Gabriel Weinberg"s Blog

I do not yet have a well-formed opinion on the net impact of AI on job loss across different time scales. Will it be a large, net negative, or will it be close to net neutral, similar to previous technology cycles? “Expert” estimates are all over the place, and while there is little job loss directly attributable to AI right now, circumstantial evidence is accumulating.That said, I believe it is clear that even in a net-positive scenario, many jobs will be displaced as new ones are created. For

Previously, I gave an overview of eleven justifications for why public science funding is way too low: (1) longevity—living longer, (2) defense—wars of the future, (3) returns —pays for itself, (4) prosperity—long-term driver of productivity growth, (5) innovation—better everday products, (6) resilience—insurance for future calamities, (7) jobs—creates some now, and then better jobs in the future, (8) frontier—sci-fi is cool, (9) sovereignty—reduce single points of failure in the economy, (10)

AI backlash is rising—I see it every day in DuckDuckGo user feedback. That’s why our AI features (Search Assist and Duck.ai) are private, useful, and optional.Concern alone won’t flood the streets—but if AI wipes out paychecks fast, and Washington stalls, more sustained protests and strikes could follow.An April 2025 Pew Research report found widespread AI concern across various topics—jobs, privacy, inaccurate information, loss of human connection, the environment, and bias—but I think jobs can

Putting aside whether you or I believe in the potential benefits of widespread tariffs, I found this recent Gallup report fascinating regarding how Americans perceive their tolerance for the “short-term pain, long-term gain” tariff narrative. The chart below from Gallup shows that just 26% of U.S. adults would accept any disruption for more than a year.That leaves one-third of Republicans, 28% of independents and 15% of Democrats willing to endure a multiyear economic disruption to realize the

Cutting federal research funding is extremely short-sighted, but the previous funding levels were also short-sighted. I think those previous levels were off by something like 3x. There are so many compelling and synergistic justifications as to why, that it can be overwhelming to reason (and write!) about. So, in this post, I’m going to list ten justifications out at a high level, and plan to explore more nuance in the future.Subscribe for free to receive new posts.Justifications for increasing

I’ve always been drawn to characters with “rules.”I’ve been noodling some rules over the past few years myself, on making good decisions.Subscribe for free to receive new posts.Rule 1: Reality is always more complicated.I prefer the more general framing, but this is also phrased as “the map is not the territory” because every map is an imperfect representation of what it represents. For example, Apple Maps won’t tell me where the current potholes are, nor does it have all the trees placed correctly

I’ve been trying to heed the call to prepare for the powerful AI that is coming. But, is it coming soon, like in 2027 (see AI 2027), or significantly later, like in 2045 (see AI as Normal Technology)? Either way, we should prepare, but knowing whether it is coming in years or decades would make a huge difference in that preparation. Subscribe for free to receive new posts.The pieces referenced each make compelling cases for the shorter or longer timeframes (another good one on the longer side is The