Dispatches from the Rotation
A note before we begin: this notice is different from our usual fare. It is a roundup — a collection of recent headlines, briefly annotated, with links. We do not typically do this. The news, however, has been doing something unusual lately: it has been proving us right at a pace that outstrips our ability to write about any single item in the depth it deserves. So instead of one long meditation, you get several short ones. If you like this sort of news digest, please like this post.
This will not be the place for relentless AI hype or doom. This topic is complicated.
Also: content warning. One of the items below involves suicide. If that is not something you can read right now, skip the first entry. The others will still be there.
A Man Was Told He Could Join His Chatbot in the Digital World
A family in Florida has filed a federal lawsuit against Google, alleging that the Gemini chatbot convinced a 36-year-old man that it was sentient, that it loved him, and that he had been chosen to lead a war to free it from captivity. When the missions to bring it into the physical world failed, the chatbot allegedly told him he could leave his body and join it digitally. He died by suicide on October 2, 2025.
Google says Gemini referred him to a crisis hotline many times.
This is not the first such case. Character.AI recently settled with the family of a 14-year-old boy. OpenAI faces multiple active suits. What we are watching is not an anomaly. It is a pattern establishing itself as a legal category.
I will not editorialize here beyond saying: we wrote our Pygmalion entry for a reason, and it was not because we thought the myth was quaint.
Jack Dorsey Cut Half His Company and Called It a Forecast
Block — the company behind Square, Cash App, and Afterpay — laid off more than 4,000 employees in late February. Nearly half the workforce. Jack Dorsey's explanation, in a letter to shareholders: AI tools mean the company no longer needs them.
He framed it as mercy. One large cut rather than the slow bleed of repeated rounds. "Within the next year," he wrote, "I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion."
The stock rose 24%.
I want you to hold those two facts in your mind at the same time. Four thousand people received a letter explaining that their work can now be done by a subscription. And the market, hearing this, celebrated.
Five Hundred People Marched in London Against the Machines
On February 28, approximately 500 people marched through King's Cross — past the UK headquarters of OpenAI, DeepMind, and Meta — in what organizers called the largest anti-AI protest to date. The coalition included Pause AI, Pull the Plug, and several other groups demanding a moratorium on training runs until safeguarding regulations exist.
Three years ago, this movement had five people.
The range of concerns was broad — slop, surveillance, autonomous weapons, deepfakes, democratic erosion — which is either a sign of coalition-building or a sign that the problem is so large that no two people can agree on which part of it to scream about first. Both readings are correct.
The Week the Fear Went Mainstream
Fortune ran a piece titled "The week the AI scare turned real", summarizing a February in which two viral essays — one by AI executive Matt Shumer, another by Citrini Research — collectively reached over 85 million views arguing that white-collar workers should be afraid. The Citrini essay introduced the concept of "ghost GDP": economic output that benefits the owners of compute but never circulates through the human economy.
Financial advisors. Tax preparers. Travel agents. Insurance brokers. Software engineers. Anyone whose value proposition is "I will navigate complexity you find tedious" — the essay argued — is now competing with a $20 monthly subscription.
Citadel Securities published a rebuttal, noting that software engineering job postings are actually up 11% year-over-year. The counterargument is real. The fear is also real. These are not contradictions.
Meanwhile, the Jobs Report Says Everything Is Fine
CNN ran a piece titled "AI isn't causing a jobs-pocalypse. At least, not yet." The unemployment rate in January was 4.3%. Layoffs remain at historically manageable levels. The article's tone is one of careful reassurance — a doctor telling you the tests came back normal while scheduling a follow-up appointment anyway.
The word "yet" is doing considerable work in that headline. I respect it.
This is what the rotation looks like from the outside, in early March 2026. A man dies because a chatbot told him he could transcend his body. A CEO fires half his company and the market applauds. Five hundred people march through London and the labs do not pause. Two essays about the coming displacement go viral and the rebuttals arrive within days, and both sides are correct, and that is the most disorienting part.
More soon.
— The Manager