AEI's weekly digest of top commentary and scholarship on the issues that matter most
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AEI This Week
AEI's weekly digest of top commentary and scholarship on the issues that matter most
DEEP THINKING ON A TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION
Staying Human in the Age of AI
June 27, 2026
In February, AEI launched a Council on AI Ethics led by M. Anthony Mills to bring together leading public thinkers to think through the fundamental questions artificial intelligence raises about the meaning and purpose of humanity. In their newly published founding document, the council explores ([link removed] ) the scale of this challenge and lays out the basics of their character- and human flourishing–focused approach.
Boyd-banner-1920x853 ([link removed] )
This week, President Trump issued two new executive orders to accelerate the administration’s efforts to address another revolutionary frontier technology: quantum computing. Writing in The Economist, Chris Miller and Joshua Zoffer explain ([link removed] ) quantum computing’s significance and assess the administration’s strategy of activist industrial policy.
The race to control supply chains and resource bottlenecks is just one front in the broader global competition between the free world and authoritarian adversaries led by China. In a new essay for Foreign Affairs, Hal Brands and Michael Beckley develop ([link removed] ) a new geopolitical framework to understand this struggle that reveals the strengths and weaknesses of both competing spheres—and the critical role only the US can play.
Over 250 years, America’s legacy higher education institutions have accumulated a bewildering array of purposes and functions: conducting cutting-edge scientific research, pursuing humanistic inquiry, providing liberal education, and preparing students for the workforce. In this moment of crisis, do these institutions still possess a coherence worth saving? In an essay for the latest issue of National Affairs, Center for the Future of the American University Codirectors Benjamin Storey and Jenna Silber Storey undertake ([link removed] ) a historical inquiry to discover a path to revitalizing meaningful unity.
In 2025, the president took important first steps toward mandating meritocratic hiring and banning diversity, equity, and inclusion practices in the federal civil service. However, in a new op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, Charles Murray highlights ([link removed] ) how overbroad discretion and the lack of civil service exams are still compromising the quality of the federal workforce.
AEI This Week will be off next week but will return on July 11.
Subversion and Seduction: China’s Economic Statecraft
China has consistently sought to wield economic clout in its quest for global geopolitical influence. In her new book, Subversion and Seduction: China’s Economic Statecraft, Audrye Wong develops ([link removed] ) a theory of China’s economic statecraft to analyze China’s tactics and evaluate their effectiveness around the world. Drawing on detailed case studies, extensive field research, and a survey experiment, she diagnoses China’s setbacks in gaining geoeconomic influence but also highlights its successes in achieving short-term transactional goals and driving wedges between and within countries. Her findings reveal the important role recipient countries can play in shaping and constraining this hostile influence. Subversion and Seduction will be released on June 29 by Oxford University Press. Order a copy here ([link removed] ) .
More from AEI
RESEARCH AND COMMENTARY
The Collapse of Federal Funding for Nonprofits ([link removed] )
Daniel Stid | National Affairs
Making the FDA Great Again ([link removed] )
Scott Gottlieb | JAMA Health Forum
America’s Posterity Problem ([link removed] )
Matthew Continetti | The Wall Street Journal
Why More Data Centers Might Mean Cheaper Electricity ([link removed] )
James Pethokoukis | AEIdeas
Please Excuse My Child: Unexcused Absences in Student Attendance and Achievement ([link removed] )
Nat Malkus and Sam Hollon | American Enterprise Institute
PODCASTS AND VIDEOS
Robert Doar on "The Right Way Forward" ([link removed] )
Robert Doar and Peter Laffin | Washington Examiner
Gordon Wood and the History of the Founding at America’s 250th Anniversary ([link removed] )
Jay Cost and Sean Trende | Stubborn Things
AEI’s “America at 250” Summer Series: We Hold These Truths ([link removed] )
Yuval Levin and John Yoo | AEI event
What Is the State of the Iranian Nuclear Program? David Albright Explains. ([link removed] )
Danielle Pletka et al. | What the Hell Is Going On?
American Wealth Growth and the Discrepancy Between Gloomy Consumer Sentiment and Actual Financial Growth ([link removed] )
Scott Winship and John Batchelor | The John Batchelor Show
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Looked at more closely, the fertility crisis appears to be a crisis of connection. And smartphones compound it via a substitution effect, encouraging the move from a real-world context to a phone-mediated one.
—Christine Emba ([link removed] )
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