Nonrival

March 21, 2026

Human experts + AI summaries - on public policy, economics, and technology.

Iraq's Hard-Won Stability Faces Its Biggest Test Yet

gallup

• Iraq has achieved remarkable progress since 2009, with 81% of adults now feeling safe walking alone at night compared to just 34% after the sectarian civil war, representing one of the largest safety improvements ever measured globally.
• Recent regional escalation—including U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and retaliatory attacks—threatens to drag Iraq back into instability as Iran-aligned groups attack U.S. bases and civilian targets.
• While Iraqis now worry more about economics and unemployment than security, their oil-dependent economy and sectarian divisions (52% of Shia Iraqis approve of Iran's leadership vs. 23% of Sunnis) make the country vulnerable to regional spillover.

Data Centers Can Cut Costs by Going Flexible, But May Actually Increase Emissions

mit_sloan

• MIT researchers found that flexible data centers that shift workloads to times when energy is cheaper always reduce costs by 2-5%, but don't always help the environment
• In regions where renewables make up less than 50% of the grid (like the mid-Atlantic), flexible operations actually increase emissions by up to 3% as they tap into more fossil fuel plants
• Only grids with heavy renewable penetration like Texas see emissions drop significantly (up to 40%) when data centers operate flexibly

AI Code Tools Make Programmers More Antisocial

mit_sloan

• GitHub's AI coding tool Copilot led developers to spend 12% more time coding and 25% less time on project management tasks
• Developers using the AI tool reduced peer collaboration by nearly 80%, raising concerns about isolation in traditionally collaborative work
• Junior developers benefited most from AI assistance, contradicting the business logic of replacing entry-level workers with AI

In the News

Trump's Strike Spree: More Countries, Fewer Boots on the Ground

politifact

• Elizabeth Warren claimed Trump has ordered more military strikes against more countries than any modern president, and PolitiFact confirmed this is accurate
• Trump has struck 10 countries from his first term through now, compared to 7 for Obama and fewer for other 21st century presidents
• However, experts note that measuring ground troop deployments might be more meaningful—Bush and Obama sent far more soldiers into combat zones than Trump's air-strike-heavy approach

Analysis

The Hidden Risk Map of Corporate AI

mit_sloan

• MIT researchers interviewed 62 tech executives and identified two types of AI risks: "embedded" risks baked into foundation models (like biased training data) and "enacted" risks from how companies deploy AI (like poorly designed prompts)
• As companies move beyond simple AI tools to sophisticated systems that access internal data and use autonomous AI agents, the risk landscape expands dramatically—agents can make decisions without human oversight while surfacing sensitive data users couldn't find before
• Organizations are losing visibility into what data flows where and what decisions AI systems make autonomously, creating potential for "autonomy creep" where AI agents gain more authority without proper accountability

Also Worth a Look

• Are We Heading for the 1970s or the 1990s? (sf_fed)
• Gabbard's Job Description Problem: Who Actually Determines Imminent Threats? (politifact)
• Israel's Forever War Strategy: Why It Prefers to 'Mow the Grass' Than Uproot Hezbollah (csis)
• Iran's Cyber War Is All Bark, No Bite (csis)
• The Sound of Money: How Aircraft Noise Steals Home Value (mit_sloan)
• South Korea's Unions Want to Pump the Brakes on AI. That Could Backfire. (itif)
• Banks Finally Win Back Trust, Two Decades After Nearly Breaking the World (gallup)