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Charlie Warzel

@cwarzel.bsky.social
112K followers 1K following 3.1K posts

Writer. Host of Galaxy Brain, the podcast. Never bet against the dumbest outcome. @cwarzel.92 on signal if you have a tip.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Charlie Warzel
Steve Mullis @stevemullis.net · 8h
[car dealership waiting room] Me: [chanting] knobs, knobs- Other car buyers: knobs, KNOBS Car salesman: [pounding desk] KNOBS, KNOBS, KNOBS!
forbes.com
Knobs Returning To Some Automakers’ Vehicles, To The Relief Of Many
Auto companies are listening to the complaints of consumers, who want their knobs and buttons back.
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I am lucky to enjoy these for many months out of the year but they really sing right before the end!
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
whoa exact same
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
not the only reason but a brand of inevitability, FOMO, anxiety, and, ‘if you don’t see it it means you’re not smart enough’ has become the chief way silicon valley (led by venture capita) markets its products.
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
If you’re somebody who is looking at the AI news and feeling anxious/confused about what to think then week’s pod is, IMO, extremely helpful. Its an argument for treating this stuff as a somewhat normal and solvable problem (while not letting companies off the hook) youtu.be/2OE6TicW2f8?...
youtu.be
The AI Hacks Aren’t as Scary as You Think
YouTube video by The Atlantic
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Reposted by Charlie Warzel
Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
This was a really useful corrective
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Reposted by Charlie Warzel
Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
New: I really wanted to have a conversation about the AI agent hack stuff that was less focused on future scenarios and much more focused on what these tools can do now and how to control these companies. So I spoke with Zack Korman who argues this a cybersecurity problem youtu.be/2OE6TicW2f8?...
youtu.be
Calibrating the AI Anxiety
YouTube video by The Atlantic
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
ty for listening and sharing it!
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Reposted by Charlie Warzel
The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 04/10/2026
AI safety could just be a matter of needing better security to match the evolving technology, Zack Korman, the CEO of Embroidery, tells @cwarzel.bsky.social. Watch the full episode:
bit.ly
An Argument Against AI Doom
The latest hacks reveal a sprawling cybersecurity crisis.
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Reposted by Charlie Warzel
The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 04/10/2026
The reporter Mia Sato speaks with @cwarzel.bsky.social about the rise of Meta’s camera-equipped glasses, the backlash to Flock cameras, and what happens when humans are always being recorded. Watch Galaxy Brain:
bit.ly
What Do We Do About the Cameras Everywhere?
A genuine reckoning with Meta and the surveillance state
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Reposted by Charlie Warzel
Pepper Culpepper @pculpepper.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
It is undeniable that we are likely to see dramatic regulatory change is post-disaster when AI labs are culpable. That's how regulation often happens. Super-interesting interview by @cwarzel.bsky.social with Zack Korman on cybersecurity and the answers lying in plain sight.
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
My biggest disagreement w/ Zack is that he seems to argue there are gonna have to be serious incidents where ppl get hurt to force lots of change. That said, I think his technical explanations are helpful to see this less as sci fi and more as a problem these companies are required to solve
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
