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The Weight of Light · An ongoing essay series

The Architects of AI

Artificial intelligence, surveillance, power and the people building systems capable of reshaping human life. A series concerned with what the construction of the machine reveals about us.

I · Essay

We Taught Sand to Think

The material reality beneath artificial intelligence, and the human questions surrounding its creation.

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II · Essay

Who Gave the Architects the Clock?

Who decides the pace of technological change, and who lives with its consequences?

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III · Essay

Who Is Training Whom?

As we teach machines to respond to us, how are they changing the way we think, speak and pay attention?

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IV · Essay

Concrete Clouds on the Ground

The physical infrastructure behind artificial intelligence, the ambitions of its architects, and the humanity it must serve.

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Photographs, publication notes & related reading

Featured essay · The Weight of Light · October 5, 2026

The War Machine Never Misses a Payment

Military power, veterans, medication, surveillance and the race toward superintelligence

A Tomahawk cruise missile launches from USS Barry at night, seen through night-vision equipment.
USS Barry · Operation Odyssey Dawn · March 19, 2011. U.S. Navy photograph by Petty Officer 1st Class Nathanael Miller, via DVIDS ↗. Public domain.

The missile clears on schedule while the veteran waits for the system to recognize him.

I came out of the Global War on Terror generation. I left the military in 2008, when America was years into Afghanistan and Iraq and there was still no real understanding of where all of this was going to end.

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The appearance of U.S. Department of War (DoW) visual information does not imply or constitute DoW endorsement.