For almost two years now, the world’s biggest tech companies have been at war over generative AI. Meta may be known for social media, Google for search, and Amazon for online shopping, but since the release of ChatGPT, each has made tremendous investments in an attempt to dominate in this new era. Along with start-ups such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity, their spending on data centers and chatbots is on track to eclipse the costs of sending the first astronauts to the moon.

To be successful, these companies will have to do more than build the most “intelligent” software: They will need people to use, and return to, their products. Everyone wants to be Facebook, and nobody wants to be Friendster. To that end, the best strategy in tech hasn’t changed: build an ecosystem that users can’t help but live in. Billions of people use Google Search every day, so Google built a generative-AI product known as “AI Overviews” right into the results page, granting it an immediate advantage over competitors.

This is why a recent proposal from the Department of Justice is so significant. The government wants to break up Google’s monopoly over the search market, but its proposed remedies may in fact do more to shape the future of AI. Google owns 15 products that serve at least half a billion people and businesses each—a sprawling ecosystem of gadgets, search and advertising, personal applications, and enterprise software. An AI assistant that shows up in (or works well with) those products will be the one that those people are most likely to use. And Google has already woven its flagship Gemini AI models into Search, Gmail, Maps, Android, Chrome, the Play Store, and YouTube, all of which have at least 2 billion users each. AI doesn’t have to be life-changing to be successful; it just has to be frictionless. The DOJ now has an opportunity to add some resistance. (In a statement last week, Kent Walker, Google’s chief legal officer, called the Department of Justice’s proposed remedy part of an “interventionist agenda that would harm Americans and America’s global technology leadership,” including the company’s “leading role” in AI.)

[Read: The horseshoe theory of Google Search]

Google is not the only competitor with an ecosystem advantage. Apple is integrating its Apple Intelligence suite across eligible iPhones, iPads, and Macs. Meta, with more than 3 billion users across its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, enjoys similar benefits. Amazon’s AI shopping assistant, Rufus, has garnered little major attention but nonetheless became available to the website’s U.S. shoppers this fall. However much of the DOJ’s request the court ultimately grants, these giants will still lead the AI race—but Google had the clearest advantage among them.

Just how good any of these companies’ AI products are has limited relevance to their adoption. Google’s AI tools have repeatedly shown major flaws, such as confidently recommending eating rocks for good health, but the features continue to be used by more and more people simply because they’re there. Similarly, Apple’s AI models are less powerful than Gemini or ChatGPT, but they will have a huge user base simply because of how popular the iPhone is. Meta’s AI models may not be state-of-the-art, but that doesn’t matter to billions of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp users who just want to ask a chatbot a silly question or generate a random illustration. Tech companies without such an ecosystem are well aware of their disadvantage: OpenAI, for instance, is reportedly considering developing its own web browser, and it has partnered with Apple to integrate ChatGPT across the company’s phones, tablets, and computers.

[Read: AI search is turning into the problem everyone worried about]

This is why it’s relevant that the DOJ’s proposed antitrust remedy takes aim at Google’s broader ecosystem. Federal and state attorneys asked the court to force Google to sell off its Chrome browser; cease preferencing its search products in the Android mobile operating system; prevent it from paying other companies, including Apple and Samsung, to make Google the default search engine; and allow rivals to syndicate Google’s search results and use its search index to build their own products. All of these and the DOJ’s other requests, under the auspices of search, are really shots at Google’s expansive empire.

As my colleague Ian Bogost has argued, selling Chrome might not affect Google’s search dominance: “People returned to Google because they wanted to, not just because the company had strong-armed them,” he wrote last week. But selling Chrome and potentially Android, as well as preventing Google from making its search engine the default option for various other companies’ products, would make it harder for Google to funnel billions of people to the rest of its software, including AI. Meanwhile, access to Google’s search index could provide a huge boost to OpenAI, Perplexity, Microsoft, and other AI search competitors: Perhaps the hardest part of building a searchbot is trawling the web for reliable links, and rivals would gain access to the most coveted way of doing so.

