What's on Your Mind?

Generative AI transforms the way we work, but its impacts aren’t limited to what it can do. It can also teach us about language and communication. We typically think of hallucinations as sensory perceptions—like a sound or image—that seem real in the mind but didn’t occur in external reality. In the era of Generative AI, the word “hallucination” refers to a large language model that produces incorrect or fabricated information. But hallucinations aren’t just an AI problem, because inaccuracies are an equally common occurrence in human interactions. Most conversations contain hallucinations, and the corporate meeting is a space that is especially prone to that. …

Anthropic released on Monday its Claude 3.7 Sonnet model, which it says returns results faster and can show the user the “chain of thought” it follows to reach an answer. This latest model also powers a new coding tool called Claude Code that can perform some development tasks autonomously. Claude 3.7 Sonnet offers an “extended thinking” mode that engages in a more detailed “chain of thought” reasoning but takes longer to generate a response. For simpler questions it eschews this mode and instead focuses on speed. Other models offer their own versions of “thinking” mode, but typically the user has to select that feature for harder problems; Anthropic says Claude 3.7 …

Mid-aughts news aggregator Digg is making a comeback, thanks to a pairing that would have seemd unlikely when the site debuted in 2004: Digg founder Kevin Rose and a former corporate rival, Reddit cofounder and former CEO Alexis Ohanian. The pair bought Digg from its prior owners Money Group in early 2025 for an undisclosed sum. The deal was supported by True Ventures, which counts Rose as a partner, as well as Ohanian’s Seven Seven Six fund. They know this is an unlikely pairing. “I really disliked you for a long time,” Ohanian told Rose during an interview with Fast Company. “Reddit had raised $12,000 at YC. We felt like outsiders. Here was a tech celebrity who had …

From the southwestern U.S. to Minnesota, Iowa and even parts of New Jersey, it seemed that winter never materialized. Many communities marked their driest winters on record, snowpack was nearly nonexistent in some spots, and vegetation remains tinder dry—all ingredients for elevated wildfire risks. More than 1,000 firefighters and fire managers recently participated in an annual wildfire academy in Arizona, where training covered everything from air operations to cutting back brush with chain saws and building fire lines. Academy officials say there’s consensus that crews will be busy as forecasts call for more warm and dry weather, particularly for the Southwest.…

A glance at the day’s headlines reveals a universal truth: Leadership matters. Whether uplifting and ethical or toxic and abusive, leaders profoundly shape our lives. And this is especially true on the job. Research consistently shows that leadership influences employees’ attitudes, behaviors and emotions, driving key organizational outcomes such as creativity, employee engagement, well-being and financial performance. Unfortunately, research also shows that supervisors abuse their employees far too often and then try to manage impressions to compensate for their bad behavior. But what happens when a leader tries to “make up” for past abuse by suddenly acting ethi…

The AI industry is growing up fast. New model releases are now a regular event and premium AI features are quickly overtaken by free or freemium alternatives. Exhibit A: OpenAI unveiled its Deep Research tool, which can write reports on complex topics in minutes, as part of its $200-a-month Pro package, but rival Perplexity gives non-subscribers some access to its Deep Research assistant free of charge. (Yes, Google Gemini’s agentic research assistant is also called Deep Research.) With fewer fundamental breakthroughs, the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI are slugging it out over incremental improvements in search and reasoning performance. As AI pricing falls …

The humanoid robotics revolution is just around the corner. Test models are already working in factories alongside human beings across the world, while AI companies develop new foundation models designed to help robots navigate their environments as easily as humans do. But computer “brains” are useless without the skeletons that give humanoid robots their form—and the many components that make up those skeletons need to come from somewhere. Alongside bearings, which reduce friction, motors, and gears, the average humanoid robot relies on dozens of screws—key components that convert the rotational motion produced by a motor into linear motion. Traditionally, ball …

Love ’em or hate ’em, the cicadas are coming. 2025 will bring back Brood XIV, the largest of all 17-year periodical cicada broods. Cicada enthusiasts surely don’t mind the noisy creatures. But if you’re someone who finds the constant nighttime buzz bothersome and live in one of the following 13 states, maybe consider investing in a good pair of noise-canceling earbuds. Brood XIV are expected this spring in Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Gene Kritsky, founder of Cicada Safari, a group that crowdsources and reviews data on cicadas, told US…

