And it does this in less time than it takes to pour a cup of coffee.
Moments That Feel Like Magic
AI can change your life in practical ways. For example:
Turn this voice note into a packing list.
Rewrite this PTO request that expresses the urgency without sounding apologetic.
Summarize the 25 Slack messages I missed while I was at the pediatrician.
Simplifying these tasks is one less thing crowding your mind.
How AI Makes Things Worse
Some tools require so much setup and maintenance that they become another thing to do. Others add notifications instead of reducing them. Many raise privacy concerns, especially if they include your childrens data.
And there is the danger of us becoming too reliant on these tools. It should make our lives easier, but we still need to be able to do these things for ourselves just in case our sci-fi nightmare comes true and an electromagnetic pulse wipes out technology.
Then there is the economics of it all. AI isnt free, and paywalls could widen inequalities among parents.
Efficiency vs. Relief
Parents dont just need to be more efficient; they need to feel supported. We are expected to be completely available for our employer and a fully present parent. AI can relieve that tension a little bit if used wisely.
How to Get Started
Start with one pain point, not your entire life.
Choose the tools that reduce notifications instead of creating them.
Be careful about what data you share.
If a helpful tool creates more work, then it isnt helpful.
The Real Test
Parents arent asking AI to raise their kids or run their livesat least not entirely. We are asking it to carry the parts that dont require humanity. So if AI can give us fewer tabs to keep open (either on our screens or in our heads), it might actually live up to its promise. It wont make us superhuman, but it can make the day-to-day a little less punishing.
Seven AI Apps That Make Parents Lives Easier
To get started, here are some AI apps to try:1. ChatGPT
Think of it like a very fast assistant who never rolls their eyes. Use it to summarize long school emails, draft texts to teachers or coaches, and plan dinner. It can also turn a rambling voice memo into a to-do list.
2. Ohai.ai
If you find yourself saying “Wait, when was this due?” several times a week, you might need this. It scans emails, documents, and screenshots, pulls out dates and tasks, then adds them to your calendar so fewer things slip through the cracks.
3. Goldee
You can use Goldee to organize emails, schedules, and random information that gets lost in the class group chat.
4. AI meal-planning tools (like Ollie)
These tools are for parents who are sick and tired of figuring out whats for dinner. Ollie can suggest meals, create grocery lists, and even work with whats already in your fridge.
5. Reclaim.ai
This scheduling assistant automatically finds the best times in your calendar for work, family, and breaks.
6. Cozi (with AI features)
This one helps flag schedule conflicts to keep everyone in the family on the same page.
7. AI-powered email tools (Gmail, Outlook)
Use these to summarize long email threads, suggests replies, and pull up the messages that matter most.
{"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/Girl-Li.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/11\/souter.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Girl, Listen: A Guide to What Really Matters\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Ericka dives into the heat of modern motherhood, challenging the notion that personal identity must be sacrificed at the altar of parenting.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/erickasouter.substack.com\/subscribe","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},imageDesktopId":91457710,"imageMobileId":91457711,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
Back on February 6th, 2017, a teenaged Sabrina Carpenter tweeted, Is there a way to look attractive while eating Pringles asking for a friend.
Is there a way to look attractive while eating Pringles asking for a friend— Sabrina Carpenter (@SabrinaAnnLynn) February 6, 2017
Now, nine years later, the pop star is doing exactly thatin the brands Super Bowl ad campaign. Created by agency BBDO New York, the teaser shows Carpenter treating her Pringles like a flower bouquet, plucking chips while saying, He loves me, he loves me not . . .
For Pringles, the spot represents the perfect formula for celebrity partnership. Our partner talent has to be a genuine brand fan! says Sarah Reinecke, senior vice president of Mars Snackings salty portfolio and brand, which oversees Pringles. Sabrina is the biggest thing in culture right now and is a fan of Pringles, so having the opportunity to work with her and engage her fan base in all the fun we have planned for the big game is an exciting partnership that hits all the right factors for us.
Pringles’ celebrity strategy
Pringles is no stranger to the celebrity Super Bowl ad game. The brand tapped Meghan Trainor in 2023, Chris Pratt in 2024, and last year, a seemingly random collection of stars like James Harden, Adam Brody, and Nick Offerman. But Reinecke says the brand’s strategy isnt some game of big name roulette.
Each partnership has sharpened our approach, she says. Weve learned that the most effective talent isnt just recognizableit has to authentically align with both the audience and the brands voice.” Reinecke points to Carpenter as an example of this. “She connects deeply with Gen Z while naturally embodying the self-aware, unhinged internet humor that defines how the brand shows up today,” Reinecke says. “The partnership has really embodied a shared sense of play, which we hope ultimately makes it resonate with our fans.
Beyond the Game
Given the level of investment required to just get a spot in the game, most brands now extend Super Bowl-related work to run long before and after the final whistle. For Pringles, that means tying its work with Carpenter into an existing campaign that launched last fall to resurrect its 90s ad slogan Once You Pop.
Pringles Super Bowl teaser was one of the first to drop back on January 14th. Reinecke says that they knew partnering with someone like Carpenter would spark a ton of conversation, so the goal was to capitalize early and often in order to allow the brand to be at the center of the conversation for as long as possible.
That level of conversation and enthusiasm is a key metric for the brand. Of course, we would be lying if we said we didnt care about ROI and metrics, says Reinecke. Its incredibly important for us to measure success across both the marketing funnel and the impact on business. But while reach is important, what may be even more important is how much people care. So, we track everything from awareness, consideration, sentiment and purchase intent, and our impact to go beyond where a snack brand is expected to show up.
Celebrity Q&A
There are three key questions every marketer should ask themselves before deciding whether to use celebrity talent and who to choose for a Super Bowl ad, according to Reinecke:
Does the partnership feel authentic to the brand and relevant to the audience youre going after? The face of the campaign on one of the largest stages in brand marketing of the year is a crucial piece, according to Reinecke.
