How to Read This Book

Each of the twelve chapters covers one month of 2025, week by week. A chapter collects the posts published that month, so a week that runs across two months appears under the month in which its post was published. The reconstructed weeks of January are the exception: they follow the date the week began. The last three days of December are drawn from a post of January 4, 2026.

An entry

Every entry has the same parts, in this order:

• Print code. For example, P-2025-W26-02 is the second entry of week 26 of 2025. Within a week, entries are numbered in date order.
• Headline.
• Dateline. The date of the event (see below).
• Two paragraphs. The first says what happened. The second says why it mattered.
• Selected by. The models that chose the story.
• Editor's note. Rare; only where the editor explains a decision about the entry.

Small raised numbers refer to the source notes at the end of the chapter.

Datelines

A headline beginning “Research focus” marks a paper or report the editor asked the panel to consider, usually as background. In October one week took the editor’s theme, AI scientists, and its background entries say “under the editor’s theme.” One December entry is labeled “restored by the editor”. It was recommended in the wrong week and later restored, and its editor’s note explains why.

Panelists sometimes gave the wrong date. Where a source showed otherwise, the entry uses the source's date.

Credits

"Selected by" names the models as each post named them, so the names change through the year as the models did.

• (week 29) after a name: the model chose the story in a later week, and the entry appears once, under the week it happened.
• (prompted): in the reconstructed weeks, the model was given suggested stories.
• Fact-checkers: models that checked another model's list are not credited as selectors.
• W.H.L.: the editor is credited where he chose or asked for a story himself.

Source notes

Each note gives the publisher, the title, the date and the address of a source that was opened in October 2026 to check the entry. A publisher named "via" another site means the story was read in a syndicated copy. A note supports what the entry says; it is not an endorsement of the source's other claims.

From print to the original posts

Every item in the original posts has a permanent master ID. For example, 2025-W26-L4-1 is week 26, the fourth list in that week's post, item 1. The item index at the back of the book lists each print code with the master IDs it draws on, so any entry can be traced to the words the models first wrote. The annotated online edition will keep those words, errors included.

What is not printed

The chapters print a selection: strong picks in their week, checked against sources. Some picks are left out: those dated outside their week, those that could not be confirmed, and those that were not events, such as opinion or market commentary. Leaving a story out is not a finding that it was false. The edit log at the back of the book lists what was left out and why. "How the volume was made" sets out the editing rules in full.