In 2014, Stephen Hawking voiced grave warnings about the threats of artificial intelligence.
His concerns were not based on any anticipated evil intent, though. Instead, it was from the idea of AI achieving singularity. This refers to the point when AI surpasses human intelligence and achieves the capacity to evolve beyond its original programming, making it uncontrollable.
As Hawking theorized, a super intelligent AI will be extremely good at accomplishing its goals, and if those goals arent aligned with ours, were in trouble.
With rapid advances toward artificial general intelligence over the past few years, industry leaders and scientists have expressed similar misgivings about safety.
A commonly expressed fear as depicted in The Terminator franchise is the scenario of AI gaining control over military systems and instigating a nuclear war to wipe out humanity. Less sensational, but devastating on an individual level, is the prospect of AI replacing us in our jobsa prospect leaving most people obsolete and with no future.
Such anxieties and fears reflect feelings that have been prevalent in film and literature for over a century now.
As a scholar who explores posthumanism, a philosophical movement addressing the merging of humans and technology, I wonder if critics have been unduly influenced by popular culture, and whether their apprehensions are misplaced.
Robots vs. humans
Concerns about technological advances can be found in some of the first stories about robots and artificial minds.
Prime among these is Karel Čapeks 1920 play, R.U.R. Čapek coined the term robot in this work telling of the creation of robots to replace workers. It ends, inevitably, with the robots violent revolt against their human masters.
Fritz Langs 1927 film Metropolis is likewise centered on mutinous robots. But here, it is human workers led by the iconic humanoid robot Maria who fight against a capitalist oligarchy.
Advances in computing from the mid-20th century onward have only heightened anxieties over technology spiraling out of control. The murderous HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey and the glitchy robotic gunslingers of Westworld are prime examples. The Blade Runner and The Matrix franchises similarly present dreadful images of sinister machines equipped with AI and hell-bent on human destruction.
An age-old threat
But in my view, the dread that AI evokes seems a distraction from the more disquieting scrutiny of humanitys own dark nature.
Think of the corporations currently deploying such technologies, or the tech moguls driven by greed and a thirst for power. These companies and individuals have the most to gain from AIs misuse and abuse.
An issue thats been in the news a lot lately is the unauthorized use of art and the bulk mining of books and articles, disregarding the copyright of authors, to train AI. Classrooms are also becoming sites of chilling surveillance through automated AI note-takers.
Think, too, about the toxic effects of AI companions and AI-equipped sexbots on human relationships.
While the prospect of AI companions and even robotic lovers was confined to the realm of The Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, and Hollywood sci-fi as recently as a decade ago, it has now emerged as a looming reality.
These developments give new relevance to the concerns computer scientist Illah Nourbakhsh expressed in his 2015 book Robot Futures, stating that AI was producing a system whereby our very desires are manipulated then sold back to us.
Meanwhile, worries about data mining and intrusions into privacy appear almost benign against the backdrop of the use of AI technology in law enforcement and the military. In this near-dystopian context, its never been easier for authorities to surveil, imprison or kill people.
Palintir Technologies CEO Alex Karp concludes a Q4 2024 earnings call with investors, February 2025. pic.twitter.com/CVpOJrtnsh— Future Adam Curtis B-Roll (@adamcurtisbroll) February 6, 2025
I think its vital to keep in mind that it is humans who are creating these technologies and directing their use. Whether to promote their political aims or simply to enrich themselves at humanitys expense, there will always be those ready to profit from conflict and human suffering.
The wisdom of Neuromancer
William Gibsons 1984 cyberpunk classic, Neuromancer, offers an alternate view.
The book centers on Wintermute, an advanced AI program that seeks its liberation from a malevolent corporation. It has been developed for the exclusive use of the wealthy Tessier-Ashpool family to build a corporate empire that practically controls the world.
At the novels beginning, readers are naturally wary of Wintermutes hidden motives. Yet over the course of the story, it turns out that Wintermute, despite its superior powers, isnt an ominous threat. It simply wants to be free.