[Read: Google already won]

The Justice Department seems to recognize that the AI war implicates and goes beyond search. Without intervention, Google’s search monopoly could give it an unfair advantage over AI as well—and an AI monopoly could further entrench the company’s control over search. The court, attorneys wrote, must prevent Google from “manipulating the development and deployment of new technologies,” most notably AI, to further throttle competition.

And so the order also takes explicit aim at AI. The DOJ wants to bar Google from self-preferencing AI products, in addition to Search, in Chrome, Android, and all of its other products. It wants to stop Google from buying exclusive rights to sources of AI-training data and disallow Google from investing in AI start-ups and competitors that are in or might enter the search market. (Two days after the DOJ released its proposal, Amazon invested another $4 billion into Anthropic, the start-up and OpenAI rival that Google has also heavily backed to this point, suggesting that the e-commerce giant might be trying to lock in an advantage over Google.) The DOJ also requested that Google provide a simple way for publishers to opt out of their content being used to train Google’s AI models or be cited in AI-enhanced search products. All of that will make it harder for Google to train and market future AI models, and easier for its rivals to do the same.

When the DOJ first sued Google, in 2020, it was concerned with the internet of old: a web that appeared intractably stuck, long ago calcified in the image of the company that controls how billions of people access and navigate it. Four years and a historic victory later, its proposed remedy enters an internet undergoing an upheaval that few could have foreseen—but that the DOJ’s lawsuit seems to have nonetheless anticipated. A frequently cited problem with antitrust litigation in tech is anachronism, that by the time a social-media, or personal-computing, or e-commerce monopoly is apparent, it is already too late to disrupt. With generative AI, the government may finally have the head start it needs.

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

In today’s reading list, our editors have compiled stories about new and promising medical developments, including breakthroughs to treat lupus, a possible birth-control revolution, and a food-allergy fix that’s been hiding in plain sight.

Your Reading List

A ‘Crazy’ Idea for Treating Autoimmune Diseases Might Actually Work

Lupus has long been considered incurable—but a series of breakthroughs are fueling hope.

By Sarah Zhang

The Coming Birth-Control Revolution

An abundance of new methods for men could transform women’s contraception too.

By Katherine J. Wu

Why People Itch, and How to Stop It

Scientists are discovering lots of little itch switches.

By Annie Lowrey

A Food-Allergy Fix Hiding in Plain Sight

Why did it take so long to reach patients?

By Sarah Zhang

Bats Could Hold the Secret to Better, Longer Human Life

A team of researchers dreams of anti-aging, disease-tempering drugs—all inspired by bats.

By Katherine J. Wu

A Fix for Antibiotic Resistance Could Be Hiding in the Past

Phage therapy was once used to treat bubonic plague. Now it could help inform a new health crisis.

By Patience Asanga

The Cystic-Fibrosis Breakthrough That Changed Everything

The disease once guaranteed an early death—but a new treatment has given many patients a chance to live decades longer than expected. What do they do now?

By Sarah Zhang

The Week Ahead

Red One, an action film starring Chris Evans and Dwayne Johnson as members of an elite team tasked with saving Santa Claus (in theaters Friday) Season 6 of Cobra Kai, the final season about Johnny Lawrence, who reopens the Cobra Kai dojo, and his rivalry with Daniel LaRusso (part two premieres Friday on Netflix) Set My Heart on Fire, a novel by Izumi Suzuki about a young woman who finds a surprising relationship in the club and bar scene of 1970s Tokyo (out Tuesday)

Essay

Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Alamy.

The Invention That Changed School Forever

By Ian Bogost

Some objects are so familiar and so ordinary that it seems impossible to imagine that they did not always exist. Take the school backpack, for example. Its invention can be traced to one man, Murray McCory, who died last month. McCory founded JanSport in 1967 with his future wife (Jan, the company’s namesake). Until JanSport evolved the design, a backpack was a bulky, specialized thing for hiking, used only by smelly people on mountain trailheads or European gap years. By the time I entered school, the backpack was lightweight and universal. What did anyone ever do previously?

They carried their books. Let me repeat that they carried their books.

Read the full article.

