10 modern AI essays worth reading
Curated Essay List: 10 essential recent AI thought leadership essays that provide a foundational look at modern AI building, criticism, and philosophical debate.
Thank you for reading this edition of the Lindahl Letter publication. A new edition used to arrive every Friday, but now is a little more sporadic. I’m going to try to get back into the swing of delivering content on a regular schedule later this summer. This week the topic under consideration for the Lindahl Letter is, “10 modern AI essays worth reading.”
Previously, you may recall that I spent a lot of time writing a pretty complete and now highly outdated syllabus using principally open source reading material for an introduction to machine learning course. That course ended up being called “An independent study based introduction to machine learning syllabus for 2022” [1]. Thinking about that syllabus building effort got me thinking about what essays will end up as primary source reading for a modern AI course. That is where this block of content for the Lindahl Letter came from today. On a side note to that I’m still considering working out a future syllabus build for something roughly titled, “Modern views on the AI the road ahead.”
People keep referencing essays by high profile AI thought leaders like Sam Altman and Dario Amodei. You will probably continue to run into references to the “Machines of loving grace: How AI Could Transform the World for the Better” essay in popular writing. That made me think a bit about what other essays are worth giving another read and potentially collecting together as a reading list. To that end, gathered here for you to review today is a collection of citations for 10 essays and or manifestos that will help provide you a foundation of current AI thought leadership and some criticism. This list will eventually include something from Gary Marcus as a counterpoint to the optimistic takes, but I have not picked the perfect one just yet to include. Not only did I put these in alphabetical order to avoid introducing any particular order bias to your journey, but also that saved me from having to force rank them today.
Altman, S. (2025, January 5). Reflections. Sam Altman. https://blog.samaltman.com/reflections
Altman, S. (2024, September 23). The intelligence age. Sam Altman. https://ia.samaltman.com/
Amodei, D. (2025, April). The urgency of interpretability. Dario Amodei. https://www.darioamodei.com/post/the-urgency-of-interpretability
Amodei, D. (2024, October ). Machines of loving grace: How AI could transform the world for the better. Dario Amodei. https://darioamodei.com/essay/machines-of-loving-grace
Amodei, D. (2026, January). The adolescence of technology. Dario Amodei. https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-adolescence-of-technology
Andreessen, M. (2023, October 16). The techno-optimist manifesto. Andreessen Horowitz. https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/
Aschenbrenner, L. (2024, June). Situational awareness: The decade ahead. Situational Awareness. https://situational-awareness.ai/
Chiang, T. (2024, August 31). Why A.I. isn’t going to make art. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/why-ai-isnt-going-to-make-art
Chomsky, N., Roberts, I., & Watumull, J. (2023, March 8). The false promise of ChatGPT. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/08/opinion/noam-chomsky-chatgpt-ai.html or via this PDF
Lanier, J. (2023, April 20). There is no AI. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-artificial-intelligence/there-is-no-ai
Did I miss your favorite AI related missive? What other essays would you expect to see in this list? Feel free to reach out and let me know with ideas to add to my reading list.
What’s next for the Lindahl Letter? New editions are supposed to arrive every Friday, but that has not been running like clockwork recently. If you are still reading at this point and enjoyed this content, then please take a moment and share it with a friend. If you are new to the Lindahl Letter, then please consider subscribing. Make sure to stay curious, stay informed, and enjoy the week ahead!
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