Australia’s early colonization was driven by shiploads of wretched English prisoners, whose descendants at least gained their liberty and built one of the freest countries on Earth. In The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf chronicles the slash-and-burn destruction of liberty by the island-continent’s pandemic-panicked political class. Almost like they want to resuscitate the 18th century prison-island – using sinister 21st century tech and bureaucratic ruthlessness.

Keeping the AI Apocalypse at Bay
Writing in City Journal, Judge Glock examines legal efforts to control AI and dismisses the current fixation on suing for specific harms, such as bad advice. “The idea that we should treat Big Tech, including AI companies, like we treated Big Tobacco, is exactly the wrong idea,” he observes. A better approach is to assess product liability based on which parties can perform the task at the cheapest cost, as is the case with the regulation of medical equipment. This “has the benefit of putting the onus on companies themselves to game out dangerous scenarios and prevent them,” he advises. For more on AI, see this C2C article.