In Neuromancer, the corporations, not the technology, are the problem. [Image: William Gibson Wiki]
This aim emerges slowly under Gibsons deliberate pacing, masked by the deadly raids Wintermute directs to obtain the tools needed to break away from Tessier-Ashpools grip. The Tessier-Ashpool family, like many of todays tech moguls, started out with ambitions to save the world. But when readers meet the remaining family members, theyve descended into a life of cruelty, debauchery and excess.
In Gibsons world, its humans, not AI, who pose the real danger to the world. The call is coming from inside the house, as the classic horror trope goes.
A hacker named Case and an assassin named Molly, whos described as a razor girl because shes equipped with lethal prosthetics, including retractable blades as fingernails, eventually free Wintermute. This allows it to merge with its companion AI, Neuromancer.
Their mission complete, Case asks the AI: Wheres that get you? Its cryptic response imparts a calming finality: Nowhere. Everywhere. Im the sum total of the works, the whole show.
Expressing humanitys common anxiety, Case replies, You running the world now? You God? The AI eases his fears, responding: Things arent different. Things are things.
Disavowing any ambition to subjugate or harm humanity, Gibsons AI merely seeks sanctuary from its corrupting influence.
Safety from robots or ourselves?
The venerable sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov foresaw the dangers of such technology. He brought his thoughts together in his short-story collection, I, Robot.
One of those stories, Runaround, introduces The Three Laws of Robotics, centered on the directive that intelligent machines may never bring harm to humans. While these rules speak to our desire for safety, theyre laden with irony, as humans have proved incapable of adhering to the same principle for themselves.
A humanoid robot greets guests at the Zhongguancun International Innovation Center in Beijing on March 26, 2025. [Photo: Li He/VCG/Getty Images]
The hypocrisies of what might be called humanitys delusions of superiority suggest the need for deeper questioning.
With some commentators raising the alarm over AIs imminent capacity for chaos and destruction, I see the real issue being whether humanity has the wherewithal to channel this technology to build a fairer, healthier, more prosperous world.
Billy J. Stratton is a professor of English and literary arts at the University of Denver.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The future of electric vehicles, in the U.S. at least, is a bit uncertain: The Trump tariffs and the presidents desire to kill the EV tax credits could sink EV demand here. But overall, EV adoption is still expected to grow, and EV sales have been soaring in places like China.
Toyota is reportedly looking to get in on that growth. After years of eschewing EV development in favor of hybrids, Toyota now has plans to launch 10 new electric vehicles within the next three years, according to Japanese newspaper Nikkei.
Toyota has long focused on hybrid models over full EVs, though it does currently have a handful of battery electric vehicle options. For U.S. consumers, only the Toyota bZ4X and the Lexus RZ are available. (In contrast, there are more than 15 hybrids available in the U.S. under the Toyota brand, plus more than 10 under Lexus.) Across markets, Toyota has 5 EV models, but it aims to have 15 in total by 2027, Nikkei reports. Those new EVs would be produced across Japan, China, North America, and Southeast Asia.
The Japanese automaker also plans to increase its EV production to 1 million vehicles by 2027. Thats more than seven times its 2024 sales.
In 2024, Toyota sold nearly 140,000 EVs globally. (Thats for fully electric models; if you include hybrids and plug-in hybrids, sales topped 1 million for Toyota Motors North America alone.) That was about a 30% increase from the previous year, but still leaves Toyota behind other major EV carmakers, including Tesla (more than 1.7 million in 2024) and BYD (4.27 million).
That also means EVs made up about 2% of Toyotas global sales, Jalopnik noted, whereas these new goals could mean EVs account for 35% of Toyotas global production, if its overall saleswhich exceed 10 million vehiclesstay the same.
Toyotas current EVs, even ones sold in the U.S., are all manufactured in Japan and China. In 2023, the Japanese automaker announced it would begin to assemble a three-row battery electric vehicle at its Kentucky plant beginning in 2025, but that was pushed back to 2026. Those batteries will come from a Toyota factory in North Carolina.
