Drew Harwell

@drewharwell.com

234779 Followers 4045 Following

tech & society @washingtonpost.com stories: https://drewharwell.com/ videos: tiktok.com/@drewharwell + instagram.com/drewharwell

Talking A.I. with the C.E.O. of Honor Technology Every week, we’re asking a leader how he or she uses artificial intelligence. This week, Seth Sternberg, who leads Honor Technology, an operator of a senior care network, told DealBook’s Sarah Kessler that A.I. could help more aging adults stay in their homes. The interview has been condensed and edited. How do you personally use A.I.? My 8-year-old co-plays video games with it. He tells Google Home, which has Gemini, “I’m about to approach the fence with my goblin and I jumped to the left. Was that the best move?” And it says, “Actually, if you go under the fence, you’re likely to get more points.” That’s what an A.I. native looks like.
After 30 turns, chats unfurled into “spiritual exchanges, use of Sanskrit, emoji-based communication, and/or silence in the form of empty space,” the report said, terming the phenomenon a “‘spiritual bliss’ attractor state.” The blue spiral or “cyclone” emoji was a favorite of the Claudes, which used it 2,725 times in one 30-turn chat, the company wrote.
ai;dr
Daily Wire CEO resignation letter
There was a time, not very long ago, when Ben Shapiro could reasonably call himself the king of all conservative media. That’s all over now, writes political columnist Ross Barkan. Shapiro’s company, ‘The Daily Wire,’ is instituting significant layoffs. Its YouTube channel’s subscriber base is starting to shrink, and its website has emerged as one of the great traffic losers in conservative media. There are ‘Daily Wire’ YouTube videos that now, after a few days online, have less than 10,000 views, a catastrophically small number for a channel with more than 3 million subscribers. The top comments all mock the low view counts. “If a variety of poor business decisions can be blamed, in part, for the ‘Daily Wire’’s fall from grace — ill-fated investments in feature films, an epic fantasy series, and peculiar merchandise — the greater story is the collapse of Shapiro’s constituency,” writes Barkan. “There are two realities to Shapiro conservatism in 2026: It retains a significant foothold among Republican elites, and it is fast being rejected by the future grassroots of the party.” Read more: https://nymag.visitlink.me/KtpIKV
“The President loves Stephen,” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told us in a statement. “And the White House staff respects him tremendously.” But Trump, who has previously joked that Miller’s “truest feelings” are so extreme that they should not be aired publicly, has also told others in recent weeks that he understands Miller sometimes goes too far, advisers told us.
Ben Shapiro: “Yes, our revenue is down compared to 2024. Matt Walsh put out the most successful documentary in a decade; 2024 was an enormous election year; and for the first third of the year, we had a very popular host who turned out to be a wild conspiracy theorist who thinks Brigitte Macron has testicles, Erika Kirk was involved in her husband’s murder, and the Frankist Jews are drinking Christian blood or some such. When we found that to be the case, we fired her. That does hurt your revenue some. But we can live with that. Also, our friend Jordan Peterson – one of the most important people in conservative media – got sick. That hurts revenue, too. And, of course, we’ve taken some big swings – some hit, and some miss. That’s the nature of the business. But here’s the big thing: we’ve been in business for a decade. We have revenue numbers that dwarf those of our critics. We have enormous plans for the rest of 2026 and for years to come. We’re not going anywhere. ... While much of the rest of the “conservative movement” decided it was a good idea to clickwhore by embracing radical Islam, theorizing about the evils of Winston Churchill, extolling the wonders of Russian supermarkets, and mocking the widow of Charlie Kirk as a probable accessory to murder, we decided not to do those things. If that’s a strategic business failure, then I guess we can live with that. We founded The Daily Wire to promote truth, virtue, and freedom. And we’re not going to trade those causes for the temporary nicotine high of Pakistani clicks and Groyper likes."
Shapiro in Times Square
ProPublica identified 79 children across the country who have been harmed by tear gas or pepper spray as immigration officers dramatically stepped up their use during President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. The Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly defended its use of the chemicals, asserting its agents aren’t to blame. The fault, a spokesperson said, lies with “agitators” in the crowds and parents who put their children in harm’s way. But videos reveal the way agents use these weapons. One captures them releasing tear gas into a crowd with at least seven kids just before someone yells, “There’s children here.” Another shows them hurling tear gas canisters at protesters without apparent provocation; then, with the streets already flooded with white smoke, a Customs and Border Protection agent wearing a body camera shoots pepper balls before muttering, “Fuck yeah,” and shouting, “Woo!”
