The Real and the Unreal

First Principles and Artificial Intelligence

Elmgreen & Dragset, September 2025, 2025 © Elmgreen & Dragset / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. This art exhibit by my favorite artistic duo features a Silicone gallery assistant passed out at her desk. We are looking through the glass which pedestrians on the street see.

UPCOMING EVENTS: Secure tickets for David Brooks in conversation with me in NYC June 15, the ZOE Conference in Napa this July (there are still a few spots left), and a free virtual event when The One and the Ninety-Nine comes out on June 16. I can now officially announce Patrick Collison, co-founder and CEO of Stripe, will be at the ZOE conference speaking about the “New Aesthetics”.

What is Your A.I. Touchstone?

The question we must ask is not whether AI is useful, but whether it is real.

The question has become inescapable: What happens to the American worker when AI stops augmenting and starts replacing? To answer it well requires we ask a preceding — and likely more difficult — question: What first principles…