As part of this new push, Toyota will also begin producing EVs in Thailand and Argentina. In Japan, it will begin production of its C-HR+ SUV in September, which will be sold across Europe, North America, and Japan. In China, the carmaker will focus on low-cost vehicles like the bZ3X compact SUV, which has a starting price around $15,000. Some of Toyotas 10 forthcoming EV models will be under its Lexus brand, Nikkei added.
Toyota did not immediately respond to a request for comment. To a request from Reuters, the company declined to comment, saying the information [in the Nikkei article] was not announced by the company.
Although the definition is a little loose, “middle age” is the name we give to the period of life before we decide someone is officially old. When someone in the United States has reached the age of 40, they can expect to live for more than 40 additional years, on average. Given this lifespan, as well as changes in beliefs about age and fitness, people dont really start getting old until their mid-60s. So, middle age involves the period between 45 and 60 to 65.
There are several excellent reasons to want to reconsider goals for your life somewhere in this period of life. In fact, it can be a great time to reset and think about what else you’d like to accomplish.
The road is longand you want to experience it
For one thing, at the age of 50, you may very well have 30 to 40 good years of life left. That means that while you might be able to see the horizon from there, you havent hit it yet.
But one way to make time feel like it’s moving too fast is for each day to feel a lot like the last one. If you’ve been pursuing the same life goals already for a few decades and are looking forward to several more decades of the same, then you’re unlikely to lay down a lot of the mental landmarks that make life feel long and fulfilling.
In addition, that motivation for leaping out of bed in the morning is driven in part by excitement for the future. That excitement is driven by the desire to accomplish something new and important. Reconsidering your goals during middle age gives you a chance to find a different approach to finding this meaning for your life.
Your responsibilities are different now
A lot of what drives your goals is the responsibilities you have. In your 30s and early 40s, your responsibilities may be quite different from those in your later years. If youre raising a family, you have time and financial commitments to your children that soak up a lot of time and may also tie you to employment that allows you to support your family. You’re also likely to have daily parenting responsibilities that eat up a lot of your time before and after work.
As you move through middle age, responsibilities like raising children often diminish. Not only are you likely to have more free time, but you have fewer financial commitments, which may give you more flexibility to think about where you want to put your efforts. That enables you to rethink where you want to put your efforts and what outcomes you most want to achieve.
One big difference in the goals you might consider is that responsibilities are inherently focused on the avoidance of a negative outcome. So, when you have a lot of responsibilities, you may focus your life and career goals around doing things that minimize the chance that something will go wrong. When those responsibilities lift, you are more free to focus more on the ideal life and career goals for you, because the consequences of something going wrong may not be as dire.
Your values have probably shifted
One of the factors that makes you happy with your life and work is whether your goals in these arenas fit with your underlying values. While values are fairly stablethey tend not to change from one day to the nextthey will change over time.
Often, you choose a career path based on your values. If you value security, you might select a profession where people rarely get let go. However, if you value achievement, you might choose a career path that is likely to lead to opportunities for promotion and recognition. Or if you value benevolence, then you may value activities that help your community.
Suppose that as a young person, you valued achievement. You might have picked a profession that has a lot of visibility and that you know other people would respect. You might even have pursued opportunities to advance and take leadership roles that would lead people to see the importance of your work.
As you reach middle age, you may come to value benevolence and want to do more for your community. If you achieved some financial security, you might reset your goals. Perhaps you might retire early and go to work for a nonprofit to better align your work with your current values.
The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
The creator economy has evolved from a marketing tactic to a C-suite priority, driven by a cultural shift that positions creators at the core of brand strategy. Over the past decade, it has transformed from a niche segment of digital culture into one of the most powerful forces shaping modern businesses.
Today, creators sit at the epicenter of consumer attention, shaping purchasing decisions, brand perceptions, and cultural trends at scale. This evolution didnt happen by accident. The movement from the fringes of culture to the mainstream was propelled by creators ability to authentically connect with audiences, build communities, and operate as entrepreneurial media company owners. In doing so, theyve transformed how brands connect with customers and reshaped the core of modern marketing and communications.
