Dinner Is Being Recorded, Whether You Know It or Not; The New York Times, February 16, 2026

  Luke Fortney , The New York Times; Dinner Is Being Recorded, Whether You Know It or Not

"To be in public is to risk being filmed. And these days, there’s a good chance it’s happening surreptitiously with smart glasses. Their wearers are filming in restaurants, cafes and bars, capturing warped, eye-level video of drive-through pranks, Michelin-starred meals and work shifts at Texas Roadhouse. Servers, owners and customers can end up as captive participants...

Filming in public spaces is broadly protected by the First Amendment. Some states, including California and Pennsylvania, have two-party consent laws that prohibit recording without express permission, but enforcing them hinges on whether someone has a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in a given setting, said Aaron Krowne, a New York City lawyer specializing in privacy and civil liberties. Restaurants fall in a legal gray area: They are privately owned, but open to anyone who walks in...

The responsibility of using these devices ethically falls largely on the wearer."

Trump administration is erasing history and science at national parks, lawsuit argues; AP, February 17, 2026

 MATTHEW DALY, AP; Trump administration is erasing history and science at national parks, lawsuit argues

"Conservation and historical organizations sued the Trump administration on Tuesday over National Park Service policies that the groups say erase history and science from America’s national parks. 

A lawsuit filed in Boston says orders by President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum have forced park service staff to remove or censor exhibits that share factually accurate and relevant U.S. history and scientific knowledge, including about slavery and climate change. 

Separately, LGBTQ+ rights advocates and historic preservationists sued the park service Tuesday for removing a rainbow Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument, the New York site that commemorates a foundational moment in the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. 

The changes at exhibits came in response to a Trump executive order “restoring truth and sanity to American history” at the nation’s museums, parks and landmarks. It directed the Interior Department to ensure those sites do not display elements that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” Burgum later directed removal of “improper partisan ideology” from museums, monuments, landmarks and other public exhibits under federal control...

The suit was filed by a coalition that includes the National Parks Conservation Association, American Association for State and Local History, Association of National Park Rangers and Union of Concerned Scientists. It comes as a federal judge on Monday ordered that an exhibit about nine people enslaved by George Washington must be restored at his former home in Philadelphia."

Honoring Alex Pretti’s Moral Courage and the Cost of Caring; The Hastings Center for Bioethics, February 17, 2026

 Connie M. Ulrich, Mary D. Naylor and Martha A. Q. Curley , The Hastings Center for Bioethics; Honoring Alex Pretti’s Moral Courage and the Cost of Caring

"The death of Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who was killed last month in an anti-immigration protest in Minneapolis, is, first and foremost, a devastating loss for his loved ones. But it has also shaken the nursing profession to the core. 

People often encounter nurses at the bedside when they  are ill or someone close to them is ill. But nurses also have a long history of advocating for social justice in their communities, speaking out against unjust policies, challenging unsafe practices, and advancing public health reforms.

The 2025 Code of Ethics for Nurses reflects this activism. It calls on all nurses to be civically engaged and to work toward policies and systems that have positive ends for the communities in which we live and work. Alex met this call. 

Alex used his ICU training to help someone in need; it was second nature to him and reflected his primary obligation as a registered nurse to protect the rights and well-being of patients, families, and communities. He lost his life because he helped a woman during a protest against federal immigration action in Minneapolis. Pretti stepped in front of the woman, who was on the ground, to protect her from being pepper sprayed by U.S. Border Patrol agents. Agents then pinned Pretti to the ground and shot him.

Nurses are no strangers to conflict and moral turmoil. They take a professional and ethical oath to care for anyone — victim or perpetrator — regardless of their identity or ideological belief. But Alex’s death exposes a stark and troubling reality for every nurse and healthcare provider: Immigration enforcement agents are now occupying spaces that should be protected in hospitals, waiting rooms, lobbies, and clinics. These are places where patients must feel safe and trust that they will receive care without discrimination and be protected from intimidation. 