More in Culture

America got the father it wanted. George Packer: “The Magic Mountain saved my life.” A precise, cutting portrayal of societal misogyny “Dear James”: I love to drive fast, and I cannot stop. The freedom of Quincy Jones

Catch Up on The Atlantic

Why Democrats are losing the culture war What can women do now? The case for treating Trump like a normal president Why Netanyahu fired his defense minister

Photo Album

Riders perform during a freestyle motocross show at the EICMA exhibition motorcycle fair in Rho, Italy. (Luca Bruno / AP)

Take a look at these photos of the week, showing a freestyle motocross exhibition in Italy, Election Day in the U.S., a volcanic eruption in Indonesia, and more.

Explore all of our newsletters.

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This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

Americans across the country are getting ready to wait.

Knowing the winner of the presidential election by tomorrow night is a real possibility. But the race could also take several days to be called, as it did in 2020, and some House races are likely to take days. In most other modern presidential elections (leaving aside the recount of the  2000 election), news outlets have declared a winner within hours of the polls closing. But in this week’s election, the closeness of the race and the popularity of mail-in voting could lead to a longer timeline. Amid all the unknowns, one American tradition may get lost: the social ritual of Election Night.

Over the generations, Election Night has brought Americans together and prepared them to accept the outcome of a race. Many voters missed out on that gathering in 2020, in part because they were in pandemic isolation. And as my colleague Kate Cray wrote at the time, “Watch parties and their kitschy decor don’t necessarily fit with an election in which many voters fear the collapse of democracy.” A communal gathering was even less appealing to liberals “still traumatized by 2016,” Kate noted. This year, Americans of all political loyalties are finding the election anxiety-inducing: A recent survey from the American Psychological Association found that 69 percent of polled adults rated the U.S. presidential election as a significant source of stress, a major jump from 52 percent in 2016 (and a slight bump from 68 percent in 2020).

Still, some Americans are preparing for classic election watch parties at friends’ homes or in bars. But this time around, voters’ self-preservational instincts are kicking in too. A recent New York magazine roundup of readers’ Election Night plans in the Dinner Party newsletter included streaming unrelated television, drinking a lot, and “Embracing the Doom Vibes.” For some, prolonged distraction is the move: The cookbook author Alison Roman suggests making a complicated meal. Even party enthusiasts seem wary: In an etiquette guide about how to throw a good Election Night party with guests who have different political views, Town & Country suggested that “hosting a soiree of this nature in 2024 is like setting up a game of croquet on a field of landmines.” One host suggested giving guests a “safe word” to avoid conflict.

Election Night was once a ritual that played out in public—generally over the course of several days, Mark Brewin, a media-studies professor at the University of Tulsa and the author of a book on Election Day rituals, told me. A carnival-like atmosphere was the norm: People would gather at the offices of local newspapers to wait for results, and winners’ names were projected on walls using “magic lanterns.” Fireworks sometimes went off, and bands played. With the popularity of radio and TV in the 20th century, rituals moved farther into private spaces and homes, and results came more quickly. But even as technology improved, “this process is always at the mercy of the race itself,” Brewin explained.

Election Night rituals of years past weren’t just about celebration. They helped create the social conditions for a peaceful reconciliation after impassioned election cycles, Brewin said. In the 19th century, for example, once an election was called, members of the winning party would hand a “Salt River ticket” to the friends whose candidates lost (Salt River is a real body of water, but in this case, the term referred to a river of tears). The humor of the gesture was its power: It offered people a way to move forward and work together. Such rituals marked the moment when people “stop being partisans and become Americans again,” Brewin said.

That concept feels sadly quaint. This week, Americans are bracing for chaos, especially if Donald Trump declares prematurely that he won or attempts to interfere in the results of the race. An election-watch gathering might seem trivial in light of all that. But Americans have always come together to try to make sense of the changes that come with a transfer of power, and doing so is still worthwhile—especially at a time when unifying rituals feel out of reach.

Related:

Is this the end of the Election Night watch party? How to get through Election Day

Here are four new stories from The Atlantic:

Trump’s followers are living in a dark fantasy, Adam Serwer writes. Inside the ruthless, restless final days of Trump’s campaign The “blue dot” that could clinch a Harris victory How is it this close?