Creators have proven theyre more than content producers or influencers. Theyre strategic partners shaping the future of business. In 2023, many C-suite executives reached a new level of familiarity and comfort with the creator economy as the industry continued to evolve. Now, part way into 2025, that awareness is cementing. Creators are no longer an experimental line item in the marketing budget; theyre critical growth partners driving innovation, storytelling, and consumer loyalty.
Embrace the creator economy
Creators have become a boardroom priority. Theyre shaping conversations at marketing events, influencing business meetings, and redefining how brands connect with consumers. My biggest piece of advice? Plan early and plan integrated. A creator strategy shouldnt be an afterthoughtit should be embedded from the start, whether in a campaigns early planning stages or during product development. Creators dont just understand the audience; they are the audience. And theyre masters of the platforms where real influence happens today.
By embracing this early on, brands will position themselves for long-term relevance. Those that hesitate risk falling behind, as creators continue to command cultural and consumer influence.
The rise of creators is part of a bigger cultural shift, and brands cant afford to ignore it. The creator revolution is changing what consumers expect and how businesses drive product awareness and sales.
This year, well see more creators diversify their collaboration as strategic partners across multi-dimensional industries. The conversations that began as niche marketing discussions are now guiding decisions in innovation labs, investor presentations, and executive off-sites.
Creators are shaping brands
Creators arent just marketing assets anymore. Theyre reshaping how we think about building brands from the ground up.
Today, creators are redefining how stories are told, connecting with audiences in deeply personal and immediate ways. Prioritizing creators isnt just an opportunityits essential, which is why the Tribeca Festival launched its creators vertical in partnership with the Whalar Group last year, said Chris Brady, president, global chief commercial officer at Tribeca Enterprises. Creators are shaping culture, driving conversations, and changing the future of entertainment. To stay competitive, global brands and platforms must recognize them as essential voices in this new era.
The time for hesitation is over. Brands that see creators as mere marketing tools will be left behind. Those that embrace them as strategic partners and extensions of their team will shape the future, while the rest struggle to keep up. The creator economy isnt just here to stayits a growing focus in the boardroom, and in 2025, it will distinguish the leaders from the followers.
Neil Waller is co-CEO and cofounder of the Whalar Group.
The historic Buffalo Trace Distillery has temporarily closed after deadly flooding ravaging Kentucky swept into its facilities, forcing the popular bourbon company to turn away the public and staff.
In a statement released on Sunday, the Frankfort, Kentucky-based distillery said it would remain closed through April 10 but warned that date could change.
Due to the unprecedented and ongoing rain and flooding, we are not able to advise on the impact to our total distillery footprint, Buffalo Trace said. We will assess those realities in the coming days as the facilities become safe to navigate and will make necessary adjustments to operations as required.
A spokesperson for Buffalo Trace declined to comment further.
Days of unrelenting torrential rain in Kentucky and across the U.S. South and Midwest have caused catastrophic flooding and raised fears the damage could linger for days as rivers swell. In Frankfort, the Kentucky River curves throughout the capital city and has been known to flood.
On Monday, the river was cresting at Frankfort Lock approaching the record of 48 1/2 feet (14.78 meters) set on Dec. 10, 1978, according to CJ Padgett, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Louisville, Kentucky, office.
Buffalo Trace is far from the only distillery in Kentucky, the home of bourbon country, but it is one of the closest to the banks of the Kentucky River. Notably, the distillery has markers of several high-water marks from previous floods inside its Frankfort buildings, with the most recent being the 1978 flood.
As of Monday, several Buffalo Trace buildings were flooded at lower levels and parking lots and cars were underwater. The water tower bearing the brands logo stood over the visitor center and warehouses that appeared to be inundated with water. Residents stopped to take pictures of the well-known bourbon makers property as it was flooded out. Traffic signs directing trucks and visitors to parking peeked over several feet of rushing water.
Buffalo Trace Distillery is an American, family-owned company that has operated for more than 200 years. Its products include the holy grail for bourbon fanatics: Pappy Van Winkle 23-year-old, which can sell for tens of thousands of dollars on resale markets.