The presence of immigration enforcement agents in these places is creating profound moral distress and a climate of deep fear for all those who deliver care and for the people who need it most within these buildings. Nurses and other healthcare providers are caught in the age-old dilemma between what is ethical and what is legal: They question what they ought to do when faced with immigration enforcement agents standing outside hospital rooms and observing the care they are ethically and professionally obligated to protect.

When nurses and other healthcare providers cannot meet their ethical duties to protect the rights and welfare of their patients, this distress can intensify into a deeper wound with lingering residue of regret and a searing violation of their sense of integrity. 

For their part, patients may withhold critical health information, become afraid to ask questions, and mistrust health professionals when immigration enforcement agents are present. Patients who are immigrants are most vulnerable to these harms, but other patients may also experience them. The harms – to healthcare providers and patients – can ultimately compromise ethical decision-making, patient-and family-centered care, and the overall quality of care that all patients deserve, and healthcare providers are trained to deliver.

The patients and families cared for by Alex will always remember him. Nurses will remember Alex’s sacrifice – that his caring extended beyond the walls of his hospital to the stranger he protected in his community. 

Nurses can honor Alex’s moral courage through our individual and professional resolve. We must say no more to the infiltration of immigration enforcement into healthcare spaces that were previously off limits to them. We must speak out on re-establishing “safe zones,” hospital-wide policies that limit enforcement access, and confidential reporting mechanisms that reflect the humanity of the nursing profession towards those we took an oath to serve. 

May a better and more humane world prevail, reminding each of us that moral courage carries risk, but it also helps us rise to the occasion when change and moral repair are needed most. We are at that moment.

Connie M. Ulrich, PhD, RN, is a registered nurse and professor of nursing and of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and a Hastings Center Fellow. LinkedIn: connieulrich1, X: @cm_ulrich

Mary D. Naylor, PhD, RN, is a registered nurse and professor of gerontology and nursing at Penn’s School of Nursing. LinkedIn: Mary_Naylor,  X: @MaryDNaylor

Martha A.Q. Curley, PhD, RN, is a registered nurse and professor of pediatric nursing at Penn’s School of Nursing.LinkedIn: Martha-a-q-curley, X: maqcurley, Bluesky: @maqc.bsky.social"

Reclaiming Human Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence; Journal of Moral Theology, December 17, 2025

 AI Research Group of the Centre for Digital Culture, Paul Scherz, Brian Patrick Green, Journal of Moral Theology; Reclaiming Human Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Episcopal presiding officers sign court brief opposing Trump administration’s asylum policies; Episcopal News Service (ENS), February 17, 2026

  David Paulsen, Episcopal News Service (ENS); Episcopal presiding officers sign court brief opposing Trump administration’s asylum policies

"The Episcopal Church’s two presiding officers, Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe and House of Deputies President Julia Ayala Harris, have signed onto a “friend of the court” brief along with a long list of other ecumenical and interfaith leaders in support of a lawsuit objecting to the Trump administration’s treatment of asylum-seekers.

The lawsuit was filed by Al Otro Lado, a California-based organization that supports refugees and migrants. Its class-action lawsuit seeks to end the Department of Homeland Security’s practice of turning away asylum-seekers at the border based on criteria that, opponents say, does not follow U.S. immigration law. At issue are administration policies under which border officials have ordered those migrants to remain in Mexico or have denied them asylum because they did not first seek asylum in another country.

The case is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco.

The Episcopal Church has long spoken in favor of upholding the dignity of refugees and migrants while citing the biblical call to “welcome the stranger.” Such beliefs were cited by the presiding officers and the dozens of ecumenical and interfaith partners in the “friend of the court” brief. The Episcopal Diocese of New York and Episcopal Divinity School also joined the brief.

“Many of these faith traditions are practiced across every country on Earth and have roots stretching back thousands of years,” the brief says. “All make safeguarding the stranger a core component of faith, a duty obligatory upon not just the individual but upon society as a whole.”

The brief also describes asylum as “a core religious and moral tenet of our society, with a history as old as humanity itself.” The signatories warn of “how extreme, and untenable, the government’s interpretation of our asylum laws is from a historical, religious and social perspective.”