Today’s News

Vice President Kamala Harris will finish her last day of campaigning in Philadelphia, and Donald Trump will host his last rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A Pennsylvania judge ruled that Elon Musk’s America PAC can continue with its $1 million daily giveaway through Election Day. Missouri sued the Department of Justice in an effort to block the department from sending federal poll monitors to St. Louis.

Dispatches

The Wonder Reader: Isabel Fattal explores the appliances we’ve relied on for decades, and those that claim to usher in new ways of living—with varied success.

Explore all of our newsletters here.

Evening Read

Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Jacopin / BSIP / Getty; Velimir Zeland / Shutterstock.

A ‘Crazy’ Idea for Treating Autoimmune Diseases Might Actually Work

By Sarah Zhang

Lupus, doctors like to say, affects no two patients the same. The disease causes the immune system to go rogue in a way that can strike virtually any organ in the body, but when and where is maddeningly elusive. One patient might have lesions on the face, likened to wolf bites by the 13th-century physician who gave lupus its name. Another patient might have kidney failure. Another, fluid around the lungs. What doctors can say to every patient, though, is that they will have lupus for the rest of their life. The origins of autoimmune diseases like it are often mysterious, and an immune system that sees the body it inhabits as an enemy will never completely relax. Lupus cannot be cured. No autoimmune disease can be cured.

Two years ago, however, a study came out of Germany that rocked all of these assumptions.

Read the full article.

More From The Atlantic

David Frum: No one has an alibi. Donald Trump’s hatred of free speech The shadow over Kamala Harris’s campaign The institutions failed. Xi may lose his gamble. Samer Sinijlawi: My hope for Palestine

Culture Break

Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Getty.

Mourn. We’ll never get a universal cable, Ian Bogost writes. It’s the broken promise of USB-C.

Watch. Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live, but another segment that night made a sharper political point, Amanda Wicks writes.

Play our daily crossword.

P.S.

One peek into Americans’ mental state on Election Night comes from their orders on food apps. In 2016, Election Night alcohol demand on Postmates was nearly double that of the prior Tuesday—and that demand spiked again at lunchtime the next day. For the delivery app Gopuff, alcohol orders were high on Election Night in 2020—especially champagne and 12-packs of White Claw. And, less festively, orders for Tums and Pepto Bismol rose too. However you pass the time waiting for results this year, I hope you stay healthy.

— Lora

Stephanie Bai contributed to this newsletter.

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This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.

You know America’s most controversial appliance when you hear it: The leaf blower is loud, it’s messy, and it’s a hazard to the environment. But Ian Bogost recently argued that we’re thinking about leaf blowers all wrong: “Excessive use of blowers, not the tools themselves, should be taken as the villain here,” he wrote. A full ban on the appliance is impossible as long as yards are part of American life, so limiting its use would be the best path forward.

Today’s newsletter explores the appliances we’ve relied on for decades, and those that claim to usher in new ways of living—with varied success.

On Our Appliances

A Defense of the Leaf Blower

By Ian Bogost

Reassessing America’s most hated appliance

Read the article.

A $700 Kitchen Tool That’s Meant to Be Seen, Not Used

By Ellen Cushing

KitchenAid’s newest stand mixer seems like a great appliance—for people who don’t actually bake.

Read the article.

The Microwave Makes No Sense

By Jacob Sweet

Every kitchen appliance is getting smart—except one.

Read the article.

Still Curious?

Your TV is too good for you: 4K resolution is a sham, Ian Bogost argues. KitchenAid did it right 87 years ago: Modern appliances are rarely built to last. They could learn something from the KitchenAid stand mixer, Anna Kramer argues.

Other Diversions

The silliest, sexiest show of the year Why you might need an adventure Why are baseball players always eating?

P.S.

Courtesy of John Ambrose

I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. John Ambrose, 72, wrote that he took this photo “looking due west from my front door in Glastonbury, CT. The sky kept changing and went from an orange to a deep pink.”

I’ll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks.

— Isabel