CGW's Blog – Page 2 – Journalist-entrepreneur Christopher Wink has shared his reading, writing and learning here since 2006.

Immigration creates a “lake society,” rather than a stagnant swamp

Immigrants are neither villains, nor victims.

The through put in any economy is where dynamism comes from to get a “lake society”, rather than a stagnant swamp.

More to the point, foreign workers tend to not be the same as native workers, and when that’s the case everyone benefits. So that should be the focus, less displacement and more a core component of how an economy thrives.

That’s from The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers, a 2024 book written by Wharton School professor Zeke Hernandez.

In truth this pro-immigration stance is something of a straw man. Overall, even amid partisan American culture war, as I frequently report, high-skilled immigration is bipartisan— regardless of campaign rhetoric. It’s among the few things we agree on.

Instead, in many societies the question is what is the right level of immigration.

Below are my notes for future reference.

Statistics aren’t reversible

This was originally a social video.

You might have seen Robert F. Kennedy Jr. make a statistics mistake today.

Rather than clown on it, I wanted to explain the simple and interesting concept behind the gaff.

RFK: “And I said, well, if the drug was $100 and it raised the price to $600, that would be a 600% rise. If it drops from 600 to 100, that’s a 600% savings.”

I’m not one to judge because I’ve made lots of numeracy mistakes in my day, including in my journalism. And statistics actually are complicated, but they’re
cool. So, it’s worth looking at what’s happening here.

“If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies”

The alchemist who takes on the king’s trial to attempt to turn lead into gold. If he does so he gets fabulous wealth for all around him. If he doesn’t, everyone dies.

Believing it impractical to stop everyone else’s from trying, he decides that he is the best shot because he has the most discipline. His sister begs him not to, but he goes anyway.

That fable opens the 11th chapter of the comfortingly named “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies,” the fall 2025 book by Eliezer Yudkowsky (“the prophet of AI doom”) and Nate Soares.

To their credit, the book is more reasoned than the title might suggest (I actually think it’s a great book title). They say again and again that they do not know the timeline: AI research, then, they say is a ladder on which each rung is billions of dollars but if anyone reaches the top everything explodes — and no one knows how long the ladder is.

Their argument is competition between China and the United States is silly Nobody “has” ASI (or AGI ), only it has itself, is their argument

Their argument, and this book in particular, helped refine my own framework for interpreting the moment, and my own AI philosophy, distilled in the chart below as a two-by-two axis depending on what your best guess is on the technology.

Below I have my notes for future reference.

Let Them

Commercially successful self-help authors have a story that a book-buying audience wants to hear. That message lands simply and clearly for those who need it, and may not seem like much to anyone else.

So it is with The Let Them Theory, the 2024 book by Mel Robbins, a former CNN legal analyst and self-help star, that has sold 10 million copies. I got the book to better understand this category, which frequently spawns coursework and speaking careers from tidy packages and simple ideas.

Technical.ly journalists leading an AI discussion

I was proud to see three journalists and current and former Technical.ly newsroom staffers are leading an upcoming AI conversation a conference hosted at Philadelphia’s NPR affiliate.

My current colleague Danya Henninger, who oversees our newsroom, will be alongside two treasured former teammates: Julie Zeglen, who is now at the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Paige Gross, who has joined the B2B publisher Industry Dive. It felt reaffirming that when organizers curated a list of thinkers on the topic of artificial intelligence and media, all three have Technical.ly ties.

They’re smart and delightful. Check out the Philadelphia Student Press Association‘s inaugural summit April 24.

Two years after Hind Rajab’s killing in Gaza

This is adapted from a social video I published.

Last year, when I published a video I made about Palestine, I stayed close to my own lane: the documented killings of Palestinian journalists. That’s my trade, my expertise. It’s also considered a war crime.

Over my years of local reporting on economic issues, I’ve received criticism about speaking about geopolitics, and about *not* speaking about geopolitics. So I don’t know what to do other than be honest.

And, to be honest, I keep thinking about Hind Rajab, the little girl in Gaza who was the same age two years that my daughter is today. As Omar El Akkad has written: “There’s no such thing as someone else’s children.”

What’s my personal “artificial intelligence” philosophy

It was summer 2009 that I was first introduced to the idea that robotics and artificial intelligence are two halves of how a machine would move through our world. One is physical motion, and the other is a big term for computer systems that mimic human cognition — from computer vision and probabilistic language to sound mimicry and risk management.

Over the next near two-decades, my reporting and entrepreneurship have evolved alongside a new fast-moving chapter of these technologies we call “artificial intelligence.” I’ve spent at least a decade developing my own relationship to what some have called “the singularity.” Now the last few years have brought this into the mainstream. That’s forced me to develop a more precise view.

Gubernatorial conversations

I’ve recently interviewed a pair of influential elected officials: Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer and Maryland Lt. Governor Aruna Miller. I filed Technical.ly stories. Find the live recordings of my interviews and links to my reporting below.

The Technical.ly beat once felt less directly state relevant, but that’s shifted in recent years, with the rise of industrial policy and the importance of entrepreneurship. As publisher, I’ve seemed like a good starting point for direct interviewing, though our newsroom has long interacted with these and other elected officials at the state level around policy and one-off engagements. This marks something that will likely be more direct and more frequent now, reflecting our beat’s growing profile.

Science communication at a crossroads

I joined a spirited conversation at the University of Maryland BioPark for a system-wide symposium on science communication.

I filed a story for Technical.ly here. Our panel looked like this:

Megan Nicholson, a senior editor at Issues in Science and Technology
Heath Kelsey, director of the Integration and Application Network at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.
Christopher Wink, cofounder and publisher, Technical.ly
Moderator, Michael Sandler, the UM system’s vice chancellor for communications and marketing

Local stories shape how people in that place feel about their home

The good people at Series B[uffalo], a new entrepreneurship storytelling initiative from that upstate New York region’s innovation-led economic development org 43 North Foundation, interviewed me for their newsletter. I shared that below, and encourage you to check them out.

My perspective is informed by Technical.ly’s ‘case for storytelling.’