“From the first days of its founding, this country has welcomed the stranger fleeing persecution,” the brief says. “Stopping outsiders at our border and preventing them from lawfully seeking asylum is contrary to our civilization’s longstanding understanding of asylum and antithetical to asylum’s understood role in a moral, democratic society.”"

New research from Notre Dame theologian and Vatican working group explores how to ‘reclaim human agency’ in age of AI; Notre Dame News, February 17, 2026

 Carrie Gates, Notre Dame News; New research from Notre Dame theologian and Vatican working group explores how to ‘reclaim human agency’ in age of AI

"One of the fundamental promises of artificial intelligence is that it will strengthen human agency by freeing us from mundane, repetitive tasks.

However, a new publication, co-edited by University of Notre Dame theologian Paul Scherz, argues that promise “rings hollow” in the face of efforts by technology companies to manipulate consumers — and ultimately deprive them of agency.

The book, “Reclaiming Human Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence,” is the second in a series created by the Vatican’s AI Research Group for the Centre for Digital Culture. Part of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Culture and Education, the group is composed of scholars from across North America who represent a range of disciplines from theology and philosophy to computer science and business.

“We wanted to examine the idea of how AI affects human actions, human freedom and the ability of people to develop virtues — which we classified under the heading of human agency,” said Scherz, the Our Lady of Guadalupe College Professor of Theology and the ND–IBM Tech Ethics Lab Program Chair. “This is such an important topic right now because one of the most hyped developments that we’re hearing about right now is ‘agentic’ AI — or AI that will take action for people.

“We think it’s important to distinguish what the differences are between these AI agents and true human agents — and how the AI we have now is affecting our actions.”

In “Reclaiming Human Agency,” Scherz, co-editor Brian Patrick Green of Santa Clara University and their fellow research group members cite potentially problematic issues with the technology, including addictive applications, “surveillance capitalism” that exploits users’ personal data for profit, widespread de-skilling in the workplace as complex tasks are handed over to AI and the growth of algorithmic governance — where social media algorithms influence what people buy, how they perceive events and even how they vote.

They also assert that human agency should not be seen in terms of “freedom from” tasks, but in “freedom for” pursuing the good, seeking excellence and purpose by building flourishing relationships with others and with God."

Stephen Colbert says CBS lawyers pulled James Talarico interview as early voting begins in Texas; AP, February 17, 2026

 MEG KINNARD, JIM VERTUNO AND JOHN HANNA, AP; Stephen Colbert says CBS lawyers pulled James Talarico interview as early voting begins in Texas

"Late-night host Stephen Colbert said his interview with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico was pulled from Monday night’s broadcast over network fears it would violate regulatory guidance from the Trump administration on giving equal time to political candidates.

The issue came just hours before early voting opened Tuesday in Texas’ primary elections, which feature hotly contested Senate nomination races in both parties. 

“He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert said on his program, ”The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

“Then I was told, in some uncertain terms, that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on. And because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this.”"

Setting AI Policy; Library Journal, February 9, 2026

 Matt Enis, Library Journal; Setting AI Policy

"As artificial intelligence tools become pervasive, public libraries may want to establish transparent guidelines for how they are used by staff

Policy statements are important, because “people have very different ideas about what is acceptable or appropriate,” says Nick Tanzi, assistant director at South Huntington Public Library (SHPL), NY, who was recently selected by the Public Library Association to be part of a Transformative Technology Task Force focused on artificial intelligence (AI).

In the library field, opinions about AI—particularly with the recent emergence of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Copilot—currently run the gamut from enthusiastic adoption to informed objection. But even the technology’s detractors would agree that AI has already become an integral part of the information-seeking tools many people use every day. Google searches now frequently generate Gemini AI responses as top results. Microsoft has ingrained Copilot into its Windows OS and Office software. ChatGPT’s global monthly active users exceeded 800 million at the end of 2025. Patrons are using these tools, and they may have questions or need assistance. Libraries should be clear about how these and other AI technologies are being used within their institutions."