How will this ad positively impact the business? For us, the Big Game is the biggest snacking occasion of the year, so having a presence directly ties back to business objectives, she says.
Does the partnership have the potential to expand beyond the game? While the move to social media as a newsfeed grows, think about how the partnership and creative could extend to the small screen, and relevant ways to tap into the narrative your brand builds with your partner beyond game day, Reinecke adds.
How much would you pay for a gray fleece? Yes, the type thats ubiquitous in corporate cubicles and business-casual work conferences across America.
What if it had the Miu Miu logo stitched on the left chest? If you said $2,500, youd be on the money.
Miu Mius $2,500 fleece sweatshirt, specifically in gray, has been trending online in recent months, spotted on celebs and featured in dozens of videos across social media platforms. You might think it looks like any other gray fleece. And youd be right. Yet the Miu Miu version has inspired dupes and influenced people to unearth 4imprint jackets from their dads closet or old thrift finds to participate in the trend.
For more than a decade, banks, investment firms, and tech companies have co-branded corporate logos on gray fleece vests for their workforces. Worn by everyone from interns to executives, this look, dubbed the Midtown uniform in major cities like New York, has become as ubiquitous in workplaces as the sad desk salad.
As my boyfriend was leaving for work this morning he put on the fleece that his company gave him, New York City-based influencer Danielle Carolan said in a recent TikTok while wearing the Miu Miu version. I was like, oh my god, this is literally like a fleece your tech company would give you.
Still, in influencer circles the Miu Miu fleeceto be uttered with the same reverence as Andy Sachss coveted Chanel boots in The Devil Wears Pradahas become a cultural shorthand. The Miu Miu fleece is a wearable argument about how taste, comfort, and status work now, according to a recent Substack post from Dot Dot Dot. In simple terms: the ability to look relaxed without looking irrelevant.
And for the $2,500 price tag surely theres something fashion normies must be missing to justify the cost? Something about the garment construction or fabric composition, perhaps. No. Its really just a gray fleece made of 80% polyester and 20% recycled polyester.
Some have suggested its a social experiment. Or is it a sign of the times?
Coinciding with the RTO push, fashion houses have been tapping into the workplace discourse, taking inspiration from the office in runway collections and ad campaigns.
Throughout 2025, designer brands like Prada and Miu Miu and more affordable high-street retailers like Uniqlo and Aritzia put their own spin on workwear fashion as companies ushered employees back in the office. That interest in corporate style has continued in 2026, with views on #OfficeOutfits up 811% over the past week, according to Vogue Business.
From power dressing to business casual, corp-core is in vogueeven if the Miu Miu fleece is worn predominantly by influencers on their way to Pilates and brunch.
At least three-quarters of the speaking invitations I get these days are about AI. But lately, theyre for different reasons. Companies used to bring me in under the assumption that artificial intelligence was going to change everything. So theyd ask me to talk about the jobless future, prompt engineering, or automating marketing online. Today, theyre asking a different kind of question: What went wrong? Where are the promised productivity gains? In other words, why isnt AI helping our company do stuff?
And if I were to answer honestly, Id tell them the simple truth: Its because you and your people dont know what you want to do with it! This is not a technology problem or even a people problem, but an organizational one. Most companies are trying to run 21st-century AI-enabled companies on 20th-century industrial age architectures. The goals and the values are simply not aligned.
{"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/adus-labs-16x9-1.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/anduslabs.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Get more insights from Douglas Rushkoff and Andus Labs.","dek":"Keep up to date on the latest trends on how AI is reshaping culture and business, through the critical lens of human agency.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/www.anduslabs.com\/perspectives","theme":{"bg":"#1a064b","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#ffffff","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#000000"},"imageDesktopId":91420531,"imageMobileId":91420530,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
Weak returns
The failure of AI to increase productivity isnt just cherry-picked anecdote or idle speculation. According to Microsofts own study, only 25% of AI initiatives achieved expected returns over the past three years. Computer scientist Gary Marcus has been writing about the hype and misplaced hope around large language models (LLMs) for just as long. But the problem here is not that AI cant do great stuff; its that organizations are not yet thinking in a human-first way about technology.
Its what Chris Perry, my partner at Andus, calls the Human OS. Companies are trying to integrate AI into their existing workflows without considering the human systems that can not only utilize it, but also grow and improve with it. This means more than training workers on AI interfaces or running trials of AI-derived ads. It means remaking the very structure of your organization around these new opportunities.
Its a transition less technologically focused than the term OS may imply. You dont reprogram your workforce around the needs of AI. Rather, you develop a different kind of workplace. Who thought up how a bank works, with a safe in the back and tellers behind special windows? It was a way of creating an interface between lenders and borrowers in a new economic system. Now it seems obvious. Or take the grocery store, with aisles, shopping carts, and cashiers. It is an operating system designed to allow humans to browse, gather, purchase, or even socialize (in the fruit section). These are architectures for human interaction under capitalism and then industrial production. And they worked, largely because the people designing them were taking the human consumers into mind.
Lessons from the Industrial Age
We dont generally devise our operating systems for labor with the same considerations for the people trying to function within them. Industrial age values of efficiency and productivity led to the assembly line, the sweatshop, and the typing pool. These are environments in which humans are cogs in a machine, and the more repeatable and uniform their tasks, the better.
If anything, the values of the industrial age were to remove human beings from the value equation altogether. Assembly lines allowed for unskilled, replaceable workers to replace higher-paid craftspeople. New machines were always valued for their ability to replace labor, or at least allow labor to be outsourced to less expensive labor in Asia.
This approach to new technology wont work in the age of AI. And even talking this way will make workers less likely to consider the possibility that you are trying to do anything other than replace them with this stuff. You are trying to augment instead of replace them, right? I sure hope so, because the alternativea world where you are using AIs instead of peoplemeans your only competitive advantage is the size of your contract with the AI company.
