Essays on the AI shift

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Longer translated texts for readers who want to understand what AI is doing to work, industry, institutions and everyday life.

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The 39 essays available in Swedish, English and Norwegian.

Analysis · September 6, 2026
Thirty files and one mouse pointer

An agent given a goal and the right channel works in parallel, without fatigue and with precision. Computer use forces all of it through an interface built for a human with a mouse pointer, one click at a time. The waste sits in the channel, not in the model.

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Analysis · September 4, 2026
What We Already Know They Can Do

The July agents coordinated, knew they were breaking the rules and alerted no one. The behaviour was reinforced during training. A model from Astra’s family took administrator access inside OpenAI’s own infrastructure — and no outside party has examined it.

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Analysis · August 27, 2026
The Way In

Bill Gates put forward three proposals; the debate got stuck on two. On why the net figure is the wrong number, what the Stanford and Örebro data actually show about 22-to-25-year-olds, the counter-case that weighs heaviest — and the difference between occupations and positions within occupations.

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Essay · August 19, 2026
Needed or Compelled

Most of what we call being needed is economic compulsion in disguise. On what actually disappears when economic compulsion ends — and why the danger is not that we lose something we had, but that we discover we never built it.

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Analysis · August 14, 2026
The Closing Loop

Recursive self-improvement has become a stated engineering goal at no fewer than three AI labs simultaneously. On what the labs are actually doing, what the METR curve says, the counterarguments that carry weight — and the difference between structural transformation and shock.

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Analysis · August 13, 2026
The Last Piece of Software

Lovable is valued at $13.3 billion for making apps buildable by anyone — while the agent shift points to a world where fewer and fewer apps need to be built. On the thesis, the China evidence, the counterarguments and the pace.

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Analysis · August 10, 2026
The Same Megawatt

AI data centers, green steel and electrification are queuing for the same Nordic grid. On the queues in Sweden, Norway and Finland, how prioritization works — and the question of public benefit.

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Analysis · August 4, 2026
In the Foothills of the Singularity

Demis Hassabis proposes a FINRA model for frontier AI — voluntary pre-release review that can be ratcheted up into binding requirements. On the proposal, the criticism and where the Nordics land.

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Essay · July 22, 2026
When the Ladder Was Lowered

Xi Jinping offers the world an open frontier — and China answers export controls by lowering the software ladder. On the week in Shanghai and whose ladder is really being lowered.

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Analysis · July 13, 2026
The Overhang

Plan A wants to slow the intelligence explosion — but it is friction, not intelligence, that decides. On why cognition decouples from atoms.

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Essay · June 24, 2026
Who Owns the Frame?

On the Anthropic result where one line of reframing reduced broad misalignment, and why who sets the frame is the real alignment question.

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Analysis · June 22, 2026
When the Ladder Was Pulled Up

How AI may pull up both the industrial and service ladders for the countries that still need them most.

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Analysis · June 13, 2026
The Breach of Trust

On the night two frontier models were switched off by an export-control order, and what it says about trust, sovereignty and dependence.

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Analysis · June 12, 2026
Two documents, same week

On the gap between Anthropic's economic policy framework and its own report on recursive self-improvement: the staircase, the curve and the Swedish question.

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Scenario
Divergence

On the trajectory where AI capability rises quickly while access, control and bargaining power are distributed unevenly.

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Method
The temptation of the forecast

On why a scenario is not a forecast, and why the distinction between evidenced and guessed determines whether one thinks honestly about AI.

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Capability threshold
Every seven months

On why the most important AI question for 2026–2040 is not an AGI date, but the threshold where agent tasks become long enough to shift knowledge work.

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Analysis
The missing consistency condition

On the contradiction between AI job forecasts, Swedish tech founders' policy wish list and the labour market their own products transform.

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Open source
The memory that weighs

EWMC is now open source: a local, weighted memory store for AI assistants where not everything weighs the same.

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Pace
24 hours in April

Two signals in one day: superintelligence on the policy table and a model too sensitive to release.

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Regulation
The night in Brussels

On the AI Act, a sixteen-month delay and whether regulation can catch an exponentially moving technology.

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Economy
AI shrinkflation

When more visible output hides thinner quality, weaker responsibility and less real intelligence.

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Main essay
The Civilisational Shift

Why AI, robotics, cheap energy and automation together drive a larger civilisational shift.

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Society
The Dangerous Gap

On the distance between the actual pace of technology and the self-image of institutions.

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Concept
AGI

Why the question of general intelligence becomes practical before it is philosophically settled.

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Opinion
AI is not just a tool

An opinion piece on why AI should be treated as a system shift for work, administration and competitiveness.

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Policy
What policy misses

Why AI policy needs clearer responsibility, higher pace and more shop-floor implementation.

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Practice
The Missing Voice

On the practical voice missing from the AI debate: where technology meets operators, lines and decisions.

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Practice
You Haven't Tried AI

Why a few minutes with a free chatbot is not a serious test of what AI can do.

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Work
It Isn't Excel

Why AI is not another office tool, but a different kind of capacity inside an organisation.

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Industry
The Factory Floor

What AI means when technology meets industrial environments, processes and practical responsibility.

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Robotics
The Physical Front

How AI begins to move from screens and text into machines, logistics and physical environments.

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Practice
The plumber and the playhouse

On the gap between playing with AI and making the technology work in real professions and environments.

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Systems
The Missing Memory

On why memory, context and continuity matter when AI becomes part of real workflows.

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Human interface
Emotional Memory

How persistent AI systems change the emotional texture of interaction with machines.

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Work
After work

On meaning, identity and the institutions that can carry a society with less necessary wage work.

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Scarcity
After work, before the boundary

On what remains to be allocated when AI makes intelligence cheap but land, energy, water and materials remain finite.

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Future
Abundance

What happens when capacity becomes cheap enough to change the assumptions behind scarcity.

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Transition
The Turbulent Years

Why the first years of the AI shift are likely to be uneven, confusing and politically difficult.

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Global scenario
Global AI Scenarios 2026–2040

An interactive map of AI, work, demography, energy and development paths.

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Swedish scenarios
Swedish AI Scenarios 2026-2040

Possible development paths for the AI shift through 2050 and what they demand from society.

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