Judge invokes George Orwell’s ‘1984’ in ordering restoration of Philadelphia slavery exhibit; The Hill, February 16, 2026

  ZACH SCHONFELD, The Hill; Judge invokes George Orwell’s ‘1984’ in ordering restoration of Philadelphia slavery exhibit 

"A federal judge ordered the National Park Service to restore exhibits about slaves who lived at the nation’s one-time executive mansion in Philadelphia, agreeing with the city that the Trump administration likely unlawfully removed the displays. 

U.S. District Judge Cynthia Rufe invoked the dystopian novel “1984” as she blocked the Trump administration from changing or damaging the site, which is now an outdoor exhibition.

“As if the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1984 now existed, with its motto ‘Ignorance is Strength,’ this Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims—to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts. It does not,” Rufe wrote. 

Rufe is an appointee of former President George W. Bush."

The economics of AI outweigh ethics for tech CEOs, business leader says; CNN, February 16, 2026

 CNN; The economics of AI outweigh ethics for tech CEOs, business leader says

"Podcast host and business leader Scott Galloway joins Dana Bash on "Inside Politics" to discuss the need for comprehensive government regulation of AI. “We have increasingly outsourced our ethics, our civic responsibility, what is good for the public to the CEOs of companies of tech," Galloway tells Bash, adding, "This is another example of how government is failing to step in and provide thoughtful, sensible regulations.” His comments come as the Pentagon confirms it's reviewing a contract with AI company Anthropic after a reported clash over the scope of AI guardrails."

AI legal advice is driving lawyers bananas; Axios, February 9, 2026

 Emily Peck, Axios; AI legal advice is driving lawyers bananas

"AI promises to make work more productive for lawyers, but there's a problem: Their clients are using it, too.

Why it matters: The rise of AI is creating new headaches for attorneys: They're worried about the fate of the billable hour, a reliable profit center for aeons, and are perturbed by clients getting bad legal advice from chatbots.

Zoom in: "It's like the WebMD effect on steroids," says Dave Jochnowitz, a partner at the law firm Outten & Golden, referring to how medical websites can give people a misguided understanding of their condition."

Olympics turn political as US athletes speak out against Trump; The Hill, February 16, 2026

 DOMINICK MASTRANGELO , The Hill; Olympics turn political as US athletes speak out against Trump

 "A growing number of Olympic athletes competing for the U.S. in this month’s Winter Games are expressing discomfort with representing the country under President Trump’s administration, sparking intense pushback from the president’s supporters and Trump himself. 

Trump attacked U.S. athlete Hunter Hess directly after Hess said he was conflicted about competing for Team USA given the country’s political climate.

“It brings up mixed emotions to represent the U.S. right now. I think it’s a little hard,” Hess, a freestyle skier, told reporters during a recent press conference. “There’s obviously a lot going on that I’m not the biggest fan of, and I think a lot of people aren’t. Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.” 

The president in a Truth Social post hours later called Hess a “real loser” and said it is “very hard to root for someone like this” when watching the games. 

Hess’s comments came days after Amber Glenn, an American figure skater, decried the administration’s policies toward people in the LGBTQ community."  

ByteDance says it will add safeguards to Seedance 2.0 following Hollywood backlash; CNBC, February 16, 2026

 Dylan Butts, CNBC; ByteDance says it will add safeguards to Seedance 2.0 following Hollywood backlash

"Chinese tech giant ByteDance has said it will strengthen safeguards on a new artificial intelligence video-making tool, following complaints of copyright theft from entertainment giants. 

The tool, Seedance 2.0, enables users to create realistic videos based on text prompts. However, viral videos shared online appear to show copyrighted characters and celebrity likenesses, raising intellectual property concerns in the U.S. 

“ByteDance respects intellectual property rights and we have heard the concerns regarding Seedance 2.0,” a company spokesperson said in a statement shared with CNBC."

