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Artificial intelligence is shaking the intellectual, emotional, and economic foundations of the world. A glance at mainstream or social media confirms that the world ahead will look nothing like the one were leaving behind. Technological disruption is nothing new. From bronze smelting in Benin and steel forging in Japan to Themistocless naval buildup in ancient Greece, history shows that transformative technologies spark societal shifts and national urgency. Todays urgency is AI. The White Houses recent executive order (EO) on AI education echoes past anxietiesthis time, about Chinas rapid advancement. You may have missed this EO amid the recent flood of them. But it’s a pivotal moment. Though well-intentioned, the EO lacks the depth needed for a truly informed AI educational policy. The EO defines its mission as providing opportunities to cultivate the skills and understanding necessary to use and create the next generation of AI technology. It outlines three imperatives: Expose our students to AI at an early age. Train teachers to effectively incorporate AI into their teaching methods. Promote AI literacy to develop an AI-ready workforce. These steps are necessary. AI is a profound shift, one that exposes long-standing deficiencies in our educational systemparticularly our neglect of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Still, the EO falls short in three key areas. Speaking as president and CEO of the Center of Science and Industry, a board member of the National Academies, and a lifelong STEM advocate, I say this: You cannot teach AI without also teaching critical thinking, ethics, and wisdom. Our national conversation must expand beyond technical training. As AI (and eventually artificial general intelligence) integrates into every part of life, we face a stark choice: Do we become passive consumers of knowledge, or do we intentionally cultivate wisdom? Technical proficiency alone turns us into carbon versions of AI. Instead, we need a cultural shiftone that champions critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and curiosity in classrooms, workplaces, and homes. The goal isnt just to understand AI, but to navigate the world it creates. Techno-optimism must be balanced with rigorous intellectual and moral interrogationor the doomers may be right. Though the EO doesnt address the human-AI relationship, Ill give it the benefit of the doubtits not a full policy, but a starting point. I hope future policy goes further, confronting AIs risks and outlining how education and society should respondboth philosophically and practically. For what it’s worth, my ideal AI curriculum would include more than practical skills. It would explore: Martin Heideggers insights on how technology shapes experience Nick Bostroms paper clip thought experiment Shoshana Zuboffs critique of surveillance capitalism Soon, AI wont need to be taughtit will be omnipresent. In the 1990s, we trained students to use a mouse and browse the web. But intuitive design soon made that obsolete. The same is happening with AIonly faster. Rather than focus on todays tools, AI education should teach how to understand technologys evolution. Computer scientist Alan Kay once said, Technology is anything that was invented after you were born. Maintaining global leadership requires more than technical prowessit demands cultural vision. After Sputnik, America feared falling behind in the space race. In the 1990s, it was Japan. Now, it’s China. But the true question is: Which nation will use AI to become the better society? French philosopher and diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville once said, America is great because it is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great. That quote echoes as I reflect on the EO and our future. To lead in AI, we must prioritize wisdom over raw intelligence. That greatness wont come from executive ordersbut from the strength of our social order.