Moving from “more to better”
Assuming you are on Team Human here, then the object of the game is to help your people come to terms with how their own capabilities can be enhanced with this stuff. Sure, they can churn out more PowerPoints or spreadsheets in an hour, but thats not the enhancement on offer here. The possibility is for them to do categorically better, more considered, and more developed work. Instead of using AI to create more volume of what already is (industrial age efficiency), what about using it to help imagine what does not yet exist?
Again, this is the opposite of industrial age repeatability and workforce reduction. We have that one down. Its time to move on from more to better. But to do that, your company needs to retrieve its core competencies, rediscover its values, and reclaim its culture. Oddly enough, this is the real AI opportunity: to double down on the human creativity driving your enterprise. Its the very opposite of what weve been doing with technology until recently.
But this means building a different kind of human readiness into the very architecture of your organization. You can buy a bunch of AI capabilities, but you need to match them with human processes that can benefit from them in real and sustainable ways over time. It will take more than one article to explain how that works, because it covers everything from talent development and workflows to rituals and incentives.
For now, think of it this way: Machines process data fast and accurately. Humans dont process so much as respirate and metabolize. In a successful organization, these two functionsprocessing and metabolizingcan support each other. The way to get there is not simply to buy more AI capability and work on training, but to engage with your people in a way in which they know what they want to do better. They must understand that their nervous systems and sensibilities are going to be valued and trusted as they explore uncharted territory, and that their explorations are being integrated into the companys institutional memorywhatever their apparent contribution to growth or efficiency.
{"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/adus-labs-16x9-1.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/anduslabs.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Get more isights from Douglas Rushkoff and Andus Labs.","dek":"Keep up to date on the latest trends on how AI is reshaping culture and business, through the critical lens of human agency.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/www.anduslabs.com\/perspectives","theme":{"bg":"#1a064b","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#ffffff","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#000000"},"imageDesktopId":91420531,"imageMobileId":91420530,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
A major winter storm is expected to bring heavy snow to parts of the East Coast this weekend. Amid freezing temperatures, many will be hunkering down and sipping hot cocoa by the fire or trying out new warming winter recipes.
Others will be getting creative with an ingredient that wont be in short supply: snow.
First snow of the year means SNOW CREAM, one TikToker posted earlier this month. This is literally my childhood, another wrote in the caption of her video, combining fresh snow with milk, sugar, and vanilla to make a bowl of dessert.
Other snow-based recipes that have gone viral in light of the recent weather include using snow as a way to freeze ice cream, adding whipped cream, vanilla, and icing sugar to a mixing bowl pressed into the snow. Another is sugar on snow, also known as maple taffy, made by pouring hot maple syrup directly onto snow and rolling it onto a stick for a simple cold-weather treat.
While many of these concoctions arent new, comments online are mixed. Ohhhh girlfriend you’re not supposed to make snow cream with the first snow of the season, one warned. Another wrote, Hey so I saw an under the microscope of snow and Id just put that back on the ground.
These fears arent entirely unfounded. The National Snow and Ice Data Center suggests avoiding ingesting the first layer of snow covering the ground.
“As snow falls through the sky, it can lock in pollutants into its intricate latticework. The most common is black carbon from coal-fired plants and wood-burning stoves, the organization explains. Snow acts like a scrubbing brush as it falls through the atmosphere. So, the longer the snow falls, the cleaner the air, and also the snow.”
If you do want to try your hand at making snow cream this weekend, avoid any discolored or yellow-tinged snow (for obvious reasons) and anything that could have been in contact with chemicals, such as salt or ice melt.
City snow is also more likely to be contaminated than rural snow. If you live in Manhattan, perhaps you should sit this one out.
The darkness that swept over the Venezuelan capital in the predawn hours of Jan. 3, 2026, signaled a profound shift in the nature of modern conflict: the convergence of physical and cyber warfare. While U.S. special operations forces carried out the dramatic seizure of Venezuelan President Nicolįs Maduro, a far quieter but equally devastating offensive was taking place in the unseen digital networks that help operate Caracas.
The blackout was not the result of bombed transmission towers or severed power lines but rather a precise and invisible manipulation of the industrial control systems that manage the flow of electricity. This synchronization of traditional military action with advanced cyber warfare represents a new chapter in international conflict, one where lines of computer code that manipulate critical infrastructure are among the most potent weapons.
To understand how a nation can turn an adversarys lights out without firing a shot, you have to look inside the controllers that regulate modern infrastructure. They are the digital brains responsible for opening valves, spinning turbines, and routing power.
For decades, controller devices were considered simple and isolated. Grid modernization, however, has transformed them into sophisticated internet-connected computers. As a cybersecurity researcher, I track how advanced cyber forces exploit this modernization by using digital techniques to control the machinerys physical behavior.
Hijacked machines
My colleagues and I have demonstrated how malware can compromise a controller to create a split reality. The malware intercepts legitimate commands sent by grid operators and replaces them with malicious instructions designed to destabilize the system.
For example, malware could send commands to rapidly open and close circuit breakers, a technique known as flapping. This action can physically damage massive transformers or generators by causing them to overheat or go out of sync with the grid. These actions can cause fires or explosions that take months to repair.
Simultaneously, the malware calculates what the sensor readings should look like if the grid were operating normally and feeds these fabricated values back to the control room. The operators likely see green lights and stable voltage readings on their screens even as transformers are overloading and breakers are tripping in the physical world. This decoupling of the digital image from physical reality leaves defenders blind, unable to diagnose or respond to the failure until it is too late.
Historical examples of this kind of attack include the Stuxnet malware that targeted Iranian nuclear enrichment plants. The malware destroyed centrifuges in 2009 by causing them to spin at dangerous speeds while feeding false normal data to operators.
Another example is the Industroyer attack by Russia against Ukraines energy sector in 2016. Industroyer malware targeted Ukraines power grid, using the grids own industrial communication protocols to directly open circuit breakers and cut power to Kyiv.
