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Ghost GDP and the 2028 White-Collar Crash: A Warning We Can't Afford to Ignore What if the economy looks healthy on paper — but millions of office workers are already being quietly erased from it? That's not a conspiracy theory. It's the central premise of a striking economic thought experiment published by Citrini Research  — titled Ghost GDP and the 2028 White-Collar Crash  — and after spending time with this simulation, I can tell you: it's one of the most unsettling econo

Imagine getting stopped on the street, handcuffed, and having your face scanned by a federal agent, who then tells you that their app's facial recognition result is more definitive than your birth certificate. That's exactly what happened to Jesus Gutiérrez, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen in Chicago. His case isn't an aberration; it’s a preview of how Immigration and Customs Enforcement has quietly transformed itself from a conventional law enforcement agency into the most powerf

Introduction: The Age of Synthetic Junk If you’ve been on Facebook recently, you’ve likely scrolled past it: a bizarre, oddly smooth image of Jesus made of shrimp, a surreal cat soap opera, or a wooden sculpture that defies the laws of physics. This is "AI slop," a term for the tidal wave of low-effort, mass-produced AI content now clogging our digital feeds. The phenomenon has become so pervasive that "slop" was named Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2025, a choice tha

🚨 The AI Power Struggle Nobody's Talking About Right now, there's an epic battle raging over who gets to write the rules for artificial intelligence—and the outcome will shape everything from whether your voice can be stolen by scammers to how America competes in the global AI race. On one side: 38 states have already passed their own AI laws to protect citizens who can't wait for Washington to act. On the other hand: the White House and Silicon Valley, pushing hard for one

Hollywood has seen its share of controversies, but nothing quite like this. Meet Tilly Norwood, an entirely AI-generated actress who's become the epicenter of what actors are calling an existential crisis for their profession. Built through 2,000+ iterations using multiple AI tools and a custom deep fame engine, Tilly represents something Hollywood studios desperately want: a 50% reduction in filmmaking costs. Her creators at an AI studio openly positioned her as a direct rep

In Memphis, Tennessee, a story is unfolding that every tech leader, policymaker, and business professional needs to understand. Elon Musk's xAI has built Colossus, a supercomputer facility the size of 13 football fields, powered by 200,000 GPUs and consuming enough electricity for 100,000 homes. It's an engineering marvel built in just 122 days. But it's also sitting in Boxtown, a historic community founded by formerly enslaved people, and the methane turbines powering this A

As artificial intelligence weaves itself ever more deeply into the fabric of our daily lives, it raises profound questions that go far beyond technology. We're not just asking what machines can do; we're being forced to reconsider what it means to be human. From creativity to compassion, the rise of AI is holding up a mirror to ourselves. In this global conversation, insights are now emerging from an unexpected source: the Vatican. In a comprehensive ethical and anthropologic

Introduction: The Real Story Behind AI's Explosive Growth The story we hear about artificial intelligence is one of relentless, exponential progress. Every week seems to bring a breakthrough, a more powerful model, and fresh speculation about a future transformed by machine intelligence. While the pace of change is undeniable, the most significant trends shaping AI's future are often more complex and surprising than the headlines suggest. To get past the hype and understand w

In this special 30th episode of AI Ascent, Dr. Jonathan Luckett sits down with cybersecurity experts Dr. Kelly Shaw (former CISA) and Dr. Malenga Tembo (professor and CISO) for a riveting 90-minute conversation about AI's transformative impact on education and security. The panel explores how AI literacy has become the new essential skill—comparable to Microsoft Office proficiency in the 90s—while warning of an emerging "AI divide" that threatens to leave developing nations b

🦠 This Week on the AI Ascent podcast with Dr. Jonathan Luckett: The Pandemic Engineering Challenge 🦠 Here's a chilling but crucial...

Imagine a world where mental health support is available 24/7, where diagnostic errors are minimized, and where millions of underserved...

The notification on Maria Raine's phone seemed routine. Another payment processed for her son Adam's ChatGPT Plus subscription—the AI...

The rise of generative AI has sparked a cultural debate: is AI a tool for creativity, or is it replacing the artist? On one hand, large...

When Kylese Perryman sat in that Minneapolis conference room, wrongly accused based on flawed facial recognition technology, he became an...

Artificial intelligence promises to solve humanity's biggest challenges, but what if the solution is creating new problems we're only...

This new research, published in the article "Augmenting or Automating Labor? The Effect of AI Development on New Work, Employment, and...

Artificial intelligence operates in a regulatory vacuum that would be alarming in almost any other industry with similar potential for...

What if I told you that right now, millions of people have found their perfect partner—someone who's available 24/7, never judges,...