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Would you consider tying your shoelaces an achievement? If you’re able-bodied, probably not. Now imagine doing it with one hand, or no hands at all. Suddenly it is. Fewer than 10,000 people have stood on the summit of Everest. It takes months of training and tests the limits of human endurance. However, if you helicoptered to the top, stepped out for a photograph, and flew back down, would that be an achievement? The outcome is the same. Same summit. Same view, but most of us would not consider it an achievement. A new kind of helicopter has now arrived. Artificial intelligence can draft reports, write software, compose correspondence, and generate ideas in a matter of seconds. The systems are improving at a pace few anticipated. Googles chief executive has informed investors that more than a quarter of new code at the company is now AI-generated. At Microsoft, the comparable figure lies between 20 and 30%. Shopifys chief executive told employees that before requesting permission to hire, they must first demonstrate that the role cannot be performed by AI. This was not speculation about a distant future. It was a policy memorandum circulated last year. Artificial intelligence is not merely altering how we work. It is quietly reshaping what it means to have accomplished anything. Philosopher Gwen Bradford argues that an achievement has three core features. First, it must arise from your own agency. The outcome must be attributable to your effort and direction. You cannot outsource the substantive work to another person, or to a machine, and claim the result as fully your own. Second, it must be meaningfully difficult. Achievements typically require effort, skill, and perseverance. Thats why an Olympic medal is universally regarded as an achievement. It is the celebration of the years of grind the athlete went through. Third, it must be non-accidental. The success must result from the exercise of competence rather than the favour of fortune. Winning a lottery may transform ones circumstances, but it displays no mastery. We may envy the outcome, yet we do not admire the ability behind it, because there is none. Sound judgement, effort, discipline and perseverance are what transform a result into an accomplishment. They bind the outcome to the person who produced it. Artificial intelligence unsettles precisely that bond. If increasingly valuable outputs can be produced with ever less reliance on human skill, the source of credit becomes harder to locate. So the question is not whether we will collaborate with algorithms. We will. The question is what counts as achievement in such a world. We will have to shape our sense of achievement by creating new opportunities and by redefining what mastery looks like in a world where our tools think alongside us. LLMs can write a basic article on almost anything. This means that if writers want a creatively fulfilling career, they will need to work with technology to create something richer, more nuanced, and more distinctly human. Three things worth sitting with: 1) Audit your effort, not your output. Bradford’s framework gives you a useful personal test: look at something you produced this week and ask honestly how much of the difficulty you actually absorbed. Whether the output was good matters less than whether the struggle was yours. 2) Resist the urge to skip to the summit. The helicopter analogy extends well beyond Everest. Every time you use a tool to bypass the hard part of thinking, the wrestling, the false starts, the moment before clarity, you arrive at the answer without making the journey. Occasionally, that is fine. As a habit, it quietly hollows out the skills you believe you still have. Use AI to go further, not to go without. Consider a student preparing an essay on constitutional law. Faced with a difficult case, she could struggle through the judgments, reconstruct the reasoning, and attempt her own argument, refining it through revision. Or she could prompt an AI system to produce a polished draft in seconds. The submission might earn a respectable mark. Yet in outsourcing the intellectual labour, she has also outsourced the formation of her own judgement. The grade records an outcome; it does not record the capacities she failed to build. 3) Pick one thing that machines are bad at and get unusually good at it. Machines are poor at navigating moral ambiguity, at building trust in fractured human situations, and at knowing which question matters more than the answer. These are among the hardest skills that exist. Alexander Fleming, the bacteriologist who discovered penicillin, stumbled upon it by accident. But he had the trained eye to recognise what he was seeing. Another researcher might have discarded the contaminated petri dish as a failed experiment. Fleming understood its significance. Luck finds the prepared. So does the future. It is more useful to think of AI not as artificial intelligence that replaces us, but as intelligence augmented, a tool that extends human capacity. A surgeon who uses AI-assisted imaging to detect a tumour earlier than would otherwise be possible has not diminished her achievement; she has elevated it. A composer who uses machine learning tools to experiment with harmonic structures he would never have imagined unaided is expanding the frontier of his own creativity. The nature of achievement is changing, and with it, the scale of what we can reach for. What we can build, solve, and imagine in partnership with these tools exceeds anything a previous generation could have attempted alone. That is not a reason to be complacent about effort. It is a reason to be genuinely excited about what honest, skilled, human-directed effort can now produce.