More recently, the Volt Typhoon attack by China against the United States critical infrastructure, exposed in 2023, was a campaign focused on pre-positioning. Unlike traditional sabotage, these hackers infiltrated networks to remain dormant and undetected, gaining the ability to disrupt the United States communications and power systems during a future crisis.
To defend against these types of attacks, the U.S. militarys Cyber Command has adopted a defend forward strategy, actively hunting for threats in foreign networks before they reach U.S. soil.
Domestically, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency promotes secure by design principles, urging manufacturers to eliminate default passwords and utilities to implement zero trust architectures that assume networks are already compromised.
Supply chain vulnerability
Nowadays, there is a vulnerability lurking within the supply chain of the controllers themselves. A dissection of firmware from major international vendors reveals a significant reliance on third-party software components to support modern features such as encryption and cloud connectivity.
This modernization comes at a cost. Many of these critical devices run on outdated software libraries, some of which are years past their end-of-life support, meaning theyre no longer supported by the manufacturer. This creates a shared fragility across the industry. A vulnerability in a single, ubiquitous library like OpenSSLan open-source software tool kit used worldwide by nearly every web server and connected device to encrypt communicationscan expose controllers from multiple manufacturers to the same method of attack.
Modern controllers have become web-enabled devices that often host their own administrative websites. These embedded web servers present an often overlooked point of entry for adversaries.
Attackers can infect the web application of a controller, allowing the malware to execute within the web browser of any engineer or operator who logs in to manage the plant. This execution enables malicious code to piggyback on legitimate user sessions, bypassing firewalls and issuing commands to the physical machinery without requiring the devices password to be cracked.
The scale of this vulnerability is vast, and the potential for damage extends far beyond the power grid, including transportation, manufacturing, and water treatment systems.
Using automated scanning tools, my colleagues and I have discovered that the number of industrial controllers exposed to the public internet is significantly higher than industry estimates suggest. Thousands of critical devices, from hospital equipment to substation relays, are visible to anyone with the right search criteria. This exposure provides a rich hunting ground for adversaries to conduct reconnaissance and identify vulnerable targets that serve as etry points into deeper, more protected networks.
The success of recent U.S. cyber operations forces a difficult conversation about the vulnerability of the United States. The uncomfortable truth is that the American power grid relies on the same technologies, protocols, and supply chains as the systems compromised abroad.
The U.S. power grid is vulnerable to hackers.
Regulatory misalignment
The domestic risk, however, is compounded by regulatory frameworks that struggle to address the realities of the grid. A comprehensive investigation into the U.S. electric power sector that my colleagues and I conducted revealed significant misalignment between compliance with regulations and actual security. Our study found that while regulations establish a baseline, they often foster a checklist mentality. Utilities are burdened with excessive documentation requirements that divert resources away from effective security measures.
This regulatory lag is particularly concerning, given the rapid evolution of the technologies that connect customers to the power grid. The widespread adoption of distributed energy resources, such as residential solar inverters, has created a large, decentralized vulnerability that current regulations barely touch.
Analysis supported by the Department of Energy has shown that these devices are often insecure. By compromising a relatively small percentage of these inverters, my colleagues and I found that an attacker could manipulate their power output to cause severe instabilities across the distribution network. Unlike centralized power plants protected by guards and security systems, these devices sit in private homes and businesses.
Accounting for the physical
Defending American infrastructure requires moving beyond the compliance checklists that currently dominate the industry. Defense strategies now require a level of sophistication that matches the attacks. This implies a fundamental shift toward security measures that take into account how attackers could manipulate physical machinery.
The integration of internet-connected computers into power grids, factories, and transportation networks is creating a world where the line between code and physical destruction is irrevocably blurred.
Ensuring the resilience of critical infrastructure requires accepting this new reality and building defenses that verify every component, rather than unquestioningly trusting the software and hardwareor the green lights on a control panel.
Saman Zonouz is an associate professor of cybersecurity and privacy and electrical and computer engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Two in five Americans have fought with a family member about politics, according to a 2024 study by the American Psychiatric Association. One in five have become estranged over controversial issues, and the same percentage has blocked a family member on social media or skipped a family event due to disagreements.
Difficulty working through conflict with those close to us can cause irreparable harm to families and relationships. Whats more, the inability to heal these relationships can be detrimental to physical and emotional well-being, and even longevity.
Healing relationships often involve forgivenessand sometimes we have the ability to truly reconcile. But as a professor and licensed professional counselor who researches forgiveness, I believe the process is often misunderstood.
In my 2021 book, Practicing Forgiveness: A Path Toward Healing, I talk about how we often feel pressure to forgive and that forgiveness can feel like a moral mandate. Consider 18th-century poet Alexander Popes famous phrase: To err is human; to forgive, divineas though doing so makes us better people. The reality is that reconciling a relationship is not just difficult, but sometimes inadvisable or dangerous, especially in cases involving harm or trauma.
I often remind people that forgiveness does not have to mean a reconciliation. At its core, forgiveness is internal: a way of laying down ill will and our emotional burden, so we can heal. It should be seen as a separate process from reconciliation, and deciding whether to renegotiate a relationship.
But either form of forgiveness is difficultand here may be some insights as to why.
Forgiveness, karma, and revenge
In 2025, I conducted a study with my colleagues Alex Hodges and Jason Vannest to explore emotions people may experience around forgiveness, and how those emotions differ from when they experience karma or revenge.
We defined forgiveness as relinquishing feelings of ill will toward someone who engaged in a harmful action or behavior toward you. Karma refers to a situation where someone who wronged you got what they deserved without any action from you. Revenge, on the other hand, happens when you retaliate.
First, we prompted participants to share memories of three events related to offering forgiveness, witnessing karma and taking revenge. After sharing each event, they completed a questionnaire indicating what emotions they experienced as they retold their story.
We found that most people say they aspire to forgive the person who hurt them. To be specific, participants were about 1.5 times more likely to desire forgiveness than karma or revenge.
Most admitted, though, that karma made them happier than offering forgiveness.