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Last year, Will Arnett, Jason Bateman, and Sean Hayes signed a three-year deal, reportedly worth $100 million, to take their hit podcast SmartLess to SiriusXM. Now the trio are doing the next obvious thing . . . launching their own discount wireless network brand. SmartLess Mobile is not a two-months-late April Fools joke, but a real, honest-to-pod, low-cost, direct-to-consumer wireless brand. According to a press release, the logic is that since nearly 90% of our phones data is over Wi-Fi, consumers are paying for unlimited data they dont use. The new brands tagline is: Dont get OutSmarted. Get SmartLess. In a series of spots for the launch campaign, created by the ad agency Rethink, Arnett, Bateman, and Hayes are shot in black and white, riffing on what the new brands catchphrase should be. Shot by director Sam Jones, each has a striking resemblance to the podcasts six-part 2023 docuseries SmartLess: On the Road, also shot by Jones. Ryan Reynolds Redux The vibe of the SmartLess campaign is a self-awareness about pitching itself as a new brand and the eye rolls that may induce. Its also straight out of the Ryan Reynolds Advertising Playbook of satirizing the very thing youre doing to sell your product. Just as Reynolds was upfront about his ad gimmicks, so too are Arnett, Bateman, and Hayes in their own way as they lounge around and try to think up brand catchphrases. The other two spots, “Corporate Brainstorm” and “America, We Have an Announcement,” are so random that they almost feel like outtakes. The other similarity to Reynolds is how SmartLess Mobile is bringing celebrity brand ownership to the wireless category. Back in 2019, Reynolds bought a 25% stake in Mint Mobile and began pitching the brand to consumers. By 2023, T-Mobile announced it was acquiring the brand for more than $1 billion. Perhaps Reynolds was merely the tip of the spear, driving celebrity brand ownership beyond the low-hanging fruit of booze and beauty and into the realm of less sexy, but no less popular, brand categories. “The wireless industry has normalized complexity and confusion, but SmartLess Mobile disrupts that with radical transparency, said SmartLess mobile chief brand officer Jeni McAleese, in a statement. When you can make people laugh about a real problem while genuinely solving it, you’re not just marketingyou’re providing a public service.” Just like Mint Mobile, SmartLess Mobile is a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), meaning its a communications services company that doesnt own the telecom network infrastructure. SmartLess Mobile CEO Paul McAleese is a seasoned wireless exec who co-founded i-wireless, another MVNO that operated on Sprint’s network. According to the company, all three podcast hosts are equity investors in SmartLess Mobile, and the lead investor is Thomvest Asset Management, a fund manager owned by Toronto-based billionaire Peter Thomson. Who knew the celebrity brand timeline could go from tequila to telecom so quickly? The explosion of celebrity-backed brands caused consumer fatigue in some categories (like beauty) as far back as 2021. In that context, this is a shrewd move by the SmartLess crew, bringing celebrity to a virtually wide open and unexpected product category. Boring is the new cool. Today, its a wireless network. Tomorrow, you might be signing up for Armchair Expert Home Insurance.
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Ill admit it: I dont always wear a bike helmet. That’s especially true for short, unplanned rides using bike shareit doesn’t make sense to carry around a bulky helmet when I might not even use it. A new inflatable bike helmet, the Ventete aH-1, was designed to help tackle that problem. When the helmets not in use, it flattens so it can more easily fit in a bag. When you need to use it, it comes with a tiny battery-powered pump that fully inflates it in 30 seconds. After a decade of development by a London-based startup, the helmet came out in the U.K. last year and immediately sold out. It’s not yet available in the U.S., but I had the chance to try it out. (The design was one of the winners of Fast Company‘s 2025 World Changing Ideas Awards.) It looks nothing like any helmet I’ve ever seen. Instead of foam, it’s made from a series of ribs covered in strong, triple-laminated nylon. The flattened version isnt smallits roughly as long as a laptop. Even when its not inflated, its still somewhat thick. But unlike a typical helmet, it did easily squeeze into my backpack. It took me a couple of attempts to figure out how to inflate it, although the company has now tweaked the design so that the pump can be operated hands-free. In the version I tested, I had to hold the pump at a particular angle on the helmets Presta valve to work correctly. (When it did work, the buzz of the pump was also very loud: I was slightly embarrassed to use it in public.) But it was fast. A tiny level on the side shows when its correctly inflated. A strap at the back helps customize the fit. [Photo: Ventete] The design actually outperforms typical helmets on safety. When Imperial College London ran a study testing 30 different bike helmets, the aH-1 scored 44.1% better than the others in linear impact tests. [Photo: Ventete] “It’s incredibly strong,” says Colin Herperger, cofounder and CEO of Ventete, the startup that designed the helmet. “One of the founders drove his car on it. If you think about any other helmet, it would be in pieces. When people think about an inflatable structural system, they think it’s probably soft or squishy, and in fact, it’s the opposite. It’s actually super stiff.” [Photo: Ventete] The design is also comfortable to wear. When I tried riding with it on a hot day, my head stayed cool. Herperger points out that EPS foam, the material used in conventional bike helmets, is the same material used to insulate coolers to keep ice from melting. In a standard foam helmet, “heat is trying to leave your head, and it’s reflecting it back down and causing you to further overheat,” Herperger says. In the new design, “because of the chamber system, it’s actually lifted off the head, and you get a conductive airflow between the head and the helmet. So the hot air is just drawn away from your head.” I liked the way the origami-like design looked, too. It’s something I’d definitely be willing to wearthough at 350 (around $475) for the helmet and pump, it isn’t cheap. And because it’s still waiting for regulatory approval in the U.S., I can’t keep using it now. While the timeline for approval isn’t clear, it may roll out here later this year.