Accounting giant KPMG fines partner for using AI to cheat on training exam; Semafor, February 16, 2026

 Tom Chivers, Semafor ; Accounting giant KPMG fines partner for using AI to cheat on training exam

"The accounting giant KPMG fined one of its partners for using AI to cheat on a training exam… about using AI, one of a number of unintentionally illustrative incidents involving the firm. 

The $7,000 fine is one of several penalties it has meted out: Dozens of other staff have also been caught cheating on exams using AI."

The problem with doorbell cams: Nancy Guthrie case and Ring Super Bowl ad reawaken surveillance fears; The Guardian, February 14, 2026

 Sanya Mansoor , The Guardian; The problem with doorbell cams: Nancy Guthrie case and Ring Super Bowl ad reawaken surveillance fears

"What happens to the data that smart home cameras collect? Can law enforcement access this information – even when users aren’t aware officers may be viewing their footage? Two recent events have put these concerns in the spotlight.

A Super Bowl ad by the doorbell-camera company Ring and the FBI’s pursuit of the kidnapper of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, have resurfaced longstanding concerns about surveillance against a backdrop of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The fear is that home cameras’ video feeds could become yet another part of the government’s mass surveillance apparatus...

“Ring has a history of playing it pretty loose with people’s privacy rights,” said Beryl Lipton, senior investigative researcher at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission charged the company with “compromising its customers’ privacy by allowing any employee or contractor to access consumers’ private videos and by failing to implement basic privacy and security protections”. This, in turn, allowed hackers to “take control of consumers’ accounts, cameras, and videos”. Ring agreed to pay $5.8m in a settlement with the FTC."

I Trusted Jeff Bezos. The Joke’s on Me.; The New York Times, February 14, 2026

  Lydia Polgreen, The New York Times; I Trusted Jeff Bezos. The Joke’s on Me.

"At the end of the century, a journalism scholar published a fascinating comparative study of regional newspapers in the early 1960s and the late 1990s. “Papers of the 1960s seem naïvely trusting of government, shamelessly boosterish, unembarrassedly hokey and obliging,” Carl Sessions Stepp, the researcher, wrote. Newspapers of the ’90s were “better written, better looking, better organized, more responsible, less sensational, less sexist and racist and more informative and public-spirited.”

This sounds, you might think, salutary for the health of democracy. But it may have been precisely this move, away from deferential stenography and toward fearless investigation, that led to declining trust in the news media. Aggressive, probing and accountability-oriented journalism held up a mirror to American society — and many Americans didn’t like what they saw.

“As news grew more negative and more critical, people had more reason to find journalism distasteful,” the media scholar Michael Schudson wrote in a provocative essay on the problem of assessing trust in journalism. “What people do not like about the media is its implicit or explicit criticism of their heroes or their home teams.” No one, famously, likes the bearer of bad news.

Thinking back to that dinner with Bezos, I realized that something similar had happened. He flattered my chosen profession, reassuring me that it was not a cynical undertaking but something much more noble. He told me, in short, what I wanted to hear — and won my trust. In the intervening years, Bezos has apparently decided that his flattery is better aimed at a very different audience: Donald Trump.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, Bezos notoriously demanded that The Post spike its planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, at great cost to the paper. After the election, he donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee and joined the row of plutocrats at the inauguration. Amazon paid $40 million for the rights to a documentary about Melania Trump, spent tens of millions more to market the movie and donated to Trump’s absurd White House mega-ballroom project. It’s certainly one way to win trust.

The Post’s loss is others’ gain. Its best-known journalists have streamed out the door, joining thriving news organizations like The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal and The Times. These companies’ success, built on aggressive and independent reporting, makes me wonder whether the hand-wringing about trust is misplaced. In this new gilded age, maybe we should set aside trust and — as Bezos himself once urged — embrace skepticism."

Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts; The New York Times, February 13, 2026

 Sheera Frenkel and Mike Isaac , The New York Times; Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts

The department has sent Google, Meta and other companies hundreds of subpoenas for information on accounts that track or comment on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, officials and tech workers said.