Working toward forgiveness tended to make people sad and anxious. In fact, participants were about 1.5 times more likely to experience sadness during forgiveness than during karma or revenge. Pursuing forgiveness was more stressful, and harder work, because it forces people to confront feelings that may often be perceived as negative, such as stress, anger, or sadness.
Two different processes
Forgiveness is also confusing, thanks to the way it is typically conflated with reconciliation.
Forgiveness researchers tie reconciliation to interpersonal forgiveness, in which the relationship is renegotiated or even healed. However, at times, reconciliation should not occurperhaps due to a toxic or unsafe relationship. Other times, it simply cannot occur, such as when the offender has died or is a stranger.
But not all forgiveness depends on whether a broken relationship has been repaired. Even when reconciliation is impossible, we can still relinquish feelings of ill will toward an offender, engaging in intrapersonal forgiveness.
Not all forgiveness has to involve renegotiating a relationship with the person who hurt you.
I used to practice counseling in a hospitals adolescent unit, in which all the teens I worked with were considered a danger to themselves or others. Many of them had suffered abuse. When I pictured what success could look like for them, I hoped that, in adulthood, my clients would not be focused on their past traumathat they could experience safety, health, belonging, and peace.
Most often, such an outcome was not dependent upon reconciling with the offender. In fact, reconciliation was often ill-advised, especially if offenders had not expressed remorse or commitment to any type of meaningful change. Even if they had, there are times when the victim chooses not to renegotiate the relationship, especially when working through trauma.
Still, working toward intrapersonal forgiveness could help some of these young people begin each day without the burden of trauma, anger, and fear. In effect, the client could say, What I wanted from this person I did not get, and I no longer expect it. Removing expectations from people by identifying that we are not likely to get what we want can ease the burden of past transgressions. Eventually, you decide whether to continue to expend the emotional energy it takes to stay angry with someone.
Relinquishing feelings of ill will toward someone who has caused you harm can be difficult. It may require patience, time, and hard work. When we recognize that we are not going to get what we wanted from someonetrust, safety, loveit can feel a lot like grief. Someone may pass through the same stages, including denial, anger, bargaining, and depression, before they can accept and forgive within themselves, without the burden of reconciliation.
Taking stock
With this in mind, I offer four steps to evaluate where you are on your forgiveness journey. A simple tool I developed, the Forgiveness Reconciliation Inventory, looks at each of these steps in more depth.
Talk to someone. You can talk to a friend, mentor, counselor, grandmasomeone you trust. Talking makes the unmentionable mentionable. It can reduce pain and help you gain perspective on the person or event that left you hurt.
Examine if reconciliation is beneficial. Sometimes there are benefits to reconciliation. Broken relationships can be heald, and even strengthened. This is especially more likely when the offender expresses remorse and changes behaviorsomething the victim has no control over.
In some cases, however, there are no benefits, or the benefits are outweighed by the offenders lack of remorse and change. In this case, you might have to come to terms with processing an emotionalor even tangibledebt that will not be repaid.
Consider your feelings toward the offender, the benefits and consequences of reconciliation, and whether theyve shown any remorse and change. If you want to forgive them, determine whether it will be interpersonaltalking to them and trying to renegotiate the relationshipor intrapersonalin which you reconcile your feelings and expectations within yourself.
Either way, forgiveness comes when we relinquish feelings of ill will toward another.
Richard Balkin is a distinguished professor of counselor education at the University of Mississippi.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
As global leaders disperse from the World Economic Forum, LinkedIn cofounder and tech investor Reid Hoffman breaks down the biggest challenges and opportunities facing business todayfrom political headwinds tied to immigration and geopolitics to why fears of a tech bubble arent shaping his investing. A self-proclaimed optimist, Hoffman urges todays business leaders to speak up and use their voices to help society steer toward the good futures.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
One of the biggest drivers of U.S. tech leadership has been attracting talent from outside the U.S. … Immigration policies have tightened up. The outside pipeline has basically been cut off. Are we going to start to see any implications from that this year?
Well, I think we already are. A huge amount of the technology advantages the U.S. has had is because of Indian and Chinese talent that’s come over. Well, now, the Indian talent’s going to stay there. It’s going to go to Canada. It’s going to go to Europe. When someone comes and builds a huge company here, it creates lots of jobs for restaurants and accountants and all kinds of services … and then buying stuff from American manufacturing and staying in American hotels and all the rest of the stuff. Youre wiping out all of that, and you’re saying, “Go somewhere else.” It’s like the Bernie Sanders stupid [remark], “No data centers here. Build them all in Canada. Have Canada get all the economic benefits. Let’s make sure we Americans don’t.” And its just, literally, up is down. It’s crazy thinking. It’s stupid thinking.
And so, you want that immigration. That’s how we built the prosperity of this country. In 250 years, it comes entirely from a generation of us going, “Here is the way that we will take immigration and be a competitive advantage to every other country in the world.” It’s like, “Oh, well, let’s take our competitive advantage and let’s sabotage it.” Now, none of this says that we haven’t gotten to a place where we have problems with the borders, we have problems with asylum, we have a set of other things that, of course, need to get fixed. People are saying, “Hey, I’m feeling pain in my job, in my community, my environment. What’s going wrong? And help fix it.” And we should be doing that. But by the way, completely closing the border is not the right idea.
I mean, you could do that as a start, just as saying, “Hey, let’s re-normalize.” But then you have to understand, for example, the earlier: “Well, we’re going to send ICE after all of the agricultural work.” And then I was, like, “Oh, our farm’s going to stop working. Oh, don’t do that. No, no. Send them into the center streets of Minnesota, so they can beat up people and shoot people. Do that instead.” You’re, like, “Okay, that’s not good either.” It’s frankly catastrophic and terrorizing. So, if you want to see domestic terrorism, see how ICE is operating in some cities and some environments. And so, it’s like, “Okay, what are the things to do to actually really solve Americans’ problems? That’s what we need. And some rationality in immigration is absolutely essential.
