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About Third Things

Artificial intelligence is the most disruptive technology for human organization since the printing press. The printing press broke the Church's monopoly on knowledge and remade every institution it touched. Courts, legislatures, commerce, warfare, and more were reshaped over the course of centuries. AI is doing something comparable in years. It may not be noticeable yet, but how government decisions get made, how legal rights are adjudicated, how agencies write rules, and how lawyers practice will all soon be up for grabs.

That claim — that AI represents a genuinely discontinuous shift in how societies organize themselves — is the foundation of Third Things. If you disagree, we encourage you to view our material with a skeptical eye. But if you think it's roughly right, then we encourage you to ponder the following question: What am I doing to help prepare?

Third Things is not about the regulation of AI as a technology. There are plenty of individuals better versed to tackle that challenge. Rather, Third Things is about preparing for a future that will cause us to reconsider what we consider to be the law. We will tackle everything from the nitty-gritty (e.g. when an agency uses an AI system to deny someone a benefit, what process is due?) to the grandiose (e.g. at what point does it become a moral obligation to replace judges with AI?), always with an eye to deriving principles for future action.

For the first time in many of our lifetimes, the future is genuinely uncertain — at once full of wonder and horror. Are we on the cusp of curing the last of the ailments that have attended man since he first crawled out of the muck? Or are about to lock in the Panopticon? Our individual decisions over this critical period will determine the answers to these questions and more. Fortunately, our constitutional tradition has a track record of adapting to new technology, and has shown itself durable to the vicissitudes of time. But durability is not automatic. Principles only work if someone does the work of applying them, and right now the gap between the pace of AI deployment and the pace of serious legal thinking about AI is a widening gyre.

Those who promise AI will save us are wrong. So are those who think we can wait it out. Neither boosterism dressed in legal language nor the old doctrines recited louder will close that gap. No one yet knows what will—but the only way to find out is to start looking. What is that secret Third Thing? Let's find out.

What We Publish

Third Things publishes two kinds of pieces:

  • Packages — Paired adversarial exchanges. A lead piece making a claim, a response from a genuine opponent, and an optional rejoinder. The "collision" — the third thing that emerges from two positions meeting — is the product. Every package begins with a question and a claim, and every response must engage the claim on its strongest terms.
  • Proposals — Standalone pieces that advance a single argument, framework, or provocation. No required response — the piece stands or falls on its own terms. Proposals are for ideas that need to be put into the world before they can be properly argued about.

The House Rules

Every piece follows a structured format:

  • The Question — A single, precise question that the piece addresses.
  • The Claim — A single, falsifiable claim that the author defends.
  • Assumptions vs. Inferences — Authors must distinguish what they assume from what they argue follows from evidence.
  • Steelmanned Counterargument — Each author must present the strongest version of the opposing view.
  • What Would Change My Mind — Each author must specify what evidence or argument would cause them to revise their position.
  • Incentives — Authors must disclose relevant professional or financial interests.

Who Runs This

[Founder names and one-sentence bios here. Plain text, no headshots, no team grid.]

How to Participate

We accept pitches from anyone with a serious question and a defensible claim — whether for a package or a standalone proposal. You do not need academic credentials. You do need clarity, precision, and willingness to be contradicted. Submit a pitch →