Category:
E-Commerce
Headlines this week signaled that a major boycott against Target had come to an end. The retail giant has been under fire since winding back many of its commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion a year ago, which sparked widespread criticism from the Black community and consumer boycotts that had a tangible impact on the business. Over the course of 2025, Targets already sluggish sales dropped further, and its share price fell by more than 30%; by August, the company had announced that CEO Brian Cornell would be stepping down. One of those boycotts, which originally started as a 40-day Target Fast led by Atlanta-based pastor Jamal Harrison Bryant, has now been called off, following what Bryant described as productive conversations with company leaders. But that boycott reportedly did not result in any meaningful changes to Targets DEI policiesand the Minnesota civil rights activists behind another major boycott have made clear that they dont plan to back down anytime soon. Lets be clear: The Target boycott is not over, Nekima Levy Armstrong, one of the boycott cofounders, said in a statement. This is a grassroots movement led by communities demanding corporate accountability, and we will not stop until Target reverses its retreat from diversity, equity, and inclusion. Another cofounder, Jaylani Hussein, emphasized that Target had not met the demands of the boycott, and therefore the boycott continues. (When contacted by Fast Company, Target was not available for comment.) Bryant suggested in a March 12 press conference that the company had reassured him of its continued commitment to DEI, and in particular the Black community, which until last year Target had long supported through internal DEI programs and efforts to boost supplier diversity and Black-owned brands. They have a program called Belonging, which gives access to everybody, not just for entry-level positions, but to be able to ascend into C-suites,” Bryant elaborated in an interview with USA Today. It is essentially DEI as I read it. It is the exact same thing. In conversations with Bryant and other activists, Target also reportedly acknowledged that the company had lost the trust of Black consumers and employees, according to The Wall Street Journal. Target has not, however, walked back its reversal on DEI or reinstated any of its previous policies in response to the boycotts. (Bryant told USA Today that Target had addressed some boycott demandsnamely that the company would continue investing in Black-owned businesses.) While the company did sign on to a letter penned by a group of prominent CEOs in Minnesota, Target has not spoken forcefully about the immigration crackdown and violence in its home stateeven as its stores and workers were directly affected. Target is, of course, not alone in distancing itself from DEI. The company is just one of many corporate employers that have taken pains to disavow DEIat least publiclyover the past few years. While this shift started with the Supreme Court ruling that overturned affirmative action in 2023, it has accelerated in the past year as the Trump administration has explicitly targeted DEI programs across the federal government and in the private sector. Some companies have opted to rebrand their DEI programs to mitigate legal risk without abandoning them outright. Like many other employers, Target took steps to shield itself from legal liability due to the evolving external landscape, concluding many of its DEI initiatives. But Target has been particularly vulnerable to blowback because of its reputation as a company that has historically supported the Black community. In the aftermath of George Floyds murder in 2020which happened just miles from company headquartersTarget made significant commitments to promote racial equity, pledging to increase its share of Black workers by 20% over the following three years and invest $2 billion in Black-owned businesses by 2025. Amid the political environment, its not clear whether the ongoing boycott will move Target to reevaluate its approach to DEI, especially as the company continues to navigate broader business woes and falling sales. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently embarked on a major investigation into Nikes DEI practices, which could eventually have significant consequences for corporate DEI effortsand, in the meantime, discourage employers from engaging in entirely legal forms of diversity work. At the moment, it seems companies like Target have little incentive to openly support DEI or draw attention to any DEI initiatives they may have in place.
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E-Commerce
The sudden wind-down of Anthropic technology within the U.S. government is raising concerns about whether federal officials, without access to Claude, might fall behind in the quest to guard against the threat of AI-generated or AI-assisted nuclear and chemical weapons. Though the rollout has been messyand Claude remains in use in some parts of the governmentthe Trump administrations anti-Anthropic posture could have a chilling effect on collaborations between AI companies and federal agencies, including partnerships focused on critical national security questions related to these kinds of futuristic threats, several sources tell Fast Company. The worry is that severing ties with the company could both limit government researchers understanding of how, in the future, bad actors could use AI to generate new types of nuclear and biological weapons, and hold back scientific progress more broadly. Since at least February 2024, Anthropic has participated in a formal partnership with the National Nuclear Security Administration, the federal agency charged with monitoring the countrys nuclear stockpile. The point of that work, the company has previously said, is to evaluate our AI models for potential nuclear and radiological risks. The concern, here, is that developing nuclear weapons requires specialized knowledge, but that AI, as it continues to advance, could eventually become adept at developing this expertise on its own. Eventually, a large language model might be able to help someone figure out how to design an incredibly dangerous weaponor even come up with a novel one itself. Now, in the wake of President Donald Trumps Truth Social post demanding that federal workers stop using Anthropic tech, its not clear what might happen to Anthropics efforts to guard against these future threats. Some federal agencies appear to still be weighing how to approach the Claude use cases they already have, while others are cutting off access to the tool entirely. As directed by President Trump, the Department of Energy is reviewing all existing contracts and uses of Anthropic technology, a spokesperson for the NNSA tells Fast Company. The Department