Archive
The complete OZ Talking archive of analysis across technology, economics, and the humanities.
2026
Issue #82AI & TechWhat Is an AI Harness? The Secret Behind 100x Productivity
The Claude Code leak settled it: the gap between AI users comes not from intelligence, but from the shell wrapped around the model.
Issue #81SocietyMeta's AI Bet: Winning Over 250 Million Small Merchants
Meta thinks the real AI war isn't won with big corporations — it's won with your neighborhood shop owner
Issue #80SocietyNo Workers Left: Why Japan Is Betting Everything on Robots
Japan's robot strategy isn't about efficiency — it's about survival, and that desperation may become its edge.
Issue #79SocietyWhat Teens Actually Talk About With AI Chatbots
The headlines scream danger, but kids turned to chatbots because we left them alone first
Issue #78SocietySilent Users, Talkative AI: What Filled the Void
Half of social media users no longer post — and AI is quietly stepping into that silence.
Issue #77AI & TechKrafton Did What ChatGPT Said. The Court Reversed It All.
The CEO who let ChatGPT make the call ended up owing not ₩325 billion (~$250M) — but trust.
Issue #76AI & TechItaly's New Law: Paid Leave When Your Pet Is Sick
Italy just made pet sick leave a legal right — and Korea's numbers suggest it might not be far behind.
Issue #75BusinessHarvey's $11B Bet: Can Law Survive Without Billable Hours?
A $1 trillion legal industry's hourly billing model is buckling under AI-driven efficiency gains.
Issue #74BusinessThe Wuxia Cult That Traces Back to Middle East Oil
A 3rd-century Persian faith became wuxia fiction's Cult of Light — and that same flame ignited the 20th-century oil industry
Issue #73AI & TechTokens Are the Product: Inside Alibaba's Token Hub
In China, the idealism of AI research is colliding head-on with the realities of monetizing a business.
Issue #72SocietyWhen a Philosophy PhD Says 'The Humanities Are Dead'
The world isn't a seesaw—one side rising rarely means the other crashes down.
Issue #71SocietyThe Cornfield Theory That Still Explains Tech Adoption
Technology moves faster than ever, but the psychology behind how people accept change hasn't changed at all.
Issue #70SocietyHow Child Safety Laws Are Building an Internet ID System
Child protection is real, but should the fix mean embedding everyone's identity into the operating system?
Issue #68AI & TechThe Price of One Token Changes Everything
A 125x gap — $25 vs $0.20 per million tokens — is quietly redrawing who can afford to run AI
Issue #69SocietyUS Cyber Strategy Shrinks from 39 Pages to 7
Why a strategy that hits harder but defends less isn't just America's problem
Issue #67AI & TechThe End of MAU—And Now MRR Can't Be Trusted Either
AI firms' 'annual revenue' is just monthly revenue × 12 — a fiction that breaks once inference costs hit margins directly.
Issue #66BusinessMeta's $6M Verdict Just Gave PMs a New Job
It's not the $6 million verdict that matters — it's the 30-year-old legal shield that just cracked.
Issue #65BusinessYour Book Taste Reveals Your Personality
Your book preferences quietly map your personality — the same logic that powers Netflix's recommendation engine.
Issue #64BusinessThe Compliance Startup That Broke Compliance
YC's expulsion of Delve exposes cracks in open-source ethics and startup trust networks.
Issue #63SocietyWhen Silicon Valley Talks 'Taste,' What's It Really Hiding?
Is 'knowing what to build' really the same thing as taste, or something else entirely?
Issue #62AI & TechWe Asked 81,000 People What They Want From AI
What people truly wanted from AI wasn't faster work — it was the life beyond that work
Issue #61BusinessBYD's 5-Minute Charging Is About Structure, Not Speed
It's not about who can build the same technology — it's about who shares the same industrial structure
Issue #60AI & TechThe New Moon Race: Why Go Back At All?
Returning to the Moon isn't a technology race — it's a contest over who gets to write the rules first.
Issue #59BusinessFrom a Garage to $3.8 Trillion: Apple at 50
Three growth curves — economic, ecosystem, and creative — explain why the company's flywheel is so hard to break.