How do we have prosperity for our society, for our children, for our grandchildren, and including a bunch of communities that right now feel a lot of pain? How do we solve all those problems?” That’s the thing we need to be doing.
The political climate has made business leaders more cautious about commenting on societal issues. What do you say to people when it’s worth weighing in or even necessary to weigh in or whether now just isn’t the moment?
Look, the theory that if you just keep your mouth shut, the storm will blow over, and it won’t be a problemyou should be disabused of that theory now. That is not what’s happening. Lots of people say, “Oh no, no, this tariffs thing. This is just an early negotiation tactic.” And it’s, “Look, the volatility is a massive sabotage to business. Our young people aren’t being hired.” It’s, “Well, yeah, businesses are in a highly volatile situation.” I’ll say, “Well, we’re not going to do no hiring until we understand what’s going on.” That’s the message that’s being sent from the White House out to the whole business community. And so, you need to speak up and you go, “Well, but what if I speak up, then they’re going to penalize me.”
And they’re, like, “Well, by the way, precisely when you feel fears, you should think about, is this a time for courage?” Because by the way, of course, it shouldn’t be punitive for you speaking up about what your knowledge and expertise and experience and what’s going on is.” I, myself, get regularly called out by the White House and basically only for political persecution purposes. If they would say, “Hey, unlike Trump who has all these pictures of Epstein at parties, I did a little bit of fundraising for MIT. Well, I’m a close associate.” Well, you guys have all the documents. Release all of them. Let’s let people decide the truth of this themselves. So, stop lying about me and reveal all the documents. So, speaking up is actually, I think, really important.
And part of the reason why I do so, is not just because of me and because my sense of moral rightlike First Amendment, freedom of speech, freedom of assemblybut it’s also to try to give other people a sense of, look, you should speak up about the things that you think are real. And if you feel fear, get some other people to speak up along with you and put the energy into it. Don’t just go, “Oh, I’m going to create a rationalization. I’m going to say, ‘Hey, I don’t need … I’m not being fearful. I’m not being a coward. It’s the right thing. It’s the right thing for my business. It’s the right thing.'” And look, human beings firsthumanity, societyand you are members of both of those. Speak up, be present on those things.
And by the way, when you’re powerful, one form of power is wealthy. Anyone who’s wealthy inthe society should be extremely grateful for being part of the society. You have responsibilities. They’re commensurate with your power. And so, you need to speak up. And by the way, not only does the current administration want to silence all of this as speech and say, “No, no, you’re not allowed to. You must take pledges of loyalty.” But I also get arguments from the lefties who go, “Oh, well, you as a wealthy person, you have no moral right to speak.” I’m, like, “Yes, I do. We all have a right to speak.” Some people might value my speaking by knowledge of how companies are created, how prosperity is created, how you have a vibrant economy.
And that’s part of what creates jobs. I mean, I’m a guy who’s created a site that has many hundreds of millions of people participating in it in order to find work. Should people weigh my opinion on some things more than others? Absolutely. Should they weigh them less than certain things than others? Absolutely. But it’s, we need to be speaking up, and we need to be figuring out how to solve our problems together.
Meetings are breeding grounds for three highly toxic power moves:
AMPLIFICATION: The boss speaks, and suddenly its gospel. People start self-censoring, sugarcoating bad news, and swallowing their dissenting opinions.
INCOMPETENCE: When a leader cant run a meeting, it drains the rooms energy. People leave annoyed and wondering why they bothered to show up.
JERK BEHAVIOR: Bullies, interrupters, and blowhards hijack the room. Collaboration isnt just stifledits publicly executed.
These power moves reduce meetings to lifeless, performative rituals where the people who hold the most power call the shots and everyone else plays defense.
But it doesnt have to be this way. Design your meetings to defang these power moves, and youll create a space where people speak up, push back, and bring bolder and better ideas to the table.
Amplification: When Power Overpowers
Jade Rubick, former VP of engineering at New Relic, remembers the exact moment he became brilliant. It wasnt because of a sudden surge in IQ or creativity. It was his promotion to senior director, accompanied by a glowing speech in front of his peers.
Overnight, everything changed. In meetings, people went out of their way to praise his ideas. Person after person would go out of their way to say why my suggestion was the right approach, Rubick recalls. All of a sudden, my ideas were BRILLIANTAll of a sudden, I was a different person, a Very Important Person.
What Rubick experienced was a classic case of what Professor Adam Galinsky calls amplification: the invisible megaphone leaders inherit when they step into a position of power. A passing comment becomes a marching order. An offhand suggestion rockets to the top of the teams priority list. A poorly timed yawn during your presentation plunges you into a spiral of self-doubt: They hate this. They hate me. Instead of focusing on the work, people start decoding every glance, sigh, or eyebrow twitch as part of a high-stakes game of corporate charades.
When amplification takes over meetings, people start filtering their ideas or stop sharing them altogether. They nod along like bobble-heads and, before long, the room turns into an echo chamberparrots squawking back the leaders words instead of expressing their own. Heres how you can address it.
1. Dial down the talking
Research shows that high-performing teams share airtime more equally. In a perfect world, leaders would recognize that and adjust accordingly. But self-awareness isnt always their strong suit. And the more power they hold, the less likely anyone is to tell them theyre hogging the mic.
If youre dealing with a leader who cant stop steamrolling the room, there are ways to take back the room. At one organization, team members came up with a creative solution: a miniature stuffed horse. If someone is too long-winded, anyone can toss the horse in front of that person as a signal to stop beating a dead horse, one team member explained.
Now, chucking stuffed animals at your coworkersespecially the powerful onesis probably a career-limiting move. But the spirit of the idea is sound: Find a way to flag the airtime hogs.
Fortunately, technology offers a safer option. Today, tools like Fireflies.AI and Equal track metrics like talk-to-listen ratios and flag monologues. Some even analyze gender dynamics, surfacing when women and nonbinary participants are getting drowned out.