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E-Commerce
The United States ranks 24th out of 100 on the list of happiest countries, according to the latest World Happiness Report. Being in the top 25% seems fair when you consider everything thats happening in the world, but the stats arent great when you look at the happiness of people aged 30 and younger. In this demographic, the U.S. falls to number 62 on the list. Its unsettling, because it was always youth that pulled the happiness levels up on these scales, says Jennifer Moss, author of Unlocking Happiness at Work: How a Data-driven Happiness Strategy Fuels Purpose, Passion and Performance. They’re the ones that are supposed to be the hopeful, pushing-back-against-the-status-quo generation. Right now, they’re struggling, and I think this is the canary in the coal mine. Still, the report found a lot of good in the world. Participants were asked Have you helped a stranger or someone you didnt know who needed help in the past month? Seventy-one percent of Americans said yes. That seems like a reason for hope, right? In reality, we’re actually more prosocial than we’ve ever been, says Moss. We just hear about how awful and terrible and unhappy the world is. Happiness is ultimately a choice, says Moss. If you are feeling unhappy, its possible to rewire your brain for more positivity. Here are five things you can do today. 1. Surround Yourself with Happy Friends Ever walk into a room after two people are fighting and immediately feel awkward or tense? Or maybe you hear laughter down the hall, start smiling yourself, and get up to see whats going on? Absorbing the emotions of others around you is called the contagion effect, and it can be beneficial. A study published in the British Medical Journal found that proximity and time spent with a happy friend, sibling, parent, or neighbor increases your own happiness by as much as 34%. We have a relational energy with other people, says Moss. We can use the contagion effect for ourselves [by spending more time with people who are happy]. 2. Look for Abundance Henry Ford once said, Whether you think you can or you think you cantyoure right. In other words, what you expect is often what you get. This attitude trickles over into happiness, as well. Instead of being disappointed by what you dont have, focus on what you do. Shifting your mindset from scarcity to abundance can rewire your brain, says Moss. It’s called attention retraining, says Moss. It’s an exercise for your prefrontal cortex. The more you use it, the stronger it becomes. When you’re going through stress or feeling low, this exercise can pull you out of the feeling that everything is hopeless. Take it one step further by keeping a gratitude journal, recording three things youre thankful for each day. Research published in the Taiwanese Journal of Psychiatry found that happiness and gratitude are interconnected. Thankfulness for even small blessings is associated with an improved mood and a greater sense of happiness. 3. Choose Happiness for Others Another way to boost your happiness is to make someone else happy. For example, grab a coffee for a coworker, pay a genuine compliment, or simply let someone merge in front of you on the way into work. Acts of altruism or kindness stimulate the feel-good chemicals in our bodies, such as serotonin and oxytocin, which regulate our mood, says Moss. It also increases the connectivity we have with people, she says. It makes us more trusting. And when we are engaging in altruism, it lowers our cortisol, which is the stress hormone. A study published in the Review of General Psychology found that performing five acts of kindness in a single day increases your own happiness beyond that timeframe. It has a half-life, says Moss. It’s like taking medication and having it last for a month. 4. Seek Out Brief Positive Interactions Another way to boost your happiness is as simple as acknowledging strangers. Research by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D., published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that brief positive interactions, like eye contact or a smile, activates the Vagus nerve, which impacts your nervous system. She calls it the positivity resonance, explains Moss. It activates a part of the brain that calms you down. Consider this as you navigate the office hallways, step onto an elevator, or encounter people on a walk or in the grocery store line. Those minimal relationships you have in passing can help boost happiness and reduce loneliness. 