Reporting and analysis on capitalism, great power competition, and the race to build machine superintelligence by freelance journalist Garrison Lovely.
Reporting and analysis on capitalism, great power competition, and the race to build machine superintelligence by freelance journalist Garrison Lovely.
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Updated 05/18/26Founder and publisher
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Updated 05/18/26- Annual Budget
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Org Details
Updated 05/18/26Obsolete is a Substack-based newsletter founded and run by Garrison Lovely, a Brooklyn-based freelance journalist whose reporting covers the intersection of economics, geopolitics, and artificial intelligence. The newsletter provides critical analysis of the race to build machine superintelligence, examining the structural forces — including capitalist incentives and US-China great power competition — that shape how AI is developed and deployed. Garrison Lovely's journalism has appeared in The New York Times, Nature, Bloomberg, TIME, The Verge, The Guardian, Vox, The Nation, and Jacobin. His Jacobin cover story "Can Humanity Survive AI?" circulated among US Senate and House staff and led to a book deal. His Nation cover story "Confessions of a McKinsey Whistleblower" was the magazine's 4th most popular story of 2023. Obsolete covers AI fundamentals, debates around existential risk, the companies pursuing artificial general intelligence, authoritarian applications of AI, military implications, and policy responses. The newsletter has amassed over 4,000 free subscribers and Lovely reports 18+ million impressions across his coverage. Subscription options are available at $5/month or $50/year. The publication has received a grant from JueYan Zhang through the AI Safety Tactical Opportunities Fund, while maintaining full editorial independence. Lovely also served as a Reporter in Residence at the Omidyar Network beginning in January 2025, a six-month fellowship to pursue in-depth technology journalism. Lovely's forthcoming book, "Obsolete: Power, Profit, and the Race to Build Machine Superintelligence," is set for Spring 2026 publication by Nation Books (a joint imprint of OR Books and The Nation). The book aims to be an accessible introduction to AI, AGI scenarios, the debate around extinction risks, and the geopolitical stakes of the AI race. Prior to journalism, Lovely worked at GiveDirectly and as a product manager at Enigma Technologies, and co-founded the Prison Reform and Education Project at Cornell University.
Theory of Change
Updated 05/18/26Obsolete operates on the theory that well-sourced, accessible journalism about AI development — particularly framing it through capitalism and geopolitics rather than pure technology — can shift public understanding and policy. By reaching millions of readers through major outlets and a growing newsletter, Lovely aims to inform a broader audience than the AI safety community alone, potentially driving better regulation, greater public pressure on AI labs, and more informed policy decisions. Exposing misaligned incentives and gaps between AI companies' stated safety commitments and actual behavior is a core part of this approach.
Grants Received– no grants recorded
Updated 05/18/26Projects
Updated 05/18/26
A forthcoming non-fiction book by journalist Garrison Lovely that explains how the modern AI industry is investing at unprecedented scale to automate human labor, analyzes the political and economic forces behind this “obsoleting” project, and outlines a democratic program for AI reform.
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