New: I really wanted to have a conversation about the AI agent hack stuff that was less focused on future scenarios and much more focused on what these tools can do now and how to control these companies. So I spoke with Zack Korman who argues this a cybersecurity problem youtu.be/2OE6TicW2f8?...
youtu.be
Calibrating the AI Anxiety
YouTube video by The Atlantic
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
sometimes social media is good
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
reporting is hard. but sometimes you're doing a story and somebody puts their trust in you and shares their story with a level of care and detail and you try to reflect that back at them as best you can and idk its really just a very lovely human thing that happens sometimes.
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
a very sad thing is that this image now looks to me like ai stuff
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
damn that's smart
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
it really feels like its a matter of time before there's some kind of agent hack exposing the wildest govt logs you could imagine
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
time.com/article/2026...
time.com
What Trump Has Built
An interview with the President at a pivotal moment in his second term
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
For a long time I've wanted a sense of how trump has or hasn't interacted with chatbots (we know he posts a lot of slop sure). And this TIME anecdote about Grok arguably leading Trump into war is just extremely bracing
Since returning to office, Trump has marveled at AI’s capabilities. He is increasingly in thrall to the tech executives courting him. In December 2025, Elon Musk returned to the Oval Office for a clandestine meeting. Trump spent hours asking Grok, Musk’s AI chatbot, questions about his presidency and legacy, according to an official present. At the time, Trump was ordering missile strikes against Venezuelan boats he alleged were smuggling drugs into the U.S. He asked Grok how Venezuelans would react if the U.S. captured Maduro. According to the official present, the chatbot responded that Maduro was a repressive and deeply unpopular dictator and that many Venezuelans would likely celebrate his downfall. After Trump ordered the mission to seize Maduro, the following month, celebrations broke out in the streets. Trump, according to officials, came away thinking Grok was ingenious.
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Reposted by Charlie Warzel
Jon Mooallem @jmooallem.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
brings back so many memories
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
agents inundating small restaurants to make a dozen different reservations, holding the spots & cancelling them or the facebook marketplace stuff with agents hassling people with lowball prices just trying to sell a coffee table...a plumber who has to deal w/ cold calls from bots. that kind of stuff
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
A subset of people will find tools like this very useful when it feels like they lessen the time tax or begin to shift what's seen as a huge imbalance of power btwn a bureaucracy/corporation and the individual. I think they'll engender a lot of hate if they're used where that imbalance doesn't exist
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
the medium is the message
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
There is a moment at the very very end of Abdul El-Sayed's podcast with Ezra Klein (book recommendation section) where he talks about the idea of "speaking truth to pain" and this will be staying with me for an extremely long time. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/o...
But there’s also something about truth to pain. We talk a lot about truth to power, but I think it’s actually a lot harder to speak truth to pain. I say that as someone who went to medical school, realizing that in a lot of our politics right now, we’ve got to get a lot better at speaking truth to pain if we’re going to get through some of these challenges that we have.

