The Artist is Stronger than the Censor
Salman Rushdie and standing up for free speechTalking about censorship, for Rushdie, is a conscious choice. We must talk about it too or we will find we can no longer take free speech for granted.
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Smartphone: The “Experience Blocker”
Experience is the key to emotional development and a fully human lifeSmartphones are distracting and addicting, but according to Jonathan Haidt, and supported by our common experience, they can also keep us from a basic ingredient of human life: Experience. Sometimes I wonder if the worst aspect of the “dopamine culture,” as culture critic Ted Gioia calls it, is not that we no longer have the attention spans to focus on our work, but that we no longer seem able to enjoy activities that aren’t based on screens. Simple pleasures like a good meal, meant to savor and digest at a slow pace, or going through a rich and complicated novel that yields real insight and literary joy, or even kissing an actual person in an affectionate way are all “old-school” Read More ›
AI Social Media “Slop” Makes Lies Look Convincing
The AI slop machine holds graver consequences when the images reflect natural disastersAI companies should be held accountable by being required to watermark their images.
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Hinton and Hopfield Win Nobel Prize in Physics
Hinton warns against neglecting AI safetyGeoffrey E. Hinton, a pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence responsible for helping develop “neural networks,” has been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize alongside John J. Hopfield. The two scientists won the award for their groundbreaking work in machine intelligence, paving the way for a revolutionary new way to use computers. Hinton attracted attention just last year when he departed from Google and started warning the public about the potential dangers of new AI systems. He likened the AI revolution to the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, only this time, it won’t be our physical capacities that get trumped by the machine, but our intellects. The New York Times reports, “It will be comparable with the Industrial Revolution,” Read More ›
Coldplay’s “Moon Music” is a Beautiful Leap for the Heavens
An album of energy and hope for a time of strain and painThe concept art of the crescent moon, the stars resembling sparks against a flush blue expanse of the heavens, and the fiery, rainbow sash of ignited atmosphere compel the eye upward.
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Sam Altman Was on My Favorite Writing Podcast. His View on Storytelling Surprised Me.
When we read, we want to hear from a human about what it means to be human.Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has garnered a fair share of criticism from the writing crowd for creating ChatGPT, a tool that on the surface seems to banish the need for human writers at all. However, Altman recently appeared on David Perell’s prominent writing podcast “How I Write” to talk about his own writing process, AI, and what he uses ChatGPT for. Altman and Perell talk about the importance of language for human communication, with Altman noting how he can’t imagine human life without language. AI, Altman says, is supposed to make language and the writing process “better.” In his view, that’s what computers have also sought to do: Create opportunities for humans to expand and deepen their capacities. But Read More ›
AI-Generated Social Media? Looks Like It’s Already Here.
The only problem? You can't simulate community.Do we need another app simulating human experience to solve the loneliness crisis? More simulation entails further disconnection.
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Experience is Going Extinct
A review of Christine Rosen's "The Extinction of Experience"As more of our daily experience goes mediated and buffered through screens, it’s important to wonder what we’re losing.
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No, the AI Bubble is Nothing Like the Dotcom Bubble
Don't listen to the tech bros on this oneMichael Dell, founder of Dell Computers, said recently on LinkedIn: “The skepticism around AI’s ROI today feels a lot like the doubts people had about the internet in its early days. Back then, no one could fully grasp how much the web would transform our lives, and now AI is on the same path. Yes, it might be tough to measure immediate returns, but if history teaches us anything, it’s that game-changing technologies take time to show their true impact. By embracing AI, we’re not just adopting a tool — we’re investing in a future where human potential gets a major boost, and new opportunities are unlocked. Just like the internet became the foundation of our digital world, AI has Read More ›
AI’s Boundaries and Human Creativity: A Conversation with Dr. Robert J. Marks
In this recent radio interview, prefaced by a brief introduction from Discovery Institute representative Dr. Tom Winkler, host Mark Davis speaks with Dr. Robert Marks, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Baylor University and director of Discovery Institute’s Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence. Marks discusses his book Non-Computable You: What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Read More ›
National Novel Writing Month Approves AI Writing
But what about most of the arts and culture community?The pushback was swift and overwhelming negative.
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Will the Real Beethoven Please Stand Up?
AI images are starting to take over the internetWhereas the original painting offers a nuanced revelation of the person, the AI image looks like a malcontented version of Mel Gibson.
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Live Music is Making a Comeback, and So is Bob Dylan
People still want to experience music in person.This past summer, 110,000 people convened for a George Strait concert in College Station, TX, the biggest crowd ever recorded to hear live music. Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” has amassed over a billion dollars in revenue, with the pop star traveling the world to sold-out amphitheaters. Coldplay, another massive musical act, is gearing up for the release of their tenth studio album, Moon Music, set to drop on October 4th. They plan a world tour for the album and are also known to fill up stadiums far and wide. So, whatever plights the world of arts and culture might be facing, and given AI’s incursion into the creator economy, one thing remains evident: people still want to experience music in Read More ›
AI Increased the Market Cap of the Magnificent Seven by $10 Trillion. Will it last?
AI is here to stay, just not in these insanely high share pricesAre the benefits from generative AI really hundreds of times higher than those from Microsoft Office?
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Learning to Build and Create Offline as Well as On
Is the internet the only place to build and expand culture?How can we build beauty instead of glass blocks? Cathedrals instead of consumer malls? And how can we avoid simply rebuilding a modern rendition of Babel?
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A Weekend Watch: Paul Kingsnorth and Louise Perry
Who is technology serving?What do we lose when we’re never quiet with our own thoughts, always checking our phones, always listening to Spotify or a podcast in the background?
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Revisiting Neil Postman’s Laws of Technology
How can we judge technology realistically?Without guiding principles, technology can progress while our moral maturity stays the same or even backtracks.
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Our Tech Use Crosses the Line When We Trust It Too Much
Don't be like Michael Scott and let AI drive your car into a lakeI’ve never driven my car into a lake screaming “the machine knows!” like Michael Scott did but the temptation to use technology like this loom in everyday life.
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AI: The Future of Friendship?
Odd visions of dystopia keep popping up in real life in our current social moment.Odd visions of dystopia keep popping up in real life in our current social moment. An upcoming device simply called “friend” is now being advertised. Per the product description, the “friend” is a Bluetooth disk that hangs around a person’s neck and “listens” to the user. It then has the capacity to make conversation by “texting” you at random times of the day, like a human friend might do. The website includes a “frequently asked questions” portion, which is where you can discover what the product is and what it can do. Here’s a bizarre response to the question: “what does ‘always listening’ mean”: When connected via bluetooth, your friend is always listening and forming their own internal thoughts. We Read More ›
Musk Wants to Use AI to Understand the Universe. Will it Work?
Could AI ever aid our quest to fully understand the universe?Jordan Peterson and Elon Musk sat down this week for an extensive conversation ranging from technology, AI, politics, and even religion and questions of the metaphysical. These two prominent figures are active on Musk’s X, and frequently call out infringements on free speech and other authoritarian measures they see as a danger. In one interesting point in the interview, Musk described how he diverged in his views from his friend Larry Page on AI safety. Page evidently believes that we will “upload our minds to the computer,” to which Peterson said, “There’s not much difference between that and the death of humanity.” Musk nonetheless is the developer of his own AI system and believes that AI can aid humanity’s perennial Read More ›