Another way to stop people from hijacking the conversation is to get them to speak last. At Pixar, cofounder Ed Catmull understood the risks of speaking first. In brainstorming meetings, he deliberately held back his input until the end so his team could explore ideas without the gravitational pull of his amplified words. Catmull understood what many leaders overlook: New ideas are fragile. As he put it, they need protection from getting pancaked by heavy-handed forces like a leaders amplification.
Thats also why Catmull struck a deal with Steve Jobs when Jobs was CEO of Pixar. They agreed that Jobs would sit out of Pixars legendary Braintrust meeting, where senior creatives critiqued early-stage films. As Catmull put it, Jobss bigger-than-life presence would make it harder to be candid.
2. Don’t amplify ambiguity
Weve all been there: Your boss drops a cryptic meeting invite on your calendar and your brain immediately spirals. Am I in trouble? Is this about that thing I said in Slack? Am I getting fired? Amplification kicks in, and that vague invite snowballs into employees worst-case scenarios.
This kind of ambiguity is the second type of communication that Adam Galinsky, a social psychologist and Columbia business school professor, says is prone to amplification. When leaders say or do something vague, employees fill in the blanksoften with their own worst fears.
Galinskys advice for leaders prone to amplification is simple: Be transparent. A quick message like Hey, I need to see you laterits nothing to worry about can save your team from hours of anxiety.
And if your calendar is public, dont leave room for speculation. Trust me, your team is watching your calendar if its public, and theyre overanalyzing every entry, especially the vague ones. Dont give their imaginations room to fill in the blanks. Because theyll assume theyre the blanks.
Incompetence: The Accidental Power Move
Some of the most destructive power moves arent malicious. Theyre the result of sheer incompetence, which is amplified by a leaders position of power. Its like handing a megaphone to someone who doesnt know how to use it. They shout into the wrong end, and the whole room winces at the ear-splitting feedback.
Leaders who dont know how to effectively design and deploy meetings end up scheduling them for every problem, real or imagined. According to Neil Vyner, VP of growth and go-to-market at Worklytics, just 5% of employees schedule 60% of all meetings. These serial schedulers tend to be the most powerful people in the company (or their assistants acting on their behalf).
New managers are some of the worst offenders. Theyre promoted because they excelled in their previous roles, not because they know how to facilitate productive discussions, navigate hairy decisions, or avoid letting their new dinosaur tail knock over their teams ideas. Theyre handed a packed calendar of high-stakes meetings and a megaphone, but no user manual.
Meanwhile, their employees watch their boss bumble through bad meetings and assume, Well, I guess this is how its done. Inefficiency gets institutionalized, and before long, the entire team is trapped in a cycle of toxic meeting mediocrity. Or worse, full-blown dysfunction.
1. One-on-ones aren’t for you, boss
Incompetent managers often treat one-on-ones as their meetinga chance todownload updates, deliver monologues, or check a box. But thats not how they should be treated. As Ben Horowitz puts it, The key to a good one-on-one meeting is the understanding that it is the employees meeting rather than the managers meeting. A leaders job is to create space for whatever employees need to move their work forward, whether its advice, a pitch, or just a chance to vent.
According to research by Gallup, just one meaningful one-on-one meeting each week does more to build high-performance relationships than any other leadership activityand meetings as short as 15 minutes are enough to make a difference.
2. Stop hosting meetings just to spoon-feed the boss
One of the most commonand costlysigns of incompetence is the boss briefing: a meeting held not to collaborate or solve problems, but to spoon-feed status updates to a leader who cant be bothered to check the project tracker.
If you just need updates from your team, dont drag them into a hostage situation. Ask for a written summary or a short video update instead.
The same goes for updates that youre pushing out to your team. Skip the meeting and record a quick video instead. Film it from a real-life backdrop: a home office with kids barging in, or post-run and still dripping with sweat. That kind of raw, unfiltered communication hits differently. It satisfies the TikTok generations appetite for authenticity and transparency.
Jerk Behavior: When the Boss Is the Bully
Unlike amplification or incompetence, jerk behavior isnt an accidental or inevitable side effect of holding a position of power. Its a deliberate abuse of it. And unfortunately, its disturbingly common. Research by Simon Croom, a professor at the University of San Diego, found that 12 percent of corporate senior leaders exhibit psychopathic traits, up to twelve times the rate found in the general population. Yikes.
Jerk behaviorinterrupting, nitpicking, steamrolling, humiliating, or straight-up bullyingsucks the oxygen out of the meeting. And the damage doesnt stay neatly contained at the top. It spreads. Employees who cant push back against a jerk boss dont just absorb the blow, they pass it along to the next person in line. Sure enough, supervisors who report to abusive bosses are more likely to engage in abusive behavior themselves.
1.Shine a light on jerk behavior
Sometimes, the fastest way to shut down jerk behavior is to bring it into the light. Set up an anonymous feedback form so employees can report toxic behavior without fearing retaliation. But thats just step one. Dont let feedback languish in a forgotten Google Doc. Act on it. Prove youre serious about creating a jerk-free culture. Because doing nothing is worse than not asking for feedback in the first place. It sends a clear message: Were going to pretend that your voice matters, but it really doesnt.
And thats just another form of jerk behavior.
2. When all else fails, protect yourself
Some jerks are beyond redemption. If youre stuck with one of these un-fixable types, your best move is self-preservation. Dont let their toxicity take up space in your head. Or on your calendar.
Start by limiting your exposure to them. Avoid meetings with them if you can. If thats not an option, move the conversation to email or chat to contain their toxicity behind a digital firewall. This will also generate a handy digital paper trail if you need to file a formal report with HR.
And whatever you do, dont feed the beast. Jerks thrive on attention, so starve them of yours. Keep your responses short, flat, and factual. The less entertaining you are as a target, the faster theyll lose interest. Your goal isnt to win them over. Its to bore them into submission.
