On Thursday, May 21, 2026, the President postponed the executive order on AI. The argument that won the day was about capability. The argument that mattered was never made.
Richard Dawkins spent three days with an AI and came away unable to deny it was conscious. Ross Douthat asked what that means for our civilization. The Theory of Embedded Intelligence answers a different question — the one neither of them asked.
A response to Alexander Karp and Nicholas Zamiska’s The Technological Republic. The book’s diagnosis is right; its prescription is incomplete. What it needs is a theory of purpose — which TEI provides.