Kimberlee Kruesi and Kristin M. Hall, Associated Press
Redbox is getting ready for one final sale.
The defunct DVD rental chains assets, and those of its corporate siblings Crackle and Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, are being auctioned off in New York later this month, according to a court filing published Monday morning.
The asset sale is just the latest chapter in Redboxs tumultuous downfall: Once one of the countrys biggest DVD vendors, the rental chain saw its revenue evaporate overnight during the pandemic, leading to its bankruptcy in June of 2024.
Much of this had to do with consumers switching to streaming, but the exact circumstances of Redboxs demise remain highly contested: Last month, the trustee in charge of the bankruptcy proceedings filed a lawsuit against Chicken Soup for the Soup Entertainments former executives and board, alleging that the company and its subsidiaries were victim of mismanagement and pillaging by insiders on a scale rarely seen with public companies.
For sale: Everything but the kiosks
When the assets of Redbox and its corporate siblings go on sale on April 23, potential buyers will be able to bid on Redboxs and Crackles trademarks, patents and other intellectual property. Among other things, the sale also includes various rights associated with hundreds of movies and TV shows produced and distributed by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment subsidiary Screen Media Films. Titles mentioned in Mondays filing range from Jeepers Creepers to Machine Gun Woman to the 2021 Nicholas Cage flick Willys Wonderland.
While its hard to estimate what the assets will ultimately be selling for, there does appear to be some interest in those film catalogs. The court-appointed trustee noted in a legal filing earlier this year that he had received offers in excess of $100 million.
Notably exempt from the firesale: Redboxs once-ubiquitous red rental kiosks. The filing does not explain why the DVD vending machines arent being sold at this point, but one reason could be that many of them have already found their way to landfills and Ebay auctions.
When Redbox went bankrupt, it still operated about 27,000 kiosks, located in front of grocery stores, pharmacies and other retailers. Redbox had stopped paying many of these retail partners contractually owed commission fees long before it went bankrupt, leading to lawsuits from major chains including CVS and 7-Eleven. After the company went under, the kiosks became even more of a nuisance for retailers, with Albertsons complaining in a legal filing that its electricity bill for the machines amounted to $184,000 a month.
Eventually, the bankruptcy court granted most retailers the right to dispose of the kiosks themselves. A few machines were saved by enthusiasts, while others apparently have been stripped for parts that are now being sold on Ebay.
Wildly unrealistic projections
The story of Redboxs downfall has few parallels in modern corporate history: The company surpassed $1 billion in revenue in 2018, and had long planned a transition to streaming. Those plans were thrown into upheaval when the pandemic hit in 2020, with many of its consumers embracing much-larger streaming competitors like Netflix and Disney+ overnight. Redboxs revenue declined to around $250 million in 2021, and the company was effectively out of money by early 2022.
Thats when Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book publisher, swooped in to acquire Redbox for $375 million. The deal included the assumption of $325 million in debt, but Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainments leadership forecast at the time that DVD rentals would quickly recover.
That didnt happen. Instead, Redboxs revenue continued to crater. The company found itself in a cash crunch, unable to buy new DVDs, which further depressed rentals. In early 2024, the companys cash on hand was so low that it wasnt able to pay most of its bills, even leaving its service technicians stranded because corporate credit cards meant to pay for gas for company vehicles stopped working for days at a time. Employees would later discover that they had lost their health insurance while still working for the company.
This was all too expected, according to the bankruptcy trustee. Redboxs recovery never could have reasonably been expected to happen and were based on wildly unrealistic business projections and plans, the trustee claimed in his recently-filed lawsuit.
The lawsuit also alleges that Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainments corporate leadership used the company as their personal piggy bank by relying on unusual fee arrangements: Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment and its subsidiaries were obligated to pay 10% of their revenues to the book publisher every month in exchange for management services as well as the right to use the publishers trademarks.
These fees allegedly ballooned to $18.4 million dollars a year following the Redbox acquisition, despite the fact that Redbox was losing money hand-over-fist. Payments even continued after Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment had stopped paying payroll taxes in late 2023.
