What's on Your Mind?

AI is moving fast. But are we really keeping humans at the center? AI scientist, founder of Affectiva, investor at Blue Tulip, and host of Pioneers of AI, Rana el Kaliouby makes the case that human-centric AI isn’t just a safety guardrail; it’s the key to thriving socially, economically, and emotionally. She also cuts through the noise on the buzziest AI myths, including whether we’re in an AI bubble. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response recorded live at SXSW, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top busine…

With the world struggling to get oil supplies moving from the Middle East, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich raised eyebrows with a social media post highlighting a radical idea: Use nuclear bombs to cut a new channel along a route that would avoid Iranian threats in the Strait of Hormuz. Gingrich’s March 15, 2026, post linked to an article that labeled itself as satire. Gingrich has not clarified whether his endorsement was serious. But he is old enough to remember when ideas like this were not only taken seriously but actually pursued by the U.S. and Soviet governments. As I discuss in my book, Deep Cut: Science, Power, and the Unbuilt Interoceanic Canal, the U…

These days, tech bros keep talking about “taste”— the ability to exercise human judgment and determine unique responses while guiding a machine. It’s a rare skillset, as some AI-made media automates content in the form of generic slop. And now tech professionals are the very people worried that technology will rob society of any real taste. The New Yorker’s Kyle Chayka, who broke down tech bros’ obsession with taste last month, coined the term “taste-washing” as the act of giving “anti-humanist technologies a veneer of liberal humanism.” In other words: giving AI properties human-like qualities and letting them run with it. When machines do all the creating, what are …

For decades, cars dictated urban planning in the United States. Few could have predicted that they would one day also double as nodes for surveillance. In thousands of towns and cities across the U.S., automatic license plate readers have been installed at major intersections, bridges and highway off-ramps. These camera-based systems capture the license plate data of passing vehicles, along with images of the vehicle and time stamps. More recently, these systems are using artificial intelligence to create a vast, searchable database that can be integrated with other law enforcement data repositories. As a scholar of technology policy and data governance, I…

Raising Cane’s CEO Todd Graves could go without veggies in his to-go box. More specifically, his go-to Cane’s order includes the box combo, extra toast and extra sauce—and no slaw, he said in a TikTok last month. The fast food executive admitted he’s not a fan of coleslaw, adding “that’s why you can trade it out,” in Joe Bonham’s “Financial Flex” social media series. His reasoning for including the shredded salad: “I wanted a vegetable component to the meal, and coleslaw is a Southern thing.” As the post went viral, one user asked the exec to swap the coleslaw for mac and cheese. Others pleaded to keep the coleslaw on the menu. Customers who order the Box Co…

At first, he appeared in the top corner of a multi-slide TikTok post. Then he was spotted demurely relaxing in a lawn chair on a livestream. Finally, on March 30, Apple’s new mascot, nicknamed “Finder Guy,” made his debut—and the internet has instantly become enamored with him. Finder Guy appeared as part of the rollout for Apple’s MacBook Neo, a colorful, affordable laptop marketed to younger consumers. For the Neo campaign, Apple introduced an entirely new TikTok brand persona on March 4, clearly making a play to capture Gen Z and Gen Alpha viewers by combining trending aesthetics with Apple’s high-design point of view. Popular videos have included a brain-ting…

Managers are rushing to deploy AI for efficiency gains. Employees have to figure out how to make it work—and that’s sometimes harder than it seems. Half of organizations piloted general-purpose AI tools last year, according to MIT research. But adoption and readiness aren’t the same thing. According to Rumman Chowdhury, former U.S. Science Envoy for AI and CEO and cofounder of Humane Intelligence, the burden is likely to fall on workers. “There’s a lot of FOMO among C-suites and high-level execs on pressure to build AI, and then they’re also incentivized to pretend like it works really well,” she says. “If and when it doesn’t, the responsibility is on the emp…

When we talk about travel apps, we typically talk about the types of tools that help you organize your itineraries, find worthwhile stops along your way, or maybe even just find flights (and/or fuel!) in the first place. Those types of tools are important—but there’s another travel resource I recently ran into that might be even more invaluable. It’s a free website that gives you unprecedented insight into exactly how much turbulence you can expect on any given flight, before you take off—as well as what the wind and overall weather conditions may mean for your odds of an on-time (or, if you’re lucky, maybe even early) arrival. Trust me: This is one you’ll abs…