remains firmly committed to ensuring that the technology we employ serves the public interest, protects Americas energy and national security, and advances our mission. Anthropic declined to comment. Safety concerns at the Energy Department For the past few years, Anthropic has been collaborating with or providing technology to the myriad agencies and national labs that fall under the Department of Energy. For instance, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory began using Claude for Enterprise in 2025 and, at the time, made the tool available to about 10,000 scientists. The lab said last year that the technology was supposed to help accelerate its research efforts in the domains of nuclear deterrence, energy security, materials science, and other areas. Anthropic has also worked with the National Nuclear Security Agency on evaluating potential AI-related nuclear safety risks. For example, the agency has provided Anthropic with high-level metrics and guidance that have helped the company analyze the threat of its own technology. Anthropic has also worked with the NNSA on developing technology that can scan and categorize AI chatbot conversations and search for signs that someone might be using an LLM to discuss building a nuclear weapon. An inventory for 2025 for the Department of Energy disclosed that the agency was using Claude at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Idaho National Laboratory in pilots. Anthropic is also one of several partners in the agencys Genesis mission, which aims to accelerate scientific development by leveraging artificial intelligence. Those collaborations may now be in jeopardy. Claude is everywhere in the Energy Department’s labs, including at the NNSA, according to Ann Dunkin, the departments former chief information officer. If labs, or the NNSA, are working on projects using Anthropic as their AI tool, they are going to have to, at the very least, stop work and start with a new vendor, Durking tells Fast Company. This will cost time and money. More than likely, there will be [new] work as they will have to train a new model. To conduct simulations that involve studying various AI risks, its important to understand how all AI models might behave, she adds. In regard to nuclear weapons, theres worry that AI could be used to gather enough information to build one such weaponor be jailbroken so that it could provide that information, Dunkin says. A former Department of Homeland Security official who focused on AI safety issues echoes those concerns. Anthropic, the person tells Fast Company, was a leader on evaluating how AI models, including its own, might create serious safety risks related to chemical and nuclear weapons. Pressure to remove Anthropic risks wasting peoples time and may not be successful anyway, they say. It also puts federal officials behind on trying to understand the full risks related to artificial intelligence, or to fully benefit from its efficiencies, given that Anthropic is still the leading provider of some AI capabilities. Theres no ban on Claude for the bad guys, the former official adds. Overall, the governments sudden turn against Anthropic risks scaring off other companies that might want to work on serious issues, including those related to nuclear security. Anthropic learned that once youre serving the U.S. government, you might not have the right to say no, at least now without retaliation. Naturally that will deter others from working for the government, especially on sensitive topics, says Steven Adler, an ex-OpenAI employee who focuses on AI safety issues. There’s a bitter irony here: The administration is simultaneously demanding AI companies help with national security and making it harder for responsible actors to do exactly that, Alex Bores, who is running for a House seat in New York on a platform focused on AI regulation, tells Fast Company in a statement. AI companies working with NNSA to evaluate risk isn’t a liabilityit’s a model. Punishing it sends exactly the wrong signal at exactly the wrong time.” An incomplete exit plan Its not immediately clear how federal agencies are supposed to approach Anthropic technology right now. Trump used Truth Social to demand that federal agencies immediately cease all use of Anthropics technology, though such instructions are ordinarily communicated through the federal chief information officer. The Trump administration is reportedly working on an executive order related to Anthropic, while Anthropic has filed a lawsuit challenging its designation as a supply chain risk. The General Services Administration, according to one post, seems to be interpreting the Truth Social post as a national security directive. Te agencys GitHub repository shows that Claude was recently removed for its interagency AI resource, and a person within the agency confirmed that employees could no longer access Claude internally. Still, another person at the agency tells Fast Company that no official instructions about how to actually enforce removing Claude from federal use cases have actually been sent to employees. One major challenge with stripping Anthropics technology from the federal government is that the technology can be delivered in many ways. In Claudes case, this includes products sold by Anthropic directly, but also integrations with popularand controversialgovernment contractors like Palantir and Amazon Web Services. Notably, Claude for Government is still listed as one of the features offered within the Palantir Federal Cloud Service, and several agencies have authorized the use of this package, including the Brookhaven National Lab and the Environmental Management Consolidated Business Center, as well as the State Department and the Treasury. The product describes Claude as purpose built to meet high government security requirements. Palantir also has a long-standing relationship with the NNSA that predates LLMs. The NNSA spokesperson declined to comment on how they were approaching the use of Claude and classified systems. At the time of this writing, Palantir had not respondd to a request for comment. On the military side of government, much ado has been made of the fact that only Caude, and not systems like ChatGPT, has been cleared to operate in classified environments. The Pentagon has since sent a memo to employees that prioritizes removing Claude from any systems that involve nuclear security. Classified environments are also important to civilian agencies. Though Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said his agency will be terminating use of Anthropic products and Claude, there was at least some grumbling at a recent meeting focused on AI use within the agency that other AI tools werent similarly available for classified information.
Category:
E-Commerce
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