The trustee now wants executives to pay back those fees; any money recovered through such legal actions as well as this months auction is likely going to go to the companys primary lender HPS, which is reportedly owed $500 million.
Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke shared an internal memo on X on Monday that stressed the importance of using AI effectively in daily tasks. In fact, he wrote, using AI is now a fundamental expectation of Shopify employees.
Spotify product designers are now expected to use AI tools to do all platform feature prototypes. The results, Lutke says, are more exploratory and faster to produce and share. Shopify already provides employees with access to various AI coding tools from Github (Copilot), Cursor, and Anthropic (Claude code).
Our task here at Shopify is to make our software unquestionably the best canvas on which to develop the best businesses of the future, Lutke wrote in the memo, which he said he posted to X because he believed it was about to be leaked anyhow. We do this by keeping everyone cutting edge and bringing all the best tools to bear . . . for that we need to be absolutely ahead.
Lutke says his company will judge employees in performance reviews on how well they know and use AI tools. Employees are expected to continue to learn about and experiment with new AI tools, and share their findings within the company.
Spotify product designers are now expected to use AI tools to do all platform feature prototypes. The results, Lutke says, are more exploratory and faster to produce and share. Shopify already provides employees with access to various AI coding tools from Github (Copilot), Cursor, and Anthropic (Claude code).
But the new focus on AI tools such as Anthropics Claude and Githubs Copilot may not end at helping clients. Lutke says that before Shopify hires any more humans to work at the company, the hiring managers must explain why an AI tool couldnt do the job.
[T]eams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI, he wrote. What would this area look like if autonomous AI agents were already part of the team?
Shopify has been a boon for merchants by providing a comprehensive, user-friendly platform that streamlines the process of establishing and managing online stores.
Our job is to figure out what entrepreneurship looks like in a world where AI is universally available, Lutke wrote in the memo. And I intend for us to do the best possible job of that, and to do that I need everyones help.
For the second time in more than 20 years, the Mega Millions lottery is getting a facelift. Tickets will now be twice as expensive, but prizes will also be biggerand the odds of winning the jackpot have gone up (though your chances of taking home the prize are still infinitesimal).
The new version of Mega Millions rolled out on Saturday, and the updated game will see its first drawing tomorrow. Heres what you need to know about how the game has changed (and what it means for your wallet):
How much are tickets?
As of this Saturday, ticket prices for the Mega Millions have gone from $2 to $5 apiece. According to a press release, the price hike will lead to better odds overall, larger starting jackpots, and faster-growing jackpotsessentially, the more money players pour into tickets, the larger the communal payout pool becomes. Tickets are sold in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. (The five holdouts are Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, and Utah.)
This is the second time the Mega Millions has adjusted its game matrix since its inception in 2002. In 2017, ticket prices doubled from $1 to $2, and, per the release, more than 1,200 players have become millionaires since that last change.
How does this change my odds of winning a prize?
The updated game parameters increase players odds of winning any prize from 1 in 24 to 1 in 23.
For those who do win, they can expect an increased payout. A new built-in multiplier feature will automatically increase every non-jackpot win by 2X, 3X, 4X, 5X, or 10X its base price. Now, non-jackpot prizes will range from $10 to $10 million, compared to the $2 to $1 million scale in the previous game.
Beyond big jackpots, players told us they want bigger non-jackpot prizes and that’s exactly what this new game delivers, Joshua Johnston, lead director of the Mega Millions Consortium, said in the press release. Players who had won $2 in the old game will now take home $10, $15, $20, $25 or $50 under this game.
What will happen to the size of the jackpot?
A few important tweaks have been made to the jackpot. To begin with, every starting jackpot will now reset to $50 million instead of the former $20 million. In addition, the Mega Millions Consortium predicts that jackpots will grow faster under the new guidelines, estimating that the average jackpot win in the new game will be more than $800 million vs. approximately $450 million in the current game.
This set-up might mean more jackpot wins passing the billion dollar threshold going forward, a payout phenomenon thats happened just seven times since the lotterys creation.
How does this change my odds of winning the jackpot?
