January 24, 2026
The Rise of the Answer Machines
This article was originally published in Financial Times.
Every spring, I take red-eyes from Austin, Texas, to Oxford, England, to teach a graduate seminar on AI and philosophy. When I land, I change into a suit and a tie, something I never did as a start-up founder. Crossing the lawns of St Catherine’s College, I feel like an actor stepping into costume.
What if, instead of turning in finished essays, students turned in evidence of their thinking?
In the seminar room, the students are already seated. Rhodes scholars, philosophers, MIT-trained computer scientists. The kind of people who will build the next generation of AI. Each week, we pair old questions with new technologies: we read Plato or Mill, then hear from someone at Google DeepMind or Midjourney about what’s newly possible.
Read the full article on Financial Times.
More from CNAS
-
Commentary
Technology & National Security
Dutch Export Controls Don’t Go Far Enough on ChinaControlling the machines that make chips matters more than controlling any specific chip....
By Michelle Nie
-
Commentary
Technology & National Security
China’s AI Is Spreading Fast. Here’s How to Stop the Security RisksThe first problem is not about China, but about AI as a technology: It is incredibly difficult to audit the global supply chain for AI software....
By Ryan Fedasiuk
-
Podcast
Technology & National Security
Anthropic, the Pentagon, and the Future of Autonomous WeaponsThe last big story right before the war in Iran started was the collapse in the relationship between the Pentagon and Anthropic, with the latter objecting to any potential use...
By Paul Scharre
-
Reports
Technology & National Security
Off TargetThe pace of progress in frontier artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities shows no sign of slowing. Frontier models offer transformative potential for national security—from ...
By Caleb Withers, Jay Kim & Ethan Chiu