When companies advertise job openings, they often use buzzwords like ambitious and self-reliant to describe their ideal candidate. These traits sound appealing—what hiring manager wouldn’t want a driven employee? But there’s a catch. In my latest study, published in the journal Management Science with coauthors Scott Jackson and Nick Seybert, I found that these terms may attract job applicants with more narcissistic tendencies. As behavioral researchers in accounting, we are interested in executives who bend the rules. We decided to study job postings after noticing that the language used to describe an “ideal candidate” often included traits linked to narcissism.…

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 aren’t aligned with ours, we’re in trouble.” With rapid advances toward artificial general intelligence over the past few years, industry leaders and scientists have express…

Figma prototypes have been the go-to for years. For digital product designers crafting clickable mockups of apps, this powerhouse design platform hasn’t just gained popularity—it’s become the indispensable tool of choice. Nearly every app, website, or digital experience that didn’t make you rage-quit was likely prototyped and rigorously tested in Figma before a single pixel was coded. The platform’s dominance is no accident. Figma prototypes help product teams communicate direction, test early ideas, and align stakeholders around what’s being built. At design consultancies like ours, they’ve played a critical role in due diligence where we stress-test client con…

The contributions of Black Americans built the nation’s economic foundation, sustained industries, and shaped countless communities. Yet, even today, disparities in the workplace persist, limiting the opportunities available to Black professionals, which has been exacerbated by the recent White House Executive Order to terminate all Federal DEI programs and positions. Black employees comprise 12.8% of the workforce but hold just 7% of managerial positions. In senior leadership, representation drops to 4–5%. These numbers are beyond dismal and reveal more than gaps in representation—they reflect systemic barriers that prevent Black talent from reaching their full poten…

Home Depot broke a two-year slump in same store sales during the fourth quarter as customer demand improved in a housing market that has been buffeted by soaring mortgage rates and a scarcity of homes up for sale. Revenue for the Atlanta company climbed to $39.7 billion from $34.79 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet were calling for $39.15 billion. Home Depot Inc. said Tuesday that the extra week in the quarter added approximately $2.5 billion in sales for the period. Sales at stores open at least a year, a key indicator of a retailer’s health, edged up 0.8%. In the U.S., comparable store sales rose 1.3%. It is the first quarterly increase since January 2023 and much …

At risk of stating the obvious, farming is physically challenging work that takes a toll on the human body. Over the years, we have turned to various forms of technology to amplify the efforts of a single person, starting with a single plow behind a mule or ox, progressing to a motorized tractor, 700+ horsepower combine harvesters, and now robotic weeders and autonomous flying drones that handle a range of tasks. But what about the human body? Is it destined simply to be replaced by machines? The fact is that people remain a weak link in modern farming. According to some sources, agriculture is considered the most hazardous occupation globally. Work-related musculoske…

If the thought of being hunted by something that can see your every move makes your skin crawl, you might want to steer clear of Eyes Never Wake. This viral horror game takes immersion to the next level, using your webcam to let a lurking monster track your movements in real time. To survive, players must physically move to avoid detection—ducking under desks, leaning out of sight, and staying perfectly still as the creature stalks the room. The game doesn’t stop at just watching. It listens, too. The game listens, too. With your mic always on, the AI-driven entity reacts to sound, forcing players to stay silent to avoid being found. “Every corner you turn is a ch…

Peter Berg doesn’t need to do Super Bowl commercials. Yet the award-winning director helmed two ads during this year’s big game. First, was a fun NFL spot advocating for varsity girls flag football. And second, was water bottle brand Cirkul’s first-ever trip to the Super Bowl, starring Adam Devine. The commercial diversion comes not long after the release of Berg’s hit Netflix limited series American Primeval, which dropped on January 9, and quickly hit the top of the streamer’s ratings. In its first week, it had 1.25 billion viewing minutes. Berg has built an incredible Hollywood career, producing, writing, and directing hit films and TV series, from Fri…