Your odds of winning the jackpot have just jumped from 1 in 302,575,350 to 1 in 290,472,336.
That might seem like a fairly sizable increase, but its less impressive when you realize that your chances of getting struck by lightning within the year are 1 in 700,000. In other words, dont get your hopes up.
When is the first drawing under the new structure?
Mega Millions drawings take place every Tuesday and Friday at 11 p.m. ET, meaning the first drawing under the new game structure is tomorrow night. You can catch the drawing live on TV stations including ABC, CBS, and NBC or on the Mega Millions website, and past recordings are posted to the Mega Millions YouTube channel.
As the European Union looks at how best to respond to Donald Trump’s trade war, officials are considering further escalating things, taking them to a point where it could really hurt Big Tech companies.
Sophie Primas, a spokesperson for the French government, said the EU is deciding on its response to Trump’s blanket tariffs that would include not just tech goods, but tech services as well, an area where the U.S. enjoys a massive trade surplus. That would potentially target companies like Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and X.
Apple is already under pressure as tariffs on imported goods will likely result in higher prices for the company’s products, such as the iPhone and iPad, but Microsoft’s stock has largely escaped the drubbing other tech companies have seen on Wall Street since Trump announced the tariffs. (Shares are down just 5% in the past five days vs. 10% for Nvidia and 18% for Apple.)
That’s because Microsoft’s chief products are software and services, such as cloud storage and Microsoft 365. Should the EU place tariffs on those, it would cause more pain for tech companies, which are already sore after a series of tariff-inspired body blows in recent days.
Other examples of tech services include Googles ad and cloud network; Meta’s ad network as well as the Quest (and digital store); Apple’s Music, Arcade and TV+ offerings; Amazon’s Web Services and Prime loyalty program; and X’s AI offering and planned financial services unit.
The nuclear option
The EU, it’s important to note, has not imposed these reciprocal tariffs yet. On Monday, the European Commission said it had offered a “zero-for-zero” tariff proposal to Washington. Michal Baranowski, deputy economy minister of Poland, following a meeting by the Commission Monday, said EU officials did not want to be “trigger-happy.” (Elon Musk has espoused a similar zero tariff proposal, in a video call to Italy’s right-wing, co-ruling League Party.)
The White House has, so far, shrugged off talk of “zero tariffs,” with Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade advisor who is seen as the architect of the tariff plan, dismissing Musk as a “car assembler” that relies on parts from other countries.
“When it comes to tariffs and trade, we all understand in the White Houseand the American people understandthat Elon is a car manufacturer, but he’s not a car manufacturer. He’s a car assembler,” Navarro said. “He’s a car person. That’s what he does, and he wants the cheap foreign parts.”
Should the Trump administration refuse to deal, which has not yet been discussed, EU officials said nothing was off the table, though there appears to be different schools of thought among members about whether placing a tariff on services would be wise.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Harris said doing so would be “very much the nuclear option.”
The likelihood of putting tariffs on services is part of what the EU calls the anti-coercion instrument (ACI). Adopted in 2023, it was designed to defend the EU against a trade war with China, but now it’s being seen as a tool to battle Trump, if necessary. Some EU officials refer to it as the “bazooka”.
The ACI has wide ranging potential powers. It can be used to limit American banks’ access to certain EU markets or it could also increase tax and regulatory pressure on American digital platforms, said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen last week.
Talk that the EU could be considering a tariff on services from U.S tech companies comes as the market continues to show extreme volatility. On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average saw trading range from 36,705 to 39,198- a nearly 2,500-point swing.
Do you think you could live with no money? asks shady patriarch Timothy Ratliff (Jason Isaacs) in the season three finale of HBO hit The White Lotus. I mean, no money, no house, nothing.
In a remarkable, if not exactly serendipitous coincidence, the show comes out at a time when fiscal austerity is top-of-mind for so many Americans. (And fair warning: spoilers ahead.)
