Companies like OpenAI and Anthropic offer powerful AI models for free while burning billions of dollars annually. OpenAI spends about $700,000 per day just to keep ChatGPT running for its 800 to 900 million weekly active users, most of whom pay nothing ( Times of India, 2026 ). Anthropic's Claude faces similar economics. Pro subscriptions priced at $20 per month often deliver far more compute value than users pay for, raising the obvious question of how this works as a busine

Image Credit: Generated with Wix AI The social contract is a simple idea that hides a lot of complexity. Citizens give states power, resources and some degree of obedience. In return, they expect protection, basic services and a say in how rules are written and applied. For most of modern history that bargain has been mediated by human institutions. Civil servants, teachers, judges and frontline workers interpret law, exercise discretion and can be challenged when they get th

Image Credit: Generated with Gemini A growing number of philosophers think the central question in AI ethics is not “Is this system conscious?” but “Can this system suffer?” Consciousness is already hard to pin down in humans. A Cambridge philosopher recently argued in his paper that we may never develop a reliable test for machine consciousness because science still cannot explain why any physical process produces subjective experience at all ( Cambridge, 2025 ). If there is