What does “truth to pain” mean?

It’s one thing to look power in the eye and say: You’re wrong about this. But there’s a way in which pain is very difficult to reason with. Because when somebody is in their pain, they’re in their trauma. They see that pain, and they may not see what’s causing it.

I remember just very explicitly being in a trauma ward with a gunshot wound patient and watching this big guy with his hand on his gunshot wound. All the folks are trying to pull his hand off his pain, that point of his gunshot wound, this clear vulnerability.

And this emergency room doctor had the presence of mind to be like: Everyone, stop. And she looks him in the eyes, and she’s like: I get that really hurts, and I’m so sorry that you’re here. You don’t want to be here. We don’t want you to be here. But if you don’t let us fix this, you could die. So I’m going to take your hand, and I’m going to move it off, OK? Because I need to get there so that you can live.

She was speaking truth to pain. He understands he’s at the hospital, he needs care, but he also doesn’t want anybody to touch the wound. Which is a natural thing. And I think it is a really great metaphor for how we think about a lot of these challenges we talked about today.
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Reposted by Charlie Warzel
Niko Stratis @nikostratis.com · 30/09/2026
So much of the lens on culture has been turned into a numbers game, where everything is about chart placements and streaming numbers and data. Its a horse race to who gets to do data best, and all of these dorks forget that people just want a song that will make them cry at the grocery store.
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
wake up babe the Trump administration chatbot is crashing out again
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Reposted by Charlie Warzel
Anne Helen Petersen @annehelen.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
This is *the* piece. Kate Manne, professor of philosophy at Cornell, speaks truth to the totality of failures at the university — and why students protesting the war in Gaza have faced far harsher consequences than any of the Cornell 7: www.thecut.com/article/what...
thecut.com
What It Feels Like at Cornell Right Now
As a professor at the Ivy League school, Kate Manne has known many, many victims. There’s a palpable feeling on campus, she writes, that this is big.
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Reposted by Charlie Warzel
The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 25/09/2026
The reporter Mia Sato speaks with @cwarzel.bsky.social about the rise of Meta’s camera-equipped glasses, the backlash to Flock cameras, and what happens when humans are always being recorded. Watch Galaxy Brain:
bit.ly
What Do We Do About the Cameras Everywhere?
A genuine reckoning with Meta and the surveillance state
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Reposted by Charlie Warzel
Mia Sato @miasato.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Really enjoyed talking with Charlie about what the Meta glasses/Flock backlash tells us about changing expectations of privacy. Gift link for my piece from August on Meta glasses-driven harassment: www.theverge.com/report/98241...
theverge.com
Meta glasses are a workplace menace
“Pervert” glasses are making jobs weird and putting workers on edge.
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
NEW: great pod w/ the excellent @miasato.bsky.social on Meta’s “pervert glasses” and the broader surveillance backlash! The end of this conversation is one of better ones we’ve done on the pod. Plus the intro features a 13 yr old photo of me reluctantly wearing google glass youtu.be/YR3-2KVNrQI?...
youtu.be
Meta Glasses, Flock, and the Surveillance State
YouTube video by The Atlantic
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
i think that's kinda what he's getting at if i read the tweet correctly...these tools are gonna unleash a lot of fraud
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
maddenfreude
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
(also i'm doin great! and that has led to, personally, less of a desire to be in these places...despite really liking the personal connections that can form!)
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
i think this is really smart!
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
no, i get it! that's so kind of you. genuinely appreciate it.
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
yes! I'm great! truly. I mean over the course of two decades i've felt this way. thank you for asking though. genuinely appreciate that!
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
no no i don't! and i have very little desire to be in these spaces these days!
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
every person is different. but just in my experience i tend to find that the more anxious/alienated/frustrated i feel (also procrastination!), the more i'm inclined to post. i feel a lot like these networks thrive on misery (not only misery! there's joy in all these places too!) & that's accelerated
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
finding and trying to establish a real connection btwn my work and audiences has been a part of my job since early web2 times. but i have always noticed that, when my irl community feels strong/supportive i have so little pull to post/social. but whenever i feel more alone social has a pull. fwiw
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
i'm always saying this
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
it may just be garden variety greed but i've also been watching LeBron geek out and get deep in golf YouTube the last year. now he's started his own channel. it seems that, more than the $, he just really wants to be an influencer which is a wild thing to want to be as an active nba legend but alas
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
if that's the case, would seem to me the real interest here is more aligned with him starting a golf YT channel...i think he just really wants to be an influencer lol which is wildd
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
genuinely curious how much they offered him to do this
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Reposted by Charlie Warzel
old roadside pics @roadside.xor.blue · 21/09/2026
day's cottages, north truro, massachusetts, 1984
day's cottages, north truro, massachusetts, 1984
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Wrote a column this weekend on the AI safety debate and how one might try to parse all the different factions and take this quite seriously, without buying into every doomer narrative offered without proof (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
the piece is like 2000 measured words about this -a gift link is included, no paywall!
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
that point is in the piece! (i do think though that it’s doomer panic to take the very real speed/control problems and negative outcomes we are already seeing and then jump to “kill us all” but the piece takes the risks seriously as they are presented
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Reposted by Charlie Warzel
bjkeefe @bjkeefe.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Regulation Time Good interview of Lina Khan by @cwarzel.bsky.social. No easy answers but a lot of clarity about things we ought to be considering. alt link: archive.is/qUcR6 www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/202...
theatlantic.com
Lina Khan on Doomer Panic and Ending AI Exceptionalism
Why the AI-alarmism conversation feels off
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
i've said it before but this is just a perfect account
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