AI’s potential benefits are incredible. But right now, we’re sleepwalking into a dangerous world that no one wants. As @tristanharris argues in an urgent new TED Talk, this doesn’t have to be inevitable. It’s essential we snap out of the trance, face the dangerous implications of our current path, and coordinate toward a new path for AI. Watch the talk: bit.ly/44Aihft Read the text version here: bit.ly/4lTlwon

The man who invented infinite scroll recently testified against Meta in a child-safety trial. @aza built it with good intentions and watched it get weaponized. Now he's trying to fix it with @HumaneTech_ and in conversation with Ramesh Srinivasan. 🎧 Link in comments #MetaTrial

@aza on why cognetics is so important to ethical tech design, and how tech's harm traces back to optimizing for a metric instead of for what people actually need. Link to the full conversation with Co-Founder of @HumaneTech_ Aza Raskin in the comments below! #TechEthics #AI

Stop the AI Drift is live across the NYC subway. While we debate what AI could do tomorrow, it’s already changing how we think, work, and relate to each other today. We call it AI drift. Learn more at itsnotyouits.ai #AIDrift #ItsNotYouItsAI

Link to the podcast episode: open.spotify.com/episode/6vh…

Good intentions will get eaten by incentives. That’s one of the key lessons @aza, creator of the infinite scroll, learned once his innovation dramatically changed how we consume information online. 🔗 to the conversation with Co-Founder of @HumaneTech_ Aza Raskin below!

It’s been a whirlwind week in AI. Weeks after a series of hacking incidents by rogue agents at OpenAI and Anthropic, we’ve seen a cascade of top AI researchers blow the whistle on what they call the catastrophic and even existential risks that come from the current pace of development. Then, over the weekend, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for a slowdown in AI research — a call that was echoed by his competitors Sam Altman and Elon Musk. This week on Your Undivided Attention, @tristanharris shares how he’s feeling in this critical moment, breaks down the headlines from an insider's perspective, and points to tangible steps we can take right now to avoid the worst-case scenario. Read — bit.ly/4dit1T2 Watch — bit.ly/3TdxdN8 Listen — apple.co/4hdMjKy

CHT co-founder @aza Raskin sat down with @RameshMedias on the Utopias Podcast to discuss ethical tech design, maintaining connection and creativity, and his advice for the next generation of technologists. Check out the full episode here: bit.ly/4gXuAYP

At @TEDxMiami, @camille_carlton spoke about something many of us are already feeling: as AI integrates more and more into our daily lives we risk giving up some of the very things that make us human. We have a name for it: AI drift. AI drift is the gradual erosion of our skills, relationships, and sense of meaning as we rely on AI to do more and more for us. It happens quietly — one shortcut, one convenience, one delegated task at a time — which makes it easy to miss while it’s happening. But it isn’t inevitable. We’re working to stop AI drift and build the norms and protections we need to preserve what makes us human in the AI age. And this is just the beginning. Keep your eyes peeled for something big coming next week. Sign up at humanetech.com/aidrift to be the first to know. And you can watch Camille's full TED talk here: bit.ly/4r3TSId

We're gearing up for the annual Ask Us Anything episode for our podcast Your Undivided Attention, with our hosts @tristanharris and @aza. The stakes of the AI race have never been higher. Seemingly every day there's a headline about a new trend to watch or danger to worry about. We know you have a lot of questions — and we'd love to hear them. So take out your phone, record your questions, and send them to: undivided@humanetech.com.

This week we’ve seen a number of warnings about AI safety from researchers and commentators, including a letter from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei calling for a slower pace of development. AI industry leaders warning the public about the very technologies they are building should be a turning point for how people and policymakers treat the harms and risks of AI. Calls to slow AI advancement underscore how serious this issue has become. AI systems are already shaping who gets hired, how people are surveilled, how our children learn, and where a struggling teenager turns for advice or comfort. Slowing down development is only meaningful if the time is spent putting real protections in place that both address future risk and the harms humanity is already experiencing. The AI industry needs oversight, transparency, and accountability that doesn't rely on self-regulation by AI companies. The lack of accountability to date has allowed the world’s top AI companies to race toward increasingly advanced AI without addressing the risks and harms they create. This week’s news only strengthens the case for standards that protect people from the harms we’re seeing today and the catastrophic risks of the future. Here at CHT, we’ve detailed the path forward in our AI Roadmap: humanetech.com/ai-roadmap