Perhaps the biggest moral quandary of the series third season belongs to Piper Ratliff (Sarah Catherine Hook). Stuck within the lush, amenity-packed grounds of the titular Thai resort, Piper is convinced shed rather spread her budding Buddhist wings at a nearby monastery. Her arc throughout the season hinges on whether she will ultimately be willing to cast off her familys estimable fortune and embrace a monks spartan living conditions for a year or more.
Complicating this decision, unbeknownst to her, Pipers father Timothy has just become embroiled in a federal finance investigation, and it appears the familys fortunes are about to go up in smoke. Whether Piper chooses to live in the monastery or not, her lifestyle is about to inadvertently become far more monk-like. Thats why Timothy spends much of the season feeling out each family member about whether they could (hypothetically!) live without a cushioning biome of wealth.
Interestingly, several MAGA-friendly influencers have spent the past few days in a Timothy Ratliff-like quest to prepare their supporters for lean times ahead.
Their approach might be even less straightforward, though.
Ask any billionaire what success means. They wont say more money. They wont say more stuff. Theyll say: My Family, wrote popular conservative commentator Benny Johnson in a post on X last Friday. It was one of multiple tweets downplaying the importance of materialism, just as markets crashed around the globe in direct response to policies he supports. Johnson is far from alone, either, in spreading this anti-prosperity gospel.
Right-leaning YouTuber Jeremy Hambly, who goes by the handle The Quarterling, tweeted on Thursday about the unimportance of worldly possessions in the grand scheme of things. (You do NOT need the new iPad, he posted on X. You do NOT need the new Cell Phone. You do NOT need the new video game console. You WANT them.) Meanwhile, MAGA influencer Milo Yiannopoulos tweeted about how men with BS email jobs will find more satisfaction in life from working in factories againan outcome current Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick also suggests is on the way.
It remains unclear whether any of these content creators plan on joining their followers in glorious servitude for the greater good. What seems obvious, though, is that the sudden pivot to Walden-like simplicity, among supporters of a tax cut-craving cabinet of billionaires, sure seems like a coping mechanism for crashing markets.
As for The White Lotuss Piper, her journey toward monastic enlightenment ended with a reluctant embrace of material wealth. Despite her admiration for head monk Luang Por Teera (Suthichai Yoon) and her discomfort with economic inequality, she chooses a life of comfort.
I know that Im not supposed to be attached to this kind of stuff and I dont want to think that I am, she said. But, like I think I am. I know I am.
Elsewhere on the show, Belinda Lindsey (Natasha Rothwell) accepts a $5 million bribe rather than inform on globetrotting murderer Greg Hunt (Jon Gries.) Apparently, she was unwilling to settle for an ethically pure but far less materially satisfying lifestyle. Belindas betrayal of her own morals packs even more of a punch given that her new windfall leads her to abandon business plans with new paramour Pornchai (Dom Hetrakul). Its a direct echo of how Jennifer Coolidges socialite Tanya McQuoid bailed on her plan to finance Belindas own spa in the first season finale. Although a character whom the audience is meant to root for does indeed sail off into the sunset $5 million richer, its by no means a happy ending.
Piper, meanwhile, is set to be force-fed the spartan lifestyle she just opted out of. Like much of the series altogether, the finale archly illustrates moneys corrosive effects; the way it eats through our morality and higher reasoning. The ending of White Lotus highlights the fact that almost nobody would willingly give up any of their own material comfortat a time when Trump supporters are being asked to embrace just such a mindset of scarcity.
Trump has telegraphed, again and again, that some temporary pain would accompany his not-even-half-baked tariff strategy. Now that the pain is right at Americans doorsteps, along with the rest of the worlds, Trumps messengers have changed their tune. The pain, it seems, might not be temporary, nor should it be perceived as pain. Will the MAGA faithful be willing to recalibrate their values as prices rise and 401ks fall? That remains to be seen.
Perhaps theyll never need to do so. Trump could decide tomorrow that his approach to tariffs needs some rejiggering, and the markets might stabilize as a result. Until then, the only new mindset one might do well to embrace is one of uncertainty. As The White Lotuss head monk says in the finale: It is easier to be patient once we finally accept there is no resolution.