"The Department of Homeland Security is expanding its efforts to identify Americans who oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement by sending tech companies legal requests for the names, email addresses, telephone numbers and other identifying data behind social media accounts that track or criticize the agency.

In recent months, Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have received hundreds of administrative subpoenas from the Department of Homeland Security, according to four government officials and tech employees privy to the requests. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Google, Meta and Reddit complied with some of the requests, the government officials said. In the subpoenas, the department asked the companies for identifying details of accounts that do not have a real person’s name attached and that have criticized ICE or pointed to the locations of ICE agents. The New York Times saw two subpoenas that were sent to Meta over the last six months.

The tech companies, which can choose whether or not to provide the information, have said they review government requests before complying. Some of the companies notified the people whom the government had requested data on and gave them 10 to 14 days to fight the subpoena in court."

The Infrastructure of Jeffrey Epstein’s Power; The New York Times, February 13, 2026

 

Ezra Klein,

Produced by Jack McCordick

, The New York Times; The Infrastructure of Jeffrey Epstein’s Power

"At the end of January, President Trump’s Justice Department released what it said was the last tranche of the Jeffrey Epstein files: millions of emails and texts, F.B.I. documents and court records.

It’s a huge dump of information. Journalists, investigators and the public are sifting through them. What’s amazing, though, is how much we still don’t know — or at least don’t know yet.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was Trump’s personal lawyer before he joined the Justice Department, has said that investigators identified six million “potentially responsive” pages but released only about three and a half million pages to the public. So what’s in the two and a half million pages that haven’t been released?...

What has come into clear view is the infrastructure of Epstein’s power — and maybe through that the infrastructure of elite networks more generally.

Anand Giridharadas is a journalist who has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker and many other outlets. He publishes the great newsletter The.Ink and is the author of, among other books, “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World,” which he published in 2018, and the forthcoming “Man in the Mirror: Hope, Struggle and Belonging in an American City.”

I often think of his work as a kind of sociology of American elites and power, and that has been the perspective he has brought to his coverage of these files. I think it is revelatory and worth hearing.

Note: This conversation was recorded on Tuesday, Feb. 10. On Thursday, Feb. 12, Kathryn Ruemmler announced she would be resigning from her role as chief legal officer and general counsel at Goldman Sachs."

How ‘Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie’ pushed the limits of copyright law to create its most WTF moments; Page Six Hollywood, February 14, 2026

Katcy Stephan, Page Six Hollywood; How ‘Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie’ pushed the limits of copyright law to create its most WTF moments

"“Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie,” the latest mockumentary collaboration between director Matt Johnson and composer Jay McCarrol, probably shouldn’t exist. The film features extended parodies that carefully skirt copyright law, a stunt that sees the duo literally dive off Toronto’s CN tower and at least two dozen more moments that will leave audiences asking “How the hell is this legal?” 

It’s a miracle the film made it to screens at all."

Pope invites Catholics to 'disarm' language and build kindness, respect for Lent; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, February 13, 2026

 Carol Glatz , United States Conference of Catholic Bishops; Pope invites Catholics to 'disarm' language and build kindness, respect for Lent

In his first message for Lent, Pope Leo XIV asked the faithful to "cultivate kindness and respect in our families, among our friends, at work, on social media, in political debates, in the media and in Christian communities. In this way, words of hatred will give way to words of hope and peace."

"The Vatican released Pope Leo XIV's message for Lent, which begins Feb. 18 on Ash Wednesday.

Titled, "Listening and Fasting: Lent as a Time of Conversion," the papal message asked Catholics to come together as a community to listen to the word of God and to the vulnerable.

The pope also invited the faithful to engage in a "very practical and frequently unappreciated form of abstinence: that of refraining from words that offend and hurt our neighbor."

How Fast Can A.I. Change the Workplace?; The New York Times, February 14, 2026

 ROSS DOUTHAT, The New York Times; How Fast Can A.I. Change the Workplace?

