The waiting area of a private clinic in central London, sandwiched between a high-end gym and a cosmetic dentistry office, is remarkably serene. No one appears ill. Most appear impatient. As though giving out jewelry instead of medication, a receptionist carefully places a slim injection pen into a branded paper bag after opening a small refrigerated drawer behind the desk. Perhaps that’s precisely what it has turned into. These medications, which were created by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, were initially intended to treat diabetes by controlling blood sugar levels and subtly decreasing appetite. Even the pharmaceutical industry was taken…

Car doors closing, coffee cups balanced on dashboards, security badges clipped into place—the morning air at a suburban office park outside of London carries that familiar weekday tension. A man with silver hair and cautious steps stands out among the crowd of employees making their way inside. He is moving more slowly than the others, but he is carrying the same laptop bag he used to carry years ago. He was no longer supposed to be here. The celebration of his retirement three years prior included speeches, handshakes, and a cake with the words “Enjoy the next chapter.” He did…

The next iPhone’s appearance isn’t the first thing that jumps out. It’s the thing that’s subtly evolving. More fundamental than camera modules or screen edges, engineers have been rearranging something inside Apple Park in Cupertino, where the curved glass still reflects the California sun as it did when it first opened. It seems as though the iPhone is no longer regarded as a product. They consider it to be infrastructure. If you just look at sales charts, it’s easy to miss the hints. Store lines weren’t particularly sparked by Apple’s thinner iPhone Air, for instance. Individuals typically gravitated back toward…

The money isn’t the most peculiar aspect of the AI stock boom. It’s the velocity. Little things like people talking more quickly, phones being held a little closer, and lunch conversations shifting from “how’s work” to “what’s your strike price” without any preamble are all signs of it. The atmosphere has that familiar buzzy sheen in some parts of San Francisco and the Peninsula, as if the city has been turned back on. With his badge swinging and his backpack still wrinkled from the shipping box, a young engineer exits a rideshare near a glass office tower. Ten minutes later,…

In locations that aren’t meant to be “economic data,” like airport lounges, it becomes particularly apparent for the first time. While the lounge by Gate B appears to be a private club with spotless white plates, cold sparkling water, and people bent over phones refreshing charts that never seem to stop rising, the global economy may be “slowing” on paper. We feel as though we are living in two distinct economies with identical climates. The economy that most people are familiar with is the one with tighter budgets, delayed hiring, smaller pay increases that fall short of inflation, and that…

Young engineers sit in rows facing identical monitors in a brightly lit Hangzhou office tower, their desks piled high with half-eaten packets of dried tofu snacks and empty tea cups. Construction cranes slowly swing over new apartment buildings outside the window, seemingly in sync with the typing going on inside. The room isn’t particularly theatrical. However, the software being developed there might be based on disturbing presumptions that have dominated Silicon Valley for over ten years. For many years, American tech executives thought that their superior chips, deeper venture capital, and risk-taking culture would allow them to dominate the artificial…

One floor’s lights remain on longer than the others in a late-night office building in San Francisco’s Mission District. Engineers sit quietly behind the glass, gazing at screens full of code that is becoming more and more self-replicating. The space is serene, almost unremarkable. However, there seems to be an oddity going on there that could eventually render those engineers unnecessary. This paradox may have existed at OpenAI from the beginning. Although the company was established with the goal of creating intelligence that would surpass human capacity, the systems still mainly relied on human correction in their early iterations. Reviewing…

A woman in her early fifties was sitting quietly in a private clinic in Birmingham on a chilly morning, turning an empty injection pen between her fingers. In the last year, she had shed almost sixty pounds. Her posture was more straight, and her face appeared more focused. However, there was hesitation in her voice. She wasn’t inquiring about ways to reduce her weight. She wanted to know what would occur if she stopped. This question may have become the true legacy of Ozempic, as it has been asked in exam rooms all over the world. The emotional physics of…

The Hunting Party’s violence and mystery aren’t the first things that catch the eye. The odd familiarity is the cause. Within minutes, a team is put together under duress, a profiler is reluctantly called back into service, and a secret government document is revealed. Even though the names and faces are unfamiliar, anyone who has watched crime television in the last 20 years may feel as though they have already been here. An explosion beneath the Wyoming countryside at the start of the show releases serial killers from a covert prison known only as the Pit. It’s a notion that…

When Winnie Harlow enters a runway, there’s a certain stillness that results from focusing attention in one area rather than from silence. Flashes bounce off her skin’s geometric patterns as cameras rise almost automatically, exposing something that fashion once attempted to conceal but now seems ready to celebrate. It’s possible that what people are actually witnessing is an industry subtly correcting itself rather than just a model walking. She was diagnosed with vitiligo at the age of four and was born in Mississauga, which is just outside of Toronto. The condition made her visible as a child in ways she…