More than half of “long-shot” bets on military action made on Polymarket are successful, according to a new report that suggests prediction markets could pose a bigger threat than previously recognised to the security of sensitive information. Analysis by the Anti-Corruption Data Collective, a non-profit research and advocacy group, found that long-shot bets — defined as wagers of $2,500 or more at odds of 35 per cent or less — on the platform had an average win rate of around 52 per cent in markets on military and defence actions. That compares with a win rate of 25 per cent across all politics-focused markets and just 14 per cent for all markets on the platform as a whole.
He said in the video that a second shooter had been apprehended—the result of conflicting information about the suspect that he heard while at the Substack party, where people were getting real-time updates from dinner guests in the ballroom. Parnas has since removed the video. He said in an interview that he always takes down posts if he finds factual inaccuracies.
Ship captain who traveled with Pete Hegseth here. When we toured the nation’s next supercarrier together and sat down to lunch with the crew, every eye in the room tracked Pete. It wasn’t electric. It wasn’t rhetoric. It was reciprocity. Everyone from the seaman recruits to the three-star admiral was locked in, because he wasn’t self-conscious, wasn’t buried in his notes, wasn’t reading off a script. Every person in the room felt seen and heard, even the ones who never said a word. Most journalists take copious notes. I soak in details and run simulations. Or maybe that’s not the journalist in me. It’s the ship captain. We were standing in a cavernous hangar bay and I was already running a flooding scenario. What if the ship heeled hard and water poured into the compartment? I was working it fast: watertight integrity, tie-down points, where the water would pool, where the escape routes were. Then a hand landed on my shoulder. Pete. He pulled me back into the room, and we talked briefly. The guy is watching everything. And not just inside his inner sanctum of four-star GOFOs and PhD advisors like Elbridge Colby. He has rare situational awareness for what the warfighter actually needs. And he’s reading X too. I can’t tell you how often something posted on X with real consequence gets clocked by Pete and processed inside his office. The guy has his head on a swivel.
Excerpt from Musk's deposition
07:10:20 // CAM 0241 // scans her ticket to section 102, Row 8, Seat 5 07:11:14 // CAM 1434 // goes up terrace escalators on level 3 to level 6 concourse 07:12:52 // CAM AC10 // hugs usher Appendix A of the report has a screenshot of the embrace, with Richards circled in red. 08:08:58 // CAM 1093 // talking with F&B worker at the Draft Kings Bar 08:10:49 // CAM 0512 // pays for the drinks 08:31:19 // CAM 0485 // eating at a table It goes on and on. At 8:48 pm, camera 0489 spots another quick hug with an MSG “membership experience executive” (there's a grainy photo in the report's Appendix N). Two minutes and two seconds later, the same camera captures her heading into the women's bathroom. Her exit is noted after precisely two minutes and five seconds
Most-Viewed Partisan-Leaning Political Accounts on X
Exclusive: Meta president says AI is "the transformation of humanity" Why it matters: In a period of rapidly evolving innovation that has massive implications for the workforce and world, tech can't lose the guiding "soul" behind it, Dina Powell McCormick says.
Mike Swift @Swiftstories · 19h Appears to be a $375 million civil penalty. Quote Mike Swift @Swiftstories · 19h In the first #socialmedia trial, a New Mexico jury has found @meta liable. Andy Stone @andymstone Just a fraction of what the State sought
Instagram pulled her / its account late last night after I asked Meta. RIP to another fallen AI babe 2025-2026. Goodnight sweet princess
I had a magnificent day at the Taj Mahal. 🇮🇳 It is the most incredible monument I have ever seen in my life. A monument of love built with perfect symmetry and detail. India is one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever had the pleasure of traveling to. Highly recommend!
Your employees didn’t seem to be satisfied with that explanation. In the company meeting after the layoff announcement, one of them seemed offended that you were wearing a hat that said LOVE. Is a compassionate layoff an impossible task? I don't think it's an impossible task. I wanted to approach the whole situation with love. We had an all-hands where they could show me all the emotion and give me the feedback. I believe our settlement to be generous compared with the rest of the market. I wanted to do it from a position of strength, so that we're not offering a less interesting severance package for people when our backs are against the wall. For all the negative messages that we may have gotten on that stream, we've gotten a lot of gratitude as well. It’s not just about our company. It points to a larger thing that might happen in the future for many other companies.