"People need to understand the part of this argument that’s absolutely correct: It is impossible to look at the A.I. models we have now, to say nothing of what we might get in six months or a year, and say that these technological tools can’t eventually replace a lot of human jobs. The question is whether people inside the A.I. hype loop are right about how fast it could happen, and then whether it will create a fundamental change in human employment rather than just a structural reshuffle.

One obstacle to radical speed is that human society is a complex bottleneck through which even the most efficiency-maxing innovations have to pass. As long as the efficiencies offered by A.I. are mediated by human workers, there will be false starts and misadaptations and blind alleys that make pre-emptive layoffs reckless or unwise.

Even if firings make sense as a pure value proposition, employment in an advanced economy reflects a complex set of contractual, social, legal and bureaucratic relationships, not just a simple productivity-maximizing equation. So many companies might delay any mass replacement for reasons of internal morale or external politics or union rules, and adapt to A.I.’s new capacities through reduced hiring and slow attrition instead.

I suspect the A.I. insiders underestimate the power of these frictions, as they may underestimate how structural hurdles could slow the adoption of any cure or tech that their models might discover. Which would imply a longer adaptation period for companies, polities and humans.

Then, after this adaptation happens, and A.I. agents are deeply integrated into the work force, there are two good reasons to think that most people will still be doing gainful work. The first is the entire history of technological change: Every great innovation has yielded fears of mass unemployment and, every time we’ve found our way to new professions, new demands for human labor that weren’t imaginable before.

The second is the reality that people clearly like a human touch, even in situations where we can already automate it away. The economist Adam Ozimek has a good rundown of examples: Player pianos have not done away with piano players, self-checkout has not eliminated the profession of cashier and millions of waiters remain in service in the United States because an automated restaurant experience seems inhuman."

Microsoft AI CEO predicts 'most, if not all' white-collar tasks will be automated by AI within 18 months; Business Insider, February 12, 2026

 Lloyd Lee and Kelsey Vlamis, Business Insider; Microsoft AI CEO predicts 'most, if not all' white-collar tasks will be automated by AI within 18 months

[Kip Currier: Microsoft AI Chief Mustafa Suleyman's assertion that AI will be performing "most, if not all" white-collar  tasks within 12 to 18 months raises lots of questions, like:

• Is this forecast accurate or AI hype?
• As individuals and societies, do we want AI to displace human workers? Who has decided that this is "a good thing"?
• What are the spiritual implications of this revolutionary transformation of our world?
• What are the implications of such changes for the physical and mental well-being of children, young people, and adults?
• What are the short-term and long-term cognitive impacts of AI use?
• How will marginalized persons around the globe be affected by such radical employment changes? How will the Global South be impacted?
• What are the implications for income disparities and wealth concentration?
• In what ways will culture, the arts, science, medicine, and research be influenced?
• What are the impacts on education, life-long learning, and professional development?
• How will the environment, diminishing resources like water, and climate change be influenced by this employment forecast?
• In what ways will AI proliferation impact people in need and the fauna and flora of the world, particularly vulnerable organisms and ecosystems?
• How will monies and resources spent on AI data centers create new environmental justice communities and exacerbate inequities in existing ones?
• What are the implications for democracy, human rights, and civil liberties, like privacy, data agency, free expression, intellectual freedom, and access to accurate, uncensored information?
• Do you trust AI to do the white-collar jobs that humans have done? 
• Are Microsoft and Suleyman disinterested parties? Microsoft has major self-interest in hyping AI enterprise products that Microsoft will be charging users to adopt and license.
• If Suleyman's claim is accurate, or even is accurate but in a longer time period than 12 to 18 months, what kinds of oversight, regulations, and ethical guardrails are needed/desired?]

[Excerpt]

"Mustafa Suleyman, the Microsoft AI chief, said in an interview with the Financial Times that he predicts most, if not every, task in white-collar fields will be automated by AI within the next year or year and a half.

"I think that we're going to have a human-level performance on most, if not all, professional tasks," Suleyman said in the interview that was published Wednesday. "So white-collar work, where you're sitting down at a computer, either being a lawyer or an accountant or a project manager or a marketing person — most of those tasks will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months.""