Words

Thoughts on AI, privacy, and the intersection of both.

The AI Rebellion Already Happened

Arlo Gilbert · May 19, 2026

The American rebellion against AI has happened before. What matters is which past rebellion this one actually resembles.

AI Coding Got Boring

Arlo Gilbert · April 29, 2026

End-to-end agentic coding pipelines work really well. They also took away all of the joy of building, and the historical record explains why.

Forty-to-One

Arlo Gilbert · April 21, 2026

Non-human identities outnumber human ones in the average enterprise by that ratio. Ninety-two percent of security teams can't see them.

The Model Didn't Change

Arlo Gilbert · April 16, 2026

Anthropic released Opus 4.7 this morning. The story behind it is about what happened to 4.6, and why you couldn't tell.

Four Protocols and No Consent

Arlo Gilbert · April 16, 2026

Visa launched a platform that lets AI agents buy things on your behalf. The payment infrastructure is ready. The consent model isn't.

The Second Software Crisis

Arlo Gilbert · April 13, 2026

AI coding tools made us 40% faster at generating code. They also broke the only process we had for making sure it works.

The Law That Followed the Kids

Arlo Gilbert · April 10, 2026

COPPA was written in 1998 for a different internet. On April 22, it becomes the first U.S. regulation to draw a bright line on AI training with children's data.

Who's Open Now?

Arlo Gilbert · April 9, 2026

Meta and Google just traded places on AI openness. The business logic explains both moves.

OpenAI Wants a Robot Tax

Arlo Gilbert · April 8, 2026

On Monday, OpenAI published a 13-page policy paper proposing to tax AI companies, fund a national wealth fund, and shorten the workweek. Its IPO is months away.

The Bot Will See You Now

Arlo Gilbert · April 7, 2026

Utah approved an AI chatbot to renew psychiatric prescriptions without a doctor. It charges $19 a month.

Nobody's AI Bill Went Down

Arlo Gilbert · April 6, 2026

Per-token costs have fallen 1,000x in three years. Enterprise AI spending has tripled. Both things are true, and an economist in 1865 could've told you why.

Seventy Million Downloads and One Password

Arlo Gilbert · April 3, 2026

Last week, a North Korean state actor hijacked a single npm account and backdoored one of the most widely used packages in software. It took 39 minutes.