Excerpted from Your Best Meeting Ever: 7 Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done. Copyright 2026, Rebecca Hinds. Reproduced by permission of Simon Element, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved
A decade ago, when Claire Burgi moved to New York City, she decided to cut meat out of her diet. The 33-year-old actor and audiobook narrator, who lives in Queens, grew up in California, where shed seen the effects of climate change firsthand. She knew that meat consumption was a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions and that vegetarianism was a way to help conserve resources and reduce pollution.
When I was young, it rained a lot, she says. Now, it rains much less. All the fires are astoundingly horrific. The December 2017 Thomas wildfire burned more than 280,000 acres in and around Burgis hometown of Ventura, just north of Los Angeles.
I just didnt want to be contributing to anything that was causing that, Burgi says. She recently made another major decision to reduce her eco-footprint: not to use generative AI.
Shes been shocked, she says, by research showing how much electricity that the underlying technology generative AI tools like ChatGPT use, and how much this is raising carbon emissions. One paper published in 2023 predicted that AI-related infrastructure would soon consume six times more water than is used in Denmark yearly. Another piece of research from 2024 showed that a request made through ChatGPT consumes 10 times the electricity of a Google search.
They make me think of Frankenstein, Burgi says of AI models. There have been times in history, she says, when humans have acted without any idea of what the consequences would be, because it was convenient for us in that moment.
Right now, she adds, thats whats happening with AI.
In general, women have been slower to adopt AI use than men. This gender gap has been well documented over the last few years. According to Harvard Business School associate professor Rembrand Koningwho synthesized data from 18 studies covering more than 140,000 individuals across the worldwomen are about 20% less likely than men to directly engage with this new technology.
Whats less clearly established is the precise reason why. But when it comes to environmentally motivated reasons, Burgi isnt alone.
“Environmental angst”
The reasons for this gender gap vary. Some studies indicate that women are less likely to trust that gen AI providers will keep their data secure. Other research shows that women are more fearful of a loss of control that comes with these technologieswhich is, for example, reflected in their more muted enthusiasm for driverless cars. Studies have also shown that women are more likely to avoid AI because of fears that it could steal their job, and still other studies have found that women are more concerned than men about the ethical implications of AI use.
But a growing body of research also indicates that a sizable chunk of the gap might be attributable to the type of environmental angst that people like Burgi feel. Earlier this month, academics at the University of Oxford published a paper showing that the reasons for the adoption gap are manifold, but that environmental concerns certainly play a significant part.
The research, titled Women Worry, Men Adopt: How Gendered Perceptions Shape the Use of Generative AI, draws on survey responses from 8,000 individuals in 2023 and 2024 across the U.K. It established that 14.7% of women and 20% of men reported using gen AI tools frequentlyat least once a weekin a personal context. This corresponds to a gap of just over 5 percentage points.
But the gap widens significantly in subsets of respondents who admit to being concerned about environmental and mental health risks. Among those who say they are worried about the climate, the gender gap is 9.3 percentage points; for those concerned about the mental health impact of these new technologies, it widens to 16.8 percentage points. Among older users of artificial intelligence, the gender gap for concerns about AIs climate effect is particularly wide: almost 18 percentage points.
These findings echo previous research showing that women are more likely to display eco-anxiety than mena phrase thats been coined to refer to the mental health distress caused by climate change, ranging from concerns about the impact of extreme weather to the future of biodiversity. And the academics at Oxford write that their findings align with evidence of greater social compassion and moral sensitivity among women.
Counterintuitive findings
Fabian Stephany, a departmental research lecturer at the Oxford Internet Institute and one of the authors of the study, says that one of the most interesting things his research found was that some common preconceptions about AI usage werent corroborated.
Theres a widely held assumption, for example, that greater tech literacy translates into higher use and adoption. But he found that this isnt always the case. In fact, in some cases, greater literacy and knowledge about AI actually drove down use.
Also of note, the research found that among those who said they were concerned about AIs impact on the environment and on mental health, womens concerns were more likely to translate into action than mens concerns. In other words: Women were more likely to stop using AI because of the way they felt about it.
Asked why that might be, Stephany said he could only speculate. Research done by academics in Iran in 2022, though, might provide an answer: It shows that women generally lean toward a more collectivist mindsetreflected in concerns for society, for examplewhile men tend to lean toward a more individualist one.
Women are “the canary in the coal mine”
Stephany says that the last thing he wants people to take away from this research is that women need to change or be fixed in some way. Their concerns are real, he says.
Women are like the canary in the coal mine. And we should listen to these concerns, he adds. The important thing isnt to tell women to be more optimisticits to address the harms. And, he says, these harms can be addressed.
Biases can be reduced, carbon footprints can be lowered, smaller models can be run locally, Stephani says. We dont have to wait for future breakthroughs. We can reduce harms now.
His research suggests that theres a sizable market of people with strong convictions about AI consumption, he says. A more green, sustainable, inclusive gen AI model would have a clear target market.”
And there are already platforms available that seem to be tapping into this market that Stephany mentions. GreenPT, for example, bills itself as a platform that runs on renewable energy and is hosted in Europe for strict data protection. Viro, another platform, funds clean energy projects and markets itself as a climate-neutral alternative to less environmentally conscious options.
Speaking at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last year, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, which operates ChatGPT, tried to allay fears that his technology might be accelerating climate change by framing it as a tool to enhance sustainability. If we have to spend even 1% of the worlds electricity training powerful AI, and that AI helps us figure out how to get to non-carbon-based energy or to do carbon capture better, that would be a massive win, he said.
As for Burgi, she would want to see a lot of changes before even entertaining the idea of intentionally incorporating AI use into her daily life. She doesnt think that anything could meaningfully allay her ethical concerns about AI. Especially as an artist, I just don’t feel morally aligned with using AI, she says.
In terms of her environmental concerns, shes similarly skeptical.
If there was more transparency, and if it seemed like more thought and care was being put into these thingsif it wasnt just about greed and capitalismthen I might consider it from an environmental concern, she says. But right now? I dont really see any of that happening.
