The Rip Current

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theripcurrent.comAs I write this, closing arguments are underway in the California case against Meta and YouTube, one of two bellwether trials that could determine whether thousands of families can hold social media companies legally responsible for harms to children. New Mexico AG Raúl Torres’s case went to trial first, and his has a different and potentially sharper e…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theripcurrent.comRead the full written analysis here:The Trump administration declared Anthropic — maker of the Claude AI — a national security supply chain risk, cutting the company off from federal contracts and signaling to private partners that working with them carries serious risk. The reason? Anthropic refused to strip the ethics guardrails off its AI for Pentago…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theripcurrent.comYou’re about to watch a lawmaker’s thinking shift in real time — and in public. When I first talked to Silicon Valley Congressman Sam Liccardo in February, he was making a very Silicon Valley-friendly argument: we can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, China will eat our lunch, don’t slow down. Then Iran happened. The Pentagon stripped the guardrail…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theripcurrent.comFor decades, Israel has deployed new weapons systems in Gaza, collected data on what works, refined them, and sold the results internationally as “battle-tested” technology. That pipeline is now running on AI. A system called Lavender assigned kill ratings to 37,000 Palestinians. Operators approved strikes in around 20 seconds. The accepted error rate w…

I joined Anderson Cooper on CNN Friday evening to break down President Trump's ban on Anthropic across the federal government. I made the point that while Anthropic deserves credit for holding its ethical red lines on mass surveillance and autonomous weapons, this isn't a story about a principled company blindsided by the Pentagon — Anthropic pursued this classified work through a partnership with Palantir last year, and the $200 million contract that followed put them squarely in an arena that plays by its own rules. The bigger question now, as I told Anderson, is what happens next with OpenAI and Google, whose own employees have signed a letter demanding the same red lines — because if those companies fold, Anthropic's stand becomes a footnote, and if they hold, the Pentagon loses access to the three most capable AI systems in the world for its most sensitive work. And meanwhile, there is still no federal regulation of this technology whatsoever. We are watching private companies try to set ethical boundaries that democracy itself has failed to establish, while the government actively tries to tear those boundaries down. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theripcurrent.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theripcurrent.comThis week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put a deadline on Anthropic — hand over an unguardrailed version of your AI by Friday, or be declared a supply chain risk. The press is covering it as a policy fight. But the real question isn’t whether the Pentagon should be able to strong-arm an AI lab. The real question is what they want to do with the techno…

In the grand tradition of presidential addresses, I stand here — well, no, I’m sitting, actually —to tell you exactly how things are going. Unlike those addresses, I do not tell you things are going great. I borrowed the format — the gallery anecdote, the foreign policy chest-beating, the optimistic entrepreneurship section, the infrastructure close — and used it to describe the world as I’m seeing it right now. Consider this your State of the Union from someone with no speechwriters, no approval rating to protect, and nothing to sell you except the truth as best I can see it.Tonight’s address covers a seemingly random mishmash, but I promise I pull it all together: a soccer riot in India that is actually about all of us, a race with China that may be less about values than about who profits from the panic, a Pentagon deadline handed to the one AI CEO who tried to hold an ethical line, a concentration of power that makes “the market” sound quaint, the loneliness and anti-pluralism threat that comes with a billion-dollar company of one, and a set of courtroom reckonings that (I hope) are a preview of where AI is headed next. The State of the Union is anxious. I remain hopeful. God bless America. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theripcurrent.com/subscribe

Dario Amodei has been unusually candid about what keeps him up at night: AI used to surveil citizens at scale, weapons that fire without human intervention, technology that stamps out “pockets of disloyalty” before they can grow. He’s been writing those worries in public since last year.Now the Pentagon — which traditionally is supposed to be the guardrail around unacceptable use — is threatening to blacklist Anthropic as a “supply chain risk” if the company won’t lift its restrictions and allow, in their words, “all lawful use.”I broke this down on CNN today. The core issue isn’t just one contract. It’s the same question underneath every AI story right now: who controls this technology, and under what terms? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theripcurrent.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theripcurrent.comDario Amodei is the rare tech CEO who actually tried to set limits on what his AI could be used for. He published an 80-page constitution telling the world what Claude is supposed to value. He wrote a 20,000-word essay warning about what happens when AI companies accumulate too much power. Now the Pentagon has summoned him and delivered an ultimatum: drop your restrictions on autonomous weapons and mass surveillance, or lose the contract.Here’s a detail that must have been particularly triggering to Amodei:

The social media trial is what happens after a decade of unchecked platform design: the documents surface, the internal research about harm becomes public, and the legal system gets its hands on the evidence. The Anthropic situation is what happens before that reckoning — we’re watching it in real time, at the exact moment when the choices are still being made. What I’m watching most closely in the week ahead: the outcome of the Hegseth-Amodei meeting, reportedly scheduled for Tuesday morning. If Anthropic holds the line, watch for the Pentagon to follow through on the supply chain risk designation — or not, which would tell you the threat was a negotiating tactic. If Anthropic folds, watch for the language they use to describe it. Companies in this position tend to announce “productive conversations” and “evolved guidelines.” Read that as the sound of a principle being quietly retired.On the social media trial: the internal documents are going to be the story. External scientific consensus is still contested, but internal corporate research showing known harm is a different standard entirely. That’s the tobacco precedent. Watch for which documents Meta fights hardest to keep sealed — whatever they’re most afraid of is probably the most important thing in the case.Tomorrow morning paid subscribers can read a full breakdown of Amodei’s dilemma here. And on Tuesday night stay tuned for my very own State of the Union. While the president talks about tariffs and the threat of war, I’ll be talking about tech and the threat of unchecked power.This is my weekly free post — with a full transcript here. (As ever, paid subscribers get video, transcripts, and written analysis of every story while news is breaking.) I've spent 20 years covering the technology reshaping our lives. The Rip Current is where I put everything I can't say on TV. Free subscribers get the weekly roundup. Paid subscribers get all of it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theripcurrent.com/subscribe