Matteo Wong

Brooklyn

Science, Tech and Health Staff Writer at The Atlantic

Staff writer for Science, Tech, and Health @theatlantic

Articles

The Trump Administration Is Jeopardizing the AI Boom

1 week ago | theatlantic.com | Matteo Wong

Nearly three months into President Donald Trump’s term, the future of American AI leadership is in jeopardy. Basically any generative-AI product you have used or heard of—ChatGPT, Claude, AlphaFold, Sora—depends on academic work or was built by university-trained researchers in the industry, and frequently both.
A Disaster for American Innovation

1 week ago | flipboard.com | Matteo Wong

The Trump administration is jeopardizing the AI boom. Nearly three months into President Donald Trump’s term, the future of American AI leadership is in jeopardy. Basically any generative-AI product you have used or heard of—ChatGPT, Claude, AlphaFold, Sora—depends on academic work or was built by …
Vauhini Vara's Love-Hate Letter to the Internet

2 weeks ago | theatlantic.com | Matteo Wong

Vauhini Vara’s new memoir critiques the web in a novel way, turning its products into a kind of poetry. A few years ago, I reached the tabs limit on my iPhone’s web browser; apparently, you can keep only up to 500 windows open in Safari. Rather than close them all, I scrolled back—and stumbled upon an abridged atlas of my life, dating from high school. There was the first recipe I cooked for my parents, a gift for a crush, tickets for my younger sister’s first live concert.
Moneyball for Bats

2 weeks ago | theatlantic.com | Matteo Wong

Why are baseball players swinging bowling pins? The madness started, as baseball madness tends to start, with the New York Yankees: At the end of March, during the opening weekend of the new season, the team’s first three batters hit home runs on the first three pitches thrown their way. The final score, 20–9, was almost too good to be true. And then, everybody noticed the bats.
The Rise of Fluid Intelligence

2 weeks ago | theatlantic.com | Matteo Wong

Deep down, Sam Altman and François Chollet share the same dream. They want to build AI models that achieve “artificial general intelligence,” or AGI—matching or exceeding the capabilities of the human mind. The difference between these two men is that Altman has suggested that his company, OpenAI, has practically built the technology already.
The Man Out to Prove How Dumb AI Still Is

2 weeks ago | flipboard.com | Matteo Wong

10 hours agoAI is becoming a part of our daily lives. To stay on top of dinner conversations, here are the important terms you need to know. Given that more than half of Americans regularly use AI, it's quickly becoming a normal part of our daily lives. ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot are pushing …
Silicon Valley’s Plan to Automate Everything

1 month ago | theatlantic.com | Matteo Wong

The automated future just lurched a few steps closer. Over the past few weeks, nearly all of the major AI firms—OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, Amazon, Microsoft, and Perplexity, among others—have announced new products that are focused not on answering questions or making their human users somewhat more efficient, but on completing tasks themselves.
DOGE’s Plans to Replace Humans With AI Are Already Under Way

1 month ago | theatlantic.com | Matteo Wong

If you have tips about the remaking of the federal government, you can contact Matteo Wong on Signal at @matteowong.52. A new phase of the president and the Department of Government Efficiency’s attempts to downsize and remake the civil service is under way. The idea is simple: use generative AI to automate work that was previously done by people.
Chatbots Are Academically Dishonest

1 month ago | theatlantic.com | Matteo Wong

This is Atlantic Intelligence, a newsletter in which our writers help you wrap your mind around artificial intelligence and a new machine age. Sign up here. Even by the AI industry’s frenetic standards, 2025 has been dizzying. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and xAI have all released major AI models and products, almost invariably touting them as the “best” and “smartest” in the world.
DOGE Killed a Government-Efficiency Team

1 month ago | theatlantic.com | Matteo Wong

Late Friday night the Trump administration, as part of its push to modernize the government with software, laid off roughly 90 people from the General Services Administration—all federal technologists whose role was to modernize the government with software. Employees on the 18F team, a group formed in the Obama-era to build and improve software for other agencies, were notified around midnight that their roles are being eliminated, according to several former 18F workers I spoke with.