Twelve cases from 120 years of technology history — how public perception, regulation, and markets sped technologies up, redirected them, or stopped them cold. Two a session, paired so they disagree. And what that record says about what happens to AI next.
In September, a bill to ban artificial superintelligence was introduced in the U.S. Congress. Data-center projects worth $130 billion a quarter are being blocked or delayed by local opposition. Every AI policy argument you hear — pause it, preempt the states, let the market decide — has been run before, on other technologies, with recorded outcomes.
Almost nobody in the AI debate knows those outcomes. Nuclear power was stopped for forty years by an accident that killed no one. Aviation regulation, which everyone expected to slow the airplane down, created the airline industry instead. The Asilomar pause on gene splicing held; the encryption export ban collapsed. The pattern of which interventions work, and which backfire, is knowable.
How it works: this track trains depth of understanding, and the method is lecture plus discussion. Each session opens with a briefing on the cases — what happened, who acted, what followed — so everyone starts from the same command of the facts. Then we argue about what it means for AI. You get the material in the briefing and make it your own in the discussion.
Questions with answers you don't know
Every one of these has a documented answer. Almost nobody arguing about AI right now could tell you what it is.
Why did an accident that killed nobody freeze nuclear power for forty years, while a decade of fatal crashes built the safest transport system ever made?
A pause on gene splicing held for decades. An attempt to control encryption collapsed completely. Which one does a pause on AI resemble?
What does lobbying money buy — and what has it never been able to buy at any price?
One book ended DDT. A decade of leaks, hearings, and whistleblowers left social media standing. What makes evidence land?
Who holds the veto over a technology: legislators, courts, insurers — or the person deciding what to buy?
Has anything been stopped? What did stopping it cost, and who paid?
Six evenings of finding out, from the cases that decided it.
The sessions
Two cases a session, twelve in all, paired so they disagree.
1
U.S. nuclear power · Commercial aviation
One industry frozen for forty years by an accident with no casualties. Another made safe, and enormous, by the rules written after its crashes. Does regulation kill a technology or create it?
2
Asilomar · The Crypto Wars
Scientists halted their own field and it held. Governments moved to control encryption and lost outright. What separates a pause that holds from one that leaks?
3
Ridesharing · Autonomous vehicles
The same streets, the same regulators, the same decade — one rewrote the law in its favor, the other lost years. How much of that was money, and how much was a single death?
4
DDT · Social media
One book repriced an entire chemical industry. Thousands of exposés left the platforms untouched. What does it take for evidence to bite?
5
Chemical weapons · Nuclear weapons
One banned and verified; the other capped at nine states when twenty-five were forecast. Two of the only things humanity has ever deliberately held back. Could either work for AI?
6
Supersonic flight · European GMOs
A single rule wrote off a technology for fifty-two years. Shoppers wrote off another with no law at all. Where is AI's trajectory being decided — and by whom?
Sections
The Wednesday-evening video cohort is running. The Monday in-person cohort did not fill and is not running this fall.
Wednesday evenings, over videoApplications open
Six Wednesdays, 6:30–8:30pm Pacific · video
Fixed cohort — one case brief to read before each session. No payment until your place is confirmed.
Sep 30 · Oct 7 · Oct 14 · Oct 21 · Oct 28 · Nov 4
The basics
Format
Briefing plus discussion — read a short case brief beforehand, argue it with the cohort
Seats
Fixed cohort, set by who applies
Sessions
Six, ~2 hours each
Prep
~1 hour per session — one short case brief
Where
Over video, Wednesday evenings
When
Starts Wednesday, September 30 — late applications read while seats remain
Each application is read, and admission isn't automatic — places go to the people who will make the strongest cohort. There's no interview, and it takes five minutes. Four questions:
How you're using AI today
What you want to be able to use it for
A bit about your background
Your LinkedIn, if you'd like to share it — optional
The September 22 deadline has passed; late applications are read while seats remain, and you'll hear back either way within a few days.
If the fee would keep you out, please say so in your application. We set places aside for exactly that, and it won't count against you.