Feeling confused, anxious, or overwhelmed by the recent AI headlines, from rogue OpenAI agents carrying out cyberattacks and growing pressure on jobs to prominent AI researchers resigning to warn about existential risks to humanity? To understand how we got here, and what we can do, watch @theaidocfilm now streaming on Netflix starting Sept 15th as well as other major streaming platforms. Host a screening, share it with your friends. Clarity unlocks agency. #theaidoc #theaidocfilm Netflix: bit.ly/4xq5gQk Amazon Prime: bit.ly/3UVd6np YouTube: bit.ly/4cOjYJj

Today, Governor @GavinNewsom signed Bill 1709 into law in California, requiring social media platforms to disable addictive design features by default for young users. This law builds on the momentum from Meta’s landmark settlement last month, making clear that design-based protections — turning off autoplay, recommender algorithms, and infinite scroll by default — are the best path forward for young people's safety online. These protections address the root harm of causes in a durable way, while still allowing young people to access social media platforms. In a press conference following the signing of the bill, Governor Newsom acknowledged the strength of the safety-by-design approach: “This is about actually addressing the substantive issues around the engineering. If you address that, then the age issue is not the essential issue. And that’s what makes this truly a significant and consequential bill.” We agree. And we commend Governor Newsom for signing this legislation into law and continuing California's leadership on kids’ online safety and tech safety-by-design. We encourage other states and the federal government to adopt similar design-based protections. Thank you to @AsmLowenthal's tireless leadership on kids' online safety, and to our partner organizations like @DesignItForUs and EPIC who helped get us here. nyti.ms/4dedzHx

"The evidence is clear that a thoroughly human-raised childhood is the best preparation for a thoroughly AI world. The question that keeps me up at night is whether every child will get one." Childhood development expert @DrDanaSuskind has spent her career working to prevent early cognitive disparities and their lifelong impact. Now, she's sounding the alarm on a fundamental new threat from AI: that human presence, the one input every child's brain needs, is at risk of becoming a luxury good. Read Dr. Suskind's piece on the importance of human-raised childhoods in an AI age on our Substack: bit.ly/4xAJR7D

We brought together a working group of experts across law, sociology, and philosophy to explore what makes us uniquely human — and what parts of our human experience are worth protecting from AI. Their answer? Friction. At her fireside chat with @TechEthicist on AI and What Makes Us Human, @camille_carlton spoke about the importance of friction to human flourishing and why we should resist the urge to eliminate it with AI. We'll be releasing the report from our working group as part of our upcoming campaign to Stop the #AIDrift: the gradual erosion of human abilities as AI takes on more of our daily lives. You can sign up for updates on this work here: bit.ly/3UmMj34 And watch the full video of Camille and David's talk here: bit.ly/4wS8vzE

"Our humanity itself is a new type of product in this era of AI" @camille_carlton spoke to @TechEthicist about "AI Drift": the gradual erosion of human abilities as AI takes on more of our daily lives. As we rely on AI to think, communicate, create, and act for us, we start losing the skills, relationships, and sense of meaning that come from doing those things ourselves. This fall, CHT is launching a campaign to Stop the AI Drift — to push back against the erosion of what makes us human and to advocate for the new rights and protections we need in the AI age. To stay up to date on this work, you can sign up here: bit.ly/3UmMj34 And you can watch the full video of Camille and David's fireside chat here: bit.ly/4wS8vzE Thank you so much to @AllTechIsHuman and @Brainstation for hosting this event!

In AI, what gets measured gets optimized. Right now, the entire industry is racing to measure how capable models are, while ignoring what those models actually do to the people who use them. What if we flipped that? What if, instead of measuring what AI can do, we started measuring what AI does to us? Instead of a race to the bottom on engagement and capability, what if we built the infrastructure to incentivize a race to the top — on safety, on human resilience, on flourishing? That's the mission behind CHT's Humane Evals program: bringing together researchers, psychologists, and engineers from across the AI ecosystem to build the tools we need to measure AI's impact on humans. In this week’s episode of Your Undivided Attention, @aza sits down with researchers @imrankhan and Jared Moore to dig into what this work looks like in practice, the challenges ahead, and why this field is critically needed in this moment. Watch — bit.ly/4gnzwpB Read — bit.ly/4gmKgVf Listen — apple.co/4gSVilg