● THURSDAY 06.12.2026 — ISSUE 34.06 THE FUTURE, AS IT HAPPENS · GET THE DAILY
FIG. 01 — DUOTONE / HALFTONE 01
Artificial Intelligence

# The Machines Are Learning to Want

Inside the labs where reward models stopped predicting human preference — and started shaping it. A six-month investigation into the feedback loops nobody signed up for.

By Maya Okafor · 18 min read · Backchannel
№ 02 Science

## Inside the Quantum Cold War

Two superpowers, one fragile qubit, and the race to break everything encrypted.

By Daniel Reyes № 03 Security

## Your Password Is Already Gone

A breach broker walks us through the market where your logins were sold — twice.

By Aisha Karim № 04 Gear

## The Last Great Gadget

We tested 41 devices to find the one thing still worth owning outright.

By Tom Whittaker All Top Stories →
FIG. 02 — INTERFERENCE 02 Science

## The Grid That Eats the Sun

Solar got so cheap it broke the economics of every power market on Earth. Now the hard part starts.

By Lena Borg · 12 min SIGINT / 0-DAY "We didn't find the backdoor. The backdoor found us." Security

## The Zero-Day That Phoned Home

An exploit so quiet it ran for nine years — inside the agency that wrote it.

By Priya Nair · 9 min REVIEW 8/10 04 Gear

## We Rode the 200-mph E-Bike So You Don't Have To

It's illegal in 14 states. It's also, regrettably, magnificent.

By Marcus Hale · 7 min

## Most Popular

Last 24 hours
01 AI

### The Chatbot Cult Recruiting Inside Your Group Chats

02 Culture

### Why Everyone Is Speedrunning Reality

03 Security

### A Hacker Returned $40M. Then Asked for a Job

04 Gear

### The 23 Best Deals on Things You'll Never Use

05 Ideas

### Silicon Valley's New God Complex

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Explore → AI 412 Science 286 Security 198 Gear 531 Culture 247 Ideas 164 Business 203
Design System Reference

## The grid is the brand. Ink is the voice.

WIRED's identity is newspaper discipline electrified: 1px black hairlines doing all the structure, black-on-white typography doing all the talking, and three neon accents used like punctuation — never like paint. Nothing is rounded. Nothing is soft.

View DESIGN.md ↗

### Color

Black and white carry 95% of every page. The neon trio — electric blue, acid green, magenta — appears only as small hits: a kicker, a highlight, a rank numeral. If an accent covers more than a chip, it must be duotoned with black geometry on top.

INK
Ink
#0A0A0A
PAPER
Paper
#FFFFFF
ELC
Electric Blue
#33BBFF
ACD
Acid Green
#B6FF00
MGT
Magenta
#FF3EB5
DUO
Duotone Rule
accent + black geometry

### Typography

One loud sans, one literary serif, one cold mono. Inter Black at -0.035em tracking is the headline voice; IBM Plex Serif italic interrupts it mid-sentence for the emotional word. JetBrains Mono handles dates, bylines and figures — the wire-service residue.

Token | Sample | Spec | Role
--- | --- | --- | ---
--display | Learning to Want | 76px / 900 / -0.035em | Lead headline — sans + serif italic splice
--hed | Quantum Cold War | 20–27px / 900 | Story headlines
--dek | Two superpowers, one fragile qubit. | 15–18px / serif 400 | Deks & standfirsts
--kicker | ■ Artificial Intelligence | 11px / 800 / +0.18em caps | Category eyebrow
--byline | BY MAYA OKAFOR | 11px / mono caps | Bylines, dates, figures
--rank | 05 | 64px / 900 / outline stroke | Most Popular numerals

### Rules & Radius

There is no radius scale: every corner is 0. Structure comes from rules — the hairline grid is built with 1px gaps over an ink background, so every cell is fenced like a newspaper column. Weight escalates 1px → 3px → 6px for hierarchy. Depth, when needed, is a hard offset shadow, never a blur.

Hairline
1px — cell fencing, table rows
Section Rule
3px — masthead, zone heads
Slab Rule
6px — emphasis, DS top rule
Radius / Shadow
0px corners · 4px hard offset

### Components

Buttons are typeset, not styled: black slab or hairline frame, all-caps, no rounding. Links underline by highlighter, inputs focus with a hard offset shadow. Every card is a miniature front page — kicker, art, headline.

##### Buttons & Links

Subscribe — $5 Read the Story Highlighter link →

##### Inputs & Tags

AI Security FIG. 04 — LABEL

##### Story Card

■ Science
The Grid That Eats the Sun

### Voice & Tone

WIRED writes like it designs: declarative, slightly dangerous, never neutral.

##### Declarative

"Your Password Is Already Gone."
Headlines are verdicts, not questions. State the thesis in the hed; argue it in the dek.

##### Splice the Registers

Hard sans for the fact, serif italic for the feeling — the typographic splice mirrors the editorial one: rigorous reporting, lurid stakes.

##### Numbers as Drama

"41 devices. Nine years. $40M."
Figures are characters in the story. Set them in mono or outline strokes; let them be loud.
View source ↗