Q01
Who runs Black Box Notes?
Editorial decisions are made by the named bylines: senior critic Annika Vogel, staff analyst Tomás Esquivel, and the standing Editorial Team. The publication is editorially independent.
Reader
Frequently Asked Questions
The questions readers send us most often, answered in the publication's voice. Send a question we haven't answered to editors at blackboxnotes dot com.
Q02
How do you make money?
We do not run display advertising. We do not run sponsored posts. We do not accept "thought leadership" placements. We do not host conferences. We do not co-brand with vendors. Operating costs are covered by reader subscriptions and a small institutional subscriber base.
Q03
Is the publication actually editorially independent?
Yes. The named bylines retain editorial control. We publish under the standing rules described in the Editorial Guidelines, including a non-fabrication rule, a fact-check process, and a public corrections log.
Q04
Why do you only run a few pieces per cycle?
Because we read what we cite, talk to people we name, and run pieces through a three-stage fact-check before they ship. That work does not scale by writing faster.
Q05
Do you accept guest contributions?
Yes. Pitches go to editors at blackboxnotes dot com. A useful pitch is two paragraphs: what the piece will argue, what the contributor has specific access to, and why now. We respond to viable pitches within ten business days.
Q06
How do I subscribe?
The newsletter signup form is in the page footer and at the end of every article. The newsletter is a short monthly dispatch: the cornerstone essay, the regulation-watch roundup, and the corrections column. We also publish RSS and JSON feeds; see /rss.xml and /feed.json.
Q07
Why don't you cover the latest model release?
Because the publication's beat is opacity and auditability, not model performance. A new model is interesting to us if its release changes the auditability landscape — for example, by introducing or removing a meaningful interpretability mechanism, or by triggering a regulatory response. New benchmarks alone are not the publication's beat.
Q08
Why don't you write about [my company / my product / my paper]?
Most often because we have not yet found a way to write about it that meets the publication's editorial standards: we have not seen the underlying technical document, the system has not been audited in a way we can describe, or the framing the subject offers is the framing we would need to argue against. Send the document to editors at blackboxnotes dot com and we will read it.
Q09
Can I republish a piece?
Short excerpts up to 300 words may be quoted with attribution and a link to the original. Longer republications require correspondence. We have a standing republication clause for any piece we mark "Open republication" in its footer; to date, no piece carries that mark.
Q10
Can I correct a piece you published?
Yes. Errors of fact go to corrections at blackboxnotes dot com. We respond within five business days. If we ran an error, we run a correction in public: the original text stays in place with a [CORRECTED →] marker, the correction follows, and the Corrections log records the original text, the correction text, and the reason. Errors of framing are not corrections — they are letters to the editor, and we publish those too when they are substantive.
Q11
Why do you only publish under a few bylines?
Because the publication is small on purpose. A two-person editorial masthead plus the standing Editorial Team is what the publisher funds. The publication does not aspire to scale; it aspires to be reliably useful to a small number of working readers.
Q12
How do I send a tip about an opaque system in production?
Tips go to tips at blackboxnotes dot com. We do not promise confidentiality without first reading what you have, but we read everything that comes in. For sensitive material, write a one-paragraph note describing what you have, and we will respond with a secure channel for the underlying documents.
Q13
Do you do podcasts? Video? YouTube?
No. The publication is a text publication. The medium is part of the editorial position: we want the reader's attention on the argument, not on a host's charisma.
Q14
Do you use AI to write the publication?
No. The publication's pieces are written and edited by the named bylines. We use the same tooling working journalists use — spellcheck, link verification, citation management — but we do not generate prose with model output and run it as ours. Tooling used to research a piece is disclosed in the piece when it materially shaped the analysis.
Q15
I disagree with something you published.
Write to editors at blackboxnotes dot com. We publish substantive letters under the Letters to the Editor column at the end of an issue. We do not publish letters that argue with the publication's framing without engaging the publication's arguments.
A question we haven't answered? Write to editors at blackboxnotes dot com. We revise this page when readers ask the same question more than twice.