5. Slow Down Finally, make a point to slow down and savor positive experiences. We’re all going really fast right now, trying to keep up, says Moss. Stopping along the way, though, can increase your brain’s capacity to notice and retain positive emotion. For example, take time to look at an unusual cloud shape or smell the blooming flowers. Reflecting on it can give you joy and appreciation, says Moss. Were in a state of chronic digital distraction, which is weakening the prefrontal cortexthe part of the brain that helps us manage our emotional regulation. Making Happiness a Habit Knowing how to rewire your brain is the first step. he second is to put the actions into play, which can be challenging if youre feeling unhappy and stressed out. Moss recommends putting reminders on your calendar that nudge you to take a walk in nature, record an entry in your gratitude journal, or make plans with a friend or family member who always boosts your mood. Make it a habit or ritual, she says. Knowing you have something to do or report to at a certain time can trigger those feel-good chemicals to start before the alarm goes off. Youll create preemptive healthy emotions, knowing youre going to do something that makes you happier. Dont be frustrated if in a month you haven’t completely rewired your brain, adds Moss. Rewiring is about consistency and frequency and fluency, she says. Celebrating small wins will provide the positive reinforcement our brains love. The more we do it, the more it becomes easy to practice.
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Have you been hearing about the dire wolf lately? Maybe you saw a massive white wolf on the cover of Time magazine or a photo of Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin holding a puppy named after a character from his books. The dire wolf, a large, wolflike species that went extinct about 12,000 years ago, has been in the news after biotech company Colossal claimed to have resurrected it using cloning and gene-editing technologies. Colossal calls itself a de-extinction company. The very concept of de-extinction is a lightning rod for criticism. There are broad accusations of playing God or messing with nature, as well as more focused objections that contemporary de-extinction tools create poor imitations rather than truly resurrected species. While the biological and philosophical debates are interesting, the legal ramifications for endangered species conservation are of paramount importance. As a legal scholar with a PhD in wildlife genetics, my work focuses on how we legally define the term endangered species. The use of biotechnology for conservation, whether for de-extinction or genetic augmentation of existing species, promises solutions to otherwise intractable problems. But it needs to work in harmony with both the letter and purpose of the laws governing biodiversity conservation. Of dire wolves and de-extinction What did Colossal actually do? Scientists extracted and sequenced DNA from Ice Age-era bones to understand the genetic makeup of the dire wolf. They were able to piece together around 90% of a complete dire wolf genome. While the gray wolf and the dire wolf are separated by a few million years of evolution, they share over 99.5% of their genomes. The scientists scanned the recovered dire wolf sequences for specific genes that they believed were responsible for the physical and ecological differences between dire wolves and other species of canids, including genes related to body size and coat color. CRISPR gene-editing technology allows scientists to make specific changes in the DNA of an organism. The Colossal team used CRISPR to make 20 changes in 14 different genes in a modern gray wolf cell before implanting the embryo into a surrogate mother. All thats left of dire wolves today are bones, like these skulls on display in a museum. [Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images] While the technology on display is marvelous, what should we call the resulting animals? Some commentators argue that the animals are just modified gray wolves. They point out that it would take far more than 20 edits to bridge the gap left by millions of years of evolution. For instance, that 0.5% of the genome that doesnt match in the two species represents more than 12 million base pair differences. More philosophically, perhaps, other skeptics argue that a species is more than a collection of genes devoid of environmental, ecological, or evolutionary context. Colossal, on the other hand, maintains that it is in the functional de-extinction game. The company acknowledges it isnt making a perfect dire wolf copy. Instead it wants to recreate something that looks and acts like the dire wolf of old. It prefers the if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, its a duck school of speciation. Disagreements about taxonomythe science of naming and categorizing living organismsare as old as the field itself. Biologists are notorious for failing to adopt a single clear definition of species, and there are dozens of competing