🔮 The people vs tech; the Europoor; forgotten Creole++ #609

Your weekend briefing on AI and exponential technologies

Azeem Azhar

Nov 08, 2026

∙ Paid

Welcome to the Sunday edition. This week:

Tech on the ballot: On Dario Amodei’s beliefs and why Americans hate AI
Is AI’s productivity payoff finally arriving? One strong US quarter isn’t proof.
Europe is financing the tech race it’s losing.

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Tech on the ballot

Tech wasn’t formally on the ballot this week, but it was in reality. I was struck by this comment by Gina Hinojosa, the Governor-Elect of Texas: “I say that the left-right paradigm just does not meet the moment of our time. What this is about is about 99.9% of us in the same boat against like 15 billionaire tech guys who are controlling government…”

Some good reads to explore:

A profile of Dario Amodei suggests he thinks AI is so powerful that only he and those who share his beliefs should direct its development.
Why does America hate AI? Is it American individualism, wonders Gillian Tett.

On the productivity question

My view is that AI has yet to show up systematically in the aggregate productivity statistics – nor would we expect it to yet. In the PC era, it took fourteen years for computers to make their mark on headline productivity numbers. But individual companies started to report gains several years earlier. AI will follow the same pattern, but might be faster.

Now, Erik Brynjolfsson argues that “we’re turning the corner on productivity,” as US productivity grew at 3.6% in the past quarter.

Productivity data is quite noisy, so I don’t think we can attribute this to AI with much confidence yet.

But the evidence that individual firms intend to get results is increasing. A&O Sherman, a big law firm, is putting 3% of billable time into AI — about $1.1bn over five years. The ambition is “redesigning the service completely.” It echoes what I keep hearing in private discussions with bosses: small successes now, but a sense they know how to get large results over the next few years.

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