An author and freelance journalist has admitted to using AI to help him write a book review for The New York Times. Alex Preston’s review of Jean-Baptiste Andrea’s novel Watching Over Her, published by The New York Times in January 2026, draws phrases and full paragraphs from Christobel Kent’s review in The Guardian. The “error” was brought to light by a reader, who alerted The New York Times to the similarities. Preston told The Guardian he is “hugely embarassed” and “made a huge mistake.” The Times promptly dropped Preston, calling his “reliance on A.I. and his use of unattributed work by another writer” a “clear violation of the Times’s standards.” An edito…

The nail is six inches long. Sharpened to a surgical point. Mounted on a hydraulic press behind plate glass. The press drops slowly enough that you can count your own heartbeat between the moment it touches the battery cell and the moment it punctures the casing. I am standing in BYD’s visitor center in Shenzhen, February 2026, shoulder to shoulder with executives from one of Europe’s largest industrial conglomerates. Nobody speaks. Two batteries sit side by side. The first is a standard ternary nickel-cobalt-manganese cell, the kind of chemistry that once powered most of the world’s electric vehicles. The nail breaks the surface. Half a second passes. Then a …

Raising Cane’s CEO Todd Graves could go without veggies in his to-go box. More specifically, his go-to Cane’s order includes the box combo, extra toast and extra sauce—and no slaw, he said in a TikTok last month. The fast food executive admitted he’s not a fan of coleslaw, adding “that’s why you can trade it out,” in Joe Bonham’s “Financial Flex” social media series. His reasoning for including the shredded salad: “I wanted a vegetable component to the meal, and coleslaw is a Southern thing.” As the post went viral, one user asked the exec to swap the coleslaw for mac and cheese. Others pleaded to keep the coleslaw on the menu. Customers who order the Box Com…

You have probably noticed that you have times during your day when you’re locked in and feel like you’re working at your peak and other times when your mind isn’t keeping up with everything that needs to be done. Some of that may reflect your circadian cycles. If you’re a morning person, you may arrive at work in the morning raring to go, but if you’re a night person, it may take you a while to get warmed up. A big influence on your cognitive effectiveness is fatigue that can build up over the course of the day. A lot of work on ego depletion suggests that the more difficult mental work you do in a day, the harder it can be to continue to do that work later. In some s…

When a fake wedding announcement featuring Zendaya and Robert Pattinson popped up in a late-year print issue The Boston Globe, it looked like a star-studded romcom was underway. But “The Drama,” indie studio A24’s latest film, has stirred controversy, and most audiences don’t know what its about. The film’s trailers, the first of which was dropped just a day after the wedding announcement, revealed a somewhat vague plot line—Zendaya and Pattinson play Emma and Charlie, a couple grappling with the aftermaths of a confession as they ready for their wedding. Speculation on the film’s big twist ignited a flurry of conspiracies and theories online, ranging from mere c…

HarperCollins Publishers and AI-powered animation studio Toonstar have announced a multi-year partnership to co-produce original YouTube series based on HarperCollins titles. It marks the second announcement this week from the book publishing giant regarding a partnership with an AI-centered company. On Monday, HarperCollins division Harlequin said it entered a multi-year agreement to co-produce 40 animated micro-dramas with AI entertainment company Dashverse. Inspired by Harlequin Romance titles, the collaboration launches in April, beginning with an adaptation of A Fairy-Tail Ending by Catherine Mann. The deals highlight how book publishers are turning to …

Red Lobster might be taking an old page from its playbook to win over consumers’ hearts. The seafood restaurant chain is reportedly considering the return of endless shrimp, the all-you-can-eat deal that was one of Red Lobster’s most iconic promotions. Although the promotion dates back decades, it was originally only offered for limited amounts of time—that is, until previous owner Thai Group made it a permanent menu fixture in June 2023. At $20 for bottomless shrimp, many argue the move contributed to the seafood chain’s financial woes and its eventual Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2024. According to bankruptcy filings at the time, the year-round endles…

