The spectator

Artificial intelligence can be an elusive topic for good journalism. Everybody wants to talk about it; nobody has much to say. Yet it is the biggest – and potentially scariest – subject of our time. We are hurtling towards potentially the biggest technological shift in history and nobody knows quite what to do about it. That’s why we have decided to make AI the focus of our August edition. We believe it’s another gem. Inside, we have Marc Warner, CEO of the AI company Faculty, warning that we may be on the cusp of developing an alien intelligence far beyond our control. Rachel Tyrell (a pseudonym) looks at the furious race between tech moguls to reach the super-intelligence finish line.

A reporter has been restricted from posting on Elon Musk’s X for thirty days due to an article she wrote which The Spectator published over the weekend. The story itself has also been censored on X — you cannot post it on the site — with the reason given that it is “potentially harmful.” Here’s what happened. For months, there has been a social-media rumor that Elon Musk was operating an “alt account” under the pseudonym “Adrian Dittmann.” A number of users on the site were circulating it to make fun of Musk. Some media outlets — Newsweek, the New Republic, the Daily Mail — wrote up stories covering the rumor. None sought to examine its veracity.  Jacqueline Sweet, a contributor to The Spectator, began investigating the claims in late December.

Astute readers might know of the sale process The Spectator has been going through for the past several months. At long last, The Spectator has found a new owner — Sir Paul Marshall, the proprietor of UnHerd in the UK. The sale price of $131 million is a testament to the value and importance of The Spectator brand and everything it stands for. The US edition of The Spectator was established in 2018, with our monthly print edition appearing in 2019 — and we've grown every year since. First edited by Freddy Gray, the publication has made an indelible mark on matters of politics, arts and culture. We're excited by what our new future holds and look forward to new investments across our entire operation.

Western governments seem ill-prepared to grapple with rapidly advancing technology. Watch any congressional hearing where a crusty congressman tries to keep pace with Silicon Valley’s top “autists” if you need further evidence — and read Spencer A. Klavan’s analysis of the high-skill but low-status rejects uniting into a formidable social class. The Silent Generation and boomers simply cannot keep up. The Space Race is back on — and tycoons are eager to cash in on the final frontier. Shane Cashman dives into the new wild west of explorers and entrepreneurs commercializing the great unknown. Lionel Shriver brings us back to earth with a look at the electrical grid and our government’s push for green energy and electric vehicles.

During lockdown, crime shot up around the country. Most cities have seen their numbers come down — most aside from our nation’s capital. Why? In our editorial, we ask what’s being done — it might not surprise you that the answer is “not much.” Matt McDonald, a resident of Navy Yard, one of the worst-hit areas, says that his neighborhood is a failed experiment in gentrification — and asks if help is on the way. And Tim Rice looks at why and how DC got to where it is right now. Elsewhere, Patrick Hauf does a ride-along with the Dallas Police Department, and finds an alternative approach to policing that could be a model for departments around the country.

In her article about the point of protest, Tali Fraser mentions the support of Manchester in the 1860s for the North against the slave-owning South in the US civil war. At the time, this was an unpopular cause amongst the British elite. Of all the publications still around today, only one backed Abraham Lincoln then: The Spectator. The magazine almost went bust as a result. I remarked a few days ago that what sets us apart from other long-running magazines is that our values have not changed much since we were founded in 1828 – or, indeed, since the The Spectator appeared in its original form in 1711. That aroused some teasing: surely, some asked, a magazine needs to change with the times?

Cockburn was thrilled to see the New York Times take an interest in The Spectator last weekend, after the paper published an article about our London office’s ‘incestuous ties’ with the governing elite. Amazing that during a global pandemic and nationwide rioting, the NYT saw fit to dedicate few inches on page A8 to a political adviser on a northern European island. ‘Rogue Trip by Boris Johnson Aide Makes U.K.’s Spectator Part of the Story’, declared the headline. At least that was the revised headline — the first suggested, erroneously, that The Spectator was in ‘turmoil.’ The Spectator may be in many things, but turmoil isn’t one of them. The Gray Lady isn’t known for its fair-mindedness these days. But its coverage of the Speccie was surprisingly reasonable.

The Spectator in London has this week done something no other magazine has done. We’ve just published our 10,000th edition. We’ve been producing a weekly magazine since 1828 — I’m proud to have been involved in the magazine for 10 of those 192 years. The key to our longevity is that The Spectator is unique; it dares to be different. We have pretty much stuck to the same simple editorial formula — news and comment first, book reviews after — because it works. We allow jokes and dissent. We encourage arguments. As Douglas Murray puts it in his column this week, The Spectator’s enemies are ‘Boredom. Predictability. Obviousness. Humorlessness. Dullness. Staleness.