definitions in the biological literature. Biologists can afford to be flexible and imprecise when the stakes are merely a conversational misunderstanding. Lawyers and policymakers, on the other hand, do not have that luxury. Deciding what counts as an endangered species In the United States, the Endangered Species Act is the main tool for protecting biodiversity. To be protected by the act, an organism must be a member of an endangered or threatened species. Some of the most contentious ESA issues are definitional, such as whether the listed species is a valid species and whether individual organisms, especially hybrids, are members of the listed species. Colossals functional species concept is anathema to the Endangered Species Act. It shrinks the value of a species down to the way it looks or the way it functions. When passing the act, however, Congress made clear that species were to be valued for their aesthetic, ecological, educational, historical, recreational, and scientific value to the Nation and its people. In my view, the myopic focus on function seems to miss the point. Despite its insistence otherwise, Colossals definitional sleight of hand has opened the door to arguments that people should reduce conservation funding or protections for currently imperiled species. Why spend the money to protect a critter and its habitat when, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, you can just pick your favorite species and call up Colossal? Putting biotechnology to work for onservation Biotechnology can provide real conservation benefits for todays endangered species. I suggest gene editings real value is not in recreating facsimiles of long-extinct species like dire wolves, but instead using it to recover ones in trouble now. Projects, by both Colossal and other groups, are underway around the world to help endangered species develop disease resistance or evolve to tolerate a warmer world. Other projects use gene editing to reintroduce genetic variation into populations where genetic diversity has been lost. For example, Colossal has also announced that it has cloned a red wolf. Unlike the dire wolf, the red wolf is not extinct, though it came extremely close. After decades of conservation efforts, there are about a dozen red wolves in the wild in the reintroduced population in eastern North Carolina, as well as a few hundred red wolves in captivity. The entire population of red wolves, both wild and captive, descends from merely 14 founders of the captive breeding program. This limited heritage means the species has lost a significant amount of the genetic diversity that would help it continue to evolve and adapt. In order to reintroduce some of that missing genetic diversity, youd need to find genetic material from red wolves outside the managed population. Right now that would require stored tissue samples from animals that lived before the captive breeding program was established or rediscovering a lost population in the wild. Recently, researchers discovered that coyotes along the Texas Gulf Coast possess a sizable percentage of red wolf-derived DNA in their genomes. Hybridization between coyotes and red wolves is both a threat to red wolves and a natural part of their evolutionary history, complicating management. The red wolf genes found within these coyotes do present a possible source of genetic material that biotechnology could harness to help the captive breeding population if the legal hurdles can be managed. This coyote population was Colossals source for its cloned ghost red wolf. Even this announcement is marred by definitional confusion. Due to its hybrid nature, the animal Colossal cloned is likely not legally considered a red wolf at all. Under the Endangered Species Act, hybrid organisms are typically not protected. So by cloning one of these animals, Colossal likely sidestepped the need for ESA permits. It will almost certainly run into resistance if it attempts to breed these ghost wolves into the current red wolf captive breeding program that has spent decades trying to minimize hybridization. How much to value genetic purity versus genetic diversity in managed species still proves an extraordinarily difficult question, even without the legal uncertainty. Biotechnology could never solve every conservation problemespecially habitat destruction. The ability to make functional copies of a species certainly does not lessen the urgency to respond to biodiversity loss, nor does it reduce human beings moral culpability. But to adequately respond to the ever-worsening biodiversity crisis, conservationists will need all available tools. Alex Erwin is an assistant professor of law at Florida International University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 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