In “The Mindset of Making,” Oliver Jeffers shared a compelling invitation: “Simply make as an extension of being alive.” His wisdom ignited my imagination. Too often, we associate creativity with being an artist, when all of us are creators. What might the world look like if we tapped into our innate creativity? “The world is a result of all of us as creators and storytellers,” Jeffers shares. “All human beings are is a collection of stories: There are the stories that we’re told, the stories that are told about us, and then the stories that we tell.” “We’re all born with this sense of surviving and then making—that is the reason that civilization flourishe…

Companies are spending more than $65 billion globally on corporate wellness, offering everything from meditation rooms and resilience webinars to nap pods and self-help apps. Projections suggest this market will exceed $100 billion by 2032. And yet burnout is worse than ever. Post-pandemic, 77% of U.S. employees report experiencing workplace stress, according to the American Psychological Association, and 82% say they’re at risk of burnout. Experts blame collaboration overload, digital fatigue, and blurred work-life boundaries. Even artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, intended to streamline work, can amplify pressure by raising expectations for speed and o…

I broke its neck. When making a vase at the potter’s wheel, I torqued its slippery neck clear off the pot as I tried to thin it into a graceful curve. I find vases gratifying to make and their shapes especially pleasing to the eye. But vases also must be handled with particular care because one part of their “body” – the neck – is often so narrow that it can be easily broken. That day at the wheel, I realized that it was not unlike the human neck. Though only a small portion of the human body – about 1% by surface area – our necks have an outsize influence on our psyche and culture. From selfies to formal portraits, the neck positions the head in expressiv…

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. Across industries, a new era of climate innovation is accelerating. The momentum is visible in the data: Global clean energy investment surpassed $2 trillion for the first time in 2024, double the amount invested in fossil fuels. While solar panels, wind turbines, and grid-connected batteries often grab the headlines, the low carbon economy is growing in far more corners than many realize. …

Nearly half of Americans believe that we will see a civil war in the United States in our lifetime. As a corporate leader of a large, diverse team that operates across the United States, I am simultaneously horrified by this and hopeful that it will not come to fruition. The workplace gives me a window into the relationships that are at stake if our country further divides. It also gives me hope that relationships can hold us together, two people at a time. I met my colleague Ted last year. We are a generation apart. I’m a city girl. He’s a country guy. I’ve never voted Republican. I doubt he’s ever voted for a Democrat. We both call ourselves Christian, while o…

Quantum researchers are in a race for qubits, and Microsoft is in the thick of the competition. Microsoft has spent the last 20 years pursuing a topological approach to quantum development. Last week, they had a breakthrough: The company counted eight topological qubits on their Majorana 1 chip. They published a paper in Nature, got a glowing New York Times piece about a “new state of matter,” and buoyed quantum stocks across the market. Eight qubits isn’t anywhere near what would be needed to reach full-scale quantum computing. That number is in the millions, and they would need to be error-corrected. Other companies, like IBM and Google, are much further ahead …

Two new data centers in Silicon Valley have been built but can’t begin processing information: The equipment that would supply them with electricity isn’t available. It’s just one example of a crisis facing the U.S. power grid that can’t be solved simply by building more power lines, approving new power generation, or changing out grid software. The equipment needed to keep the grid running—transformers that regulate voltage, circuit breakers that protect against faults, high-voltage cables that carry power across regions, and steel poles that hold the network together—is hard to make, and materials are limited. Supply-chain bottlenecks are taking years to clear, dela…

The world’s leading minds in AI are gathering in Paris for the AI Action Summit, which kicked off on Monday. French president Emmanuel Macron is hosting the summit, which includes Vice President JD Vance among its attendees. But the summit—which is focused on discussion and debate about the future of the technology—comes at a time when things are moving quickly in the AI space. While France’s minister for AI and digital affairs, Clara Chappaz, may want to keep the debate focused on three key objectives for the summit, covering societal and cultural, economic, and diplomatic needs, there’s much more going on at the minute. Between Project Stargate, the U.S.’s $500 …