It’s Monday, February 9. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Kat Rosenfield and Coleman Hughes on Lionel Shriver’s new immigration satire; what can the West do to free Jimmy Lai?; Haviv Rettig Gur tells us why he let anti-Israel protesters interrupt his talk; Suzy Weiss on America’s divided halftime show(s); and much more.
But first: One giant leap away from mankind.
You might have missed it, but last week the world changed.
Here’s what happened: AI firms Anthropic and OpenAI both released new versions of their coding agents. That might seem like a technical note, but these were not your average software updates. They showed huge leaps in what the AI agents can do. And—crucially—a large part of the programming work that went into them was itself done by AI.
This is an inflection point. A self-correcting AI is one that will advance far faster than one that relies on us mere mortals.
The narrow meaning is this: “Learn to code” was terrible advice. For weeks now, leading software engineers have been acknowledging that, as Ryan Dahl put it recently, “The era of humans writing code is over.” Earlier last week, hundreds of billions of dollars were wiped off the value of software stocks, as investors braced for the AI disruption.
The bigger meaning is this: It looks like a lot is about to change—and very quickly. We’re at the point on a graph when the line bends sharply upward, and we’re not sure where it’s going to take us.
Today, three stories on that steep trajectory into the unknown.
First, Tyler Cowen unpacks the developments of the past week, and explains why we have reached such a major turning point in AI—and what a self-improving AI will mean for all of us:
Next, Mark Gimein looks at the two companies at the heart of this transformation, and the fight between them playing out in the press, on social media, and even in last night’s Super Bowl ads. What does OpenAI want? And why does Anthropic want to stop them? Read Mark’s piece to find out:
Amid all this change, I find myself asking more and more often: How do we stay ourselves? That’s the question on Freya India’s mind too. Freya describes the feeling of hopelessness she has while “staring down the barrel of a life spent inputting and prompting.” But don’t despair, she says. “You just have to be human.” To find out how, read her full essay:
—Oliver Wiseman
Lionel Shriver on the Immigration Taboo
Lionel Shriver has a talent for brutal honesty on morally charged topics, and her new novel is no different. In A Better Life, Shriver’s subject is immigration, and the book is bound to annoy—well, everyone. Read Kat Rosenfield on Shriver, immigration, and a book that Kat says refuses to reduce the characters to their politics:
Lionel is Coleman Hughes’ guest on his podcast this week. They talk about the book and debate immigration, free expression, and more. Listen to the latest episode of Conversations with Coleman:
Midway through last night’s Super Bowl, America’s halftime was torn asunder. Bad Bunny headlined the main event, while Turning Point USA tried its best to offer an alternative, with Kid Rock and an “All-American Halftime Show.” We made Suzy Weiss watch both.
Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai was sentenced to 20 years in prison today after a marathon national security trial. Mark Clifford argues that Lai’s show trial proves Beijing’s promise of “one country, two systems” to be a farce, and that leaders of the free world will now have to convince Beijing that freeing the 78-year-old Lai is in their best interest. It will be no easy task.
For more on Jimmy Lai, read his daughter Claire: “I Don’t Want My Father to Be a Martyr Behind Bars.” And read Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky’s letter to Jimmy Lai.
Last Sunday, a crowd of women stormed a yoga studio in Minneapolis, hectoring employees and demanding answers for why an anti-ICE sign was taken down from the store’s facade. Ann Bauer was one of the millions who watched this viral video. But for her, it was personal: She practiced yoga at that studio for over a decade. “Every day in Minneapolis for the past decade has been this—the personal drama of entitled ideologues eating away at all decency and peace,” writes Ann. Read Ann on watching her yoga studio go viral—and why she finally decided to leave the Twin Cities.
That same Sunday, Haviv Rettig Gur gave a talk on Israel at Haverford College that was—perhaps predictably—disrupted by keffiyeh-clad protesters. But then Haviv did something radical: He invited them to stay. What followed were challenging questions, a few tears, and an unexpected teaching moment.
MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS
THE NEWS
The Seattle Seahawks defeated the New England Patriots 29–13 to win Super Bowl LX after sacking Patriots’ quarterback Drake Maye six times and forcing three turnovers, returning one interception for a fourth-quarter touchdown. The victory marks the franchise’s second Super Bowl win—and first since 2014.
American skier Lindsey Vonn crashed seconds into her downhill Olympic race on Sunday in Milan after she decided to compete despite rupturing her left ACL in a World Cup crash a week ago. The former gold medalist was airlifted from the course to a local hospital for surgery. She remains in stable condition.
Donald Trump said he didn’t see the racist video of Barack and Michelle Obama’s faces superimposed onto apes that his Truth Social account posted late Thursday night. The clip came at the end of a video about the 2020 election. “I guess during the end of it, there was some kind of picture that people don’t like. I wouldn’t like it either, but I didn’t see it,” Trump said on Saturday. Asked if he would apologize, Trump declined. Asked if he condemned the clip, he said, “Of course I do.”
Japan’s conservative prime minister Sanae Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has won a landslide victory after she called a high-stakes snap election, securing a supermajority for her party in Japan’s lower house legislature. Takaichi, elected in October, has taken a hard line against China and North Korea and aligned herself closely with the Trump administration. (Read “How Japan’s Iron Lady Wooed Trump” by Philip Patrick.)
British prime minister Keir Starmer’s chief of staff resigned Sunday over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States, despite knowing his close ties to Jeffrey Epstein. “The decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong,” Morgan McSweeney said in a statement. “He has damaged our party, our country, and trust in politics itself.”
President Trump criticized U.S. Olympian Hunter Hess after the freestyle skier cited “mixed emotions” representing Team USA in the Milan Olympic Games due to political concerns back home that he is “not the biggest fan of.” Trump called Hess a “real loser” and said it was “very hard to root for someone like this” in a Sunday morning Truth Social post.
Democratic Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi announced she will endorse Jack Schlossberg in a crowded congressional primary in New York’s 12th district, previously represented by longtime congressman Jerry Nadler. Schlossberg, the 33-year-old grandson of President John F. Kennedy, lauded Pelosi as “a hero” of his after her endorsement. (Read Will Rahn’s dispatch from the wacky 12th district.)
The Pentagon announced on Saturday that it was severing all institutional ties with Harvard University, ending military training, fellowships, and certificate programs. “Harvard is woke; the War Department is not,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth wrote on X.
Allies of President Trump are offering access and perks in exchange for donations to Freedom 250, a group planning events in celebration of America’s 250th anniversary in July, according to The New York Times. Donations totaling more than $1 million come with a “thank you reception” with President Trump.
I missed the super bowl. Did the halftime show include subtitles?
The most important and newsworthy story of all is the effective death sentence given to Jimmy Lai by the world’s #1 dictatorship. Here's a headline WAPO might publish: HONG KONG: WHERE FREEDOM AMD JOURNALISM DIE IN BLINDING SUNLIGHT