The battle for overhead bin space on flights is likely to intensify as United Airlines announced it will increase the checked bag fees starting Friday. It will now cost $10 more to check luggage for passengers traveling on flights in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and Latin America. Since the airlines often move in tandem on ancillary fees like checked bags, this could mark the beginning of a trend ahead of the busy summer travel season. Earlier this week, JetBlue Airways raised its prices for checked bags by $4 to $9 per bag, depending on whether passengers are flying during peak or off-peak periods, with the highest fee now coming in at $49. Airlines are grappling w…

With her first two albums, Olivia Rodrigo established a pattern. Her signature color? Purple, which served as the backdrop for both covers. Her naming convention? Four-letter words, stylized in all-caps: SOUR for her 2021 debut and GUTS for her 2023 follow-up. But on Thursday, April 2, Rodrigo shocked her fans with the announcement of her third album, titled you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love. The cover art, which features Rodgrio upside down on a swing framed against a grayish-blue sky, has no shades of purple to be seen. The album’s title doesn’t just ditch her previous naming convention, but inverts it. Rather than a monosyllabic word, it’s a full-fledged s…

Innovation is important in every industry, whether creating and developing new products and services, or improving your workflow. There is no one right way to innovate, but there are wrong ways. It’s easy to get stuck in a line of thinking or trying to control the process, making it more complex than it needs to be. We asked our Fast Company Impact Council members what common mistakes companies make when trying to innovate, and an alternative way to think about innovation. Just like the creative process, our members had unique understandings of what not to do, and how to do a better job. We share 18 of those inspirational ideas here. 1. DON’T LAYER INNOVATION WORK ON …

Scientists may have overestimated the potential health risk of microplastics, according to a new study from the University of Michigan, which identified a major culprit that could have unintentionally skewed results over multiple studies. Researchers found that the nitrile and latex gloves that scientists wear while measuring microplastics may be leading to false positives of the tiny pollutants. That’s because the gloves are coated with non-plastic particles called stearates—soap-like particles which can rub off or shed onto lab equipment, “creating thousands of false positives per square millimeter (or about one-thousandth of a square inch.” However, the study a…

Early this year, rapper and recording executive Gucci Mane was reportedly held at gunpoint and robbed at a music studio in Dallas, Texas. Now, a motive for the crime (and the alleged culprits) have been revealed: A rapper signed to Gucci Mane’s label wanted out of his contract. Rapper Pooh Shiesty, whose real name is Lontrell Williams Jr., has been signed to Gucci Mane’s record label 1017 Records since 2020. According to a criminal affidavit written by FBI agent Brittany Garcia, Williams was unhappy with his record deal and invited Gucci Mane, legal name Radric Davis, to a meeting to discuss the terms of his contract. The not-so-perfect crime According to the a…

American healthcare faces a persistent paradox: We have extraordinary medical technology, yet patients often spend years navigating a system that treats symptoms before identifying the underlying cause of disease. This dynamic is especially pronounced for children with neurological conditions such as epilepsy, developmental delay, and intellectual disability. Many families endure years of hospitalizations, emergency room visits, specialist referrals, and inconclusive tests before receiving a definitive diagnosis. Clinicians often refer to this prolonged journey as the “diagnostic odyssey.” It is emotionally draining for families and deeply frustrating for physicians t…

One of the major changes unleashed by the pandemic—and the accompanying spread of remote work—was the large migration of employees from major urban areas. With many jobs no longer anchored to city-based offices, people were free to move to almost anywhere else they preferred to live—often at lower costs to boot. But now, new survey data indicates that exodus has reversed course, with grim labor markets and tightening return-to-office (RTO) mandates causing employment-focused workers to head back to metropolises again. That finding was one of many big changes noted in the State of Global Hiring study by payroll and human resources service company Deel. It said that whi…

Fashion, it turns out, is a leading indicator. Long before mainstream business commentary catches up to a structural shift in the economy, the runway has usually already staged it. The announcement that John Galliano—arguably the greatest couturier alive—has signed a two-year creative partnership with Zara is one of those moments. It looks like fashion news. It is actually a signal about the future of value creation itself. The most surprising move in fashion in years To understand the shock value, a little context. Galliano’s career has been defined by the haute maison—Givenchy, his own label, Dior, and then a celebrated decade at Maison Margiela, where he orchest…