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The Moment: May 2026
In this issue
In today’s rapidly evolving AI landscape, Stanford researchers are leveraging interdisciplinary innov-
Psych! The Moment does not abide chatbot prose. But we are curious where artificial intelligence is taking us. In today’s issue we bring two dispatches from AI’s frontier, far beyond prompt engineering and sentient toasters.
We also introduce you to three verifiably non-agentic forms of intelligence—students, we call them—who remind us what all this innovation is for in the first place.
Read on, fellow humans!
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Yejin Choi. Design: Jonathan Chaves / Photo: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
The contrarian in the room
Yejin Choi has spent her career asking the questions AI's biggest players would rather skip—about common sense, about scale, and about who gets to build the future. Twice named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People in AI, she's now making the case for a different kind of intelligence: smaller, smarter, and open to far more of the world.
Yejin Choi. Design: Jonathan Chaves / Photo: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
The contrarian in the room
Meet the researcher challenging AI's most powerful assumptionsYejin Choi has spent her career asking the questions AI's biggest players would rather skip—about common sense, about scale, and about who gets to build the future. Twice named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People in AI, she's now making the case for a different kind of intelligence: smaller, smarter, and open to far more of the world.
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Illustration: Jonathan Chaves
The brain, the machine, and the mirror between them
See how Stanford is bridging AI and neuroscienceSurya Ganguli is helping build a new science of intelligence—one that studies how neurons fire, how AI learns, and what each can teach us about the other. Along the way, he may have uncovered a neural mechanism with implications for treating schizophrenia.
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Photos: Jess Alvarenga
Opportunity in motion
Hear from three students about three Stanford pathsOne student found a spirit at Stanford reminiscent of her native Jamaica. Another discovered a rare freedom here. A third shoots bullseyes. They arrived from different places, with different stories, united by the fact that someone believed they needed Stanford and Stanford needed them.
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