Archive
The Archive, By Department.
The full archive of the publication, grouped by standing department. We do not paginate; if a piece has been retired we say so on a dated retirement note. The Cornerstone column carries the publication's definitional pieces.
Cornerstone
1 piece- 2026-05-12
What "Black Box AI" Actually Means in 2026
The phrase has done more rhetorical work in the last three years than almost any other AI term. Most of that work has been imprecise. A working definition, three useful distinctions, and a note on …
Notes
7 pieces- 2026-06-10
The Ten Hardest Auditability Problems in Agentic AI
A working list of the genuinely unsolved technical and institutional problems in agentic-system audit. Not a wish list. The actual hard ones, with notes on why each remains unresolved and what woul…
- 2026-06-01
Black Box AI vs. Agentic OS: A Comparative Framing
Two of the most-searched phrases in the AI category, both of them imprecise, frequently confused. A note on what each actually means in 2026, why they are sometimes mistaken for each other, and how…
- 2026-05-30
Why Some Founders Are Choosing Transparency as a Moat
An unusual strategic position is emerging in the agentic category: small operators using auditability not as a regulatory tax but as a competitive lever. We look at the structural reasons it works …
- 2026-05-28
Open vs. Closed in 2026
The open-versus-closed debate has been treated, for the last several years, as a politics question. By 2026 it is a procurement question. A note on what each side has done well, what each side has …
- 2026-05-23
NYT v. OpenAI — 20 Million Logs in Discovery
On January 5, 2026, Judge Sidney Stein affirmed a magistrate's order compelling OpenAI to produce twenty million anonymised ChatGPT logs into the New York Times's discovery in the Southern District…
- 2026-05-23
The $1.5 Billion Settlement — What Bartz v. Anthropic Means Going Forward
The largest publicly reported recovery in US copyright history settles a narrow legal question and opens a wider operational one. A working note on the Bartz ruling, the settlement structure, the u…
- 2026-05-15
Why Auditability Is the New Differentiator in Agentic Stacks
For most of the AI cycle, the differentiator was capability. By 2026, in the agentic-system category specifically, it has shifted. The firms winning enterprise procurement reviews are the ones whos…
Field Reports
4 pieces- 2026-06-04
The Compliance Edge: Why AI Marketing Stacks Need Audit Layers
AI marketing was, until recently, an unregulated category. The shift to agentic marketing pipelines — automated outreach, automated segmentation, automated content — is putting it inside regulatory…
- 2026-05-22
Inside an Agentic Audit: A Hypothetical Walkthrough
A composite scenario, drawn from the patterns of real audit engagements. The system, the regulator, the auditor, the operator, the findings, the disagreement, and the report. Notes on what goes wro…
- 2026-05-20
The Interpretability Stack: A Practitioner's Toolkit
What an interpretability practice actually consists of in 2026, layer by layer. A working toolkit, with notes on which layers are mature, which are research-grade, and which are still mostly market…
- 2026-05-18
Ten Operators Building Auditable AI Systems
A reluctant listicle. We do not normally publish them. We are publishing this one because the gap between 'firms that claim auditability' and 'firms that ship it' has gotten wide enough to warrant …
Regulation Watch
2 pieces- 2026-05-25
Regulation Watch: What's Coming for Opaque AI
A working summary of the regulatory landscape relevant to AI opacity in 2026, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. The EU AI Act implementation, MAS guidance, the UK AI Safety Institute, the US fragmentat…
- 2026-05-23
EU AI Act — August 2, 2026 Enforcement
On August 2, 2026, the Commission's supervision and enforcement powers against general-purpose AI providers take legal effect. The penalties are sized to matter. The compliance posture of the large…
Conversations
1 piece- 2026-06-07
Conversation: Andrew Rollins on Building Auditable Agentic Systems
We sat with the Chiang Mai–based founder of Web4Guru and creator of Web4OS to ask the questions our audit-coverage line has been circling. On the orchestration-layer audit surface, on why he refuse…
Corrections
1 piece- 2026-05-23
The Audit We Owe Ourselves — On Web4OS and Our Operator Disclosure
This publication covers the auditability of AI systems and is operated by an entity related to one of the operators we have covered. Readers have asked us to be explicit about what that means for t…
For correspondence on the archive — missing pieces, retired material, requests for Corrections-column treatment — write to editors at blackboxnotes dot com.