2026-03-23

Bi-weekly digest — March 23, 2026

AI & Society

Coding After Coders: The End of Computer Programming as We Know It — New York Times A long-form feature on how AI agents are transforming the daily work of Silicon Valley programmers, who increasingly supervise and steer code generation rather than writing code themselves.
The chatbot will see you now: how AI is being trained to spot mental health issues in any language — The Guardian A clinic in Uganda is using call data to develop an AI-powered therapy algorithm that operates in local languages, aiming to help address gaps in mental health care access.
‘Generative Populism’. Infocracy and the Far-Right Embrace of AI-Imaging — SSRN An academic paper examining how far-right populist parties have been early adopters of generative AI image tools, looking beyond misinformation concerns to the broader political implications of “sloppification.”
How to Think About the Anthropic-Pentagon Dispute — Tech Policy Press A conversation with Kat Duffy (Council on Foreign Relations) and Amos Toh (Brennan Center for Justice) on the tensions between Anthropic and the Pentagon over military applications of AI.

“Sans le privé, nous n’aurions pas pu réussir” : avec LaSuite, l’État français a créé une solution souveraine pour libérer ses agents de Microsoft et des géants américains du logiciel — BFM [FR] An overview of LaSuite, the French government’s open-source office software suite built as a sovereign alternative to Microsoft and other US-based platforms, including interviews with the team behind it.
‘Another internet is possible’: Norway rails against ‘enshittification’ — The Guardian Norway has released an absurdist video campaign urging policymakers and users to resist the deliberate degradation of platforms and devices.

Is Spotify Enabling Massive Impersonation of Famous Jazz Musicians? — Honest Broker An investigation into apparent widespread impersonation of well-known jazz musicians on Spotify, including AI-generated content uploaded under the names of legendary artists.

The coming compute war in Ukraine — Atlantic Council An analysis of how competition over computing resources is becoming a dimension of the conflict in Ukraine, and what this signals for US readiness in future wars involving autonomous systems.

Comment Peter Thiel et les techno-réactionnaires américains récupèrent la pensée du philosophe chrétien René Girard — Le Monde [FR] An essay on how Peter Thiel and other American techno-reactionaries have adopted the work of French Christian philosopher René Girard—his theories of mimetic desire and the scapegoat mechanism—while simultaneously denouncing French “pensée 68” as the origin of “wokism.”

The rise of Satoshi Pablo? African youth, fraud duality, and the Web3 smokescreen — Source unavailable A study drawing on interviews and social media data finds that Web3-related fraud among African youth is driven by economic hardship and weak regulatory frameworks.

Digest covering March 9–22, 2026.