AI: Tool or Companion?
Personalized AI systems only make sense in a friendless society.One of the problems of AI-human “relationships” is that, by definition, we cannot relate to a computer, nor can a computer relate to us.
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Adult Content Site Leaves France Due to Age Verification Law
Will other countries follow suit?People are likely to encounter online pornography even if they don’t actively seek it out. That’s how pervasively adult content inundates the internet.
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Deep Reading in a World Full of Words
The media environment is saturated with images, videos, and words. How can we regain our attention?Moments in silence with a newspaper might not save the world, but it could start saving our attention, arguably our most valuable and endangered resource.
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Snapchat Has Been Totally Exposed
Employees admit the harms of the camera appLosing a streak, for the hyperconnected fifteen-year-old, may feel tantamount to losing a friendship.
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2025: Rejecting Brain Rot
Toward a more embodied and human way of lifeFollowing the data, observing personal experience, and developing another vision for human flourishing can get us a step closer to a fuller, intentional life.
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Ted Mosby Can Save Today’s Dating World
The modern dating landscape is abysmalA recent study found that using dating apps was associated with increased feelings of shame for all its participants.
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In a Changing Media Landscape, Keep the Novel
Novels are unique in their capacity to shed insight into the complexity of our world and human natureThe novel is one of those traditional mediums that struggles in our screen-heavy society.
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Report: Large Language Models Don’t “Think”
Also, Apple Intelligence might not be so intelligent after allA research team at Apple is now sharing that “state-of-the-art” AI bots are failing basic arithmetic problems according to Los Angeles Times. Michael Hiltzik writes, The Apple team found “catastrophic performance drops” by those models when they tried to parse simple mathematical problems written in essay form. In this example, the systems tasked with the question often didn’t understand that the size of the kiwis have nothing to do with the number of kiwis Oliver has. Some, consequently, subtracted the five undersized kiwis from the total and answered “185.” Human schoolchildren, the researchers posited, are much better at detecting the difference between relevant information and inconsequential curveballs. Apple has recently been rolling out tons of new advertisements promoting the iPhone Read More ›
The Dumbphone Revolution?
It's a crazy idea, but what if we just started using our phones to call and text people?But being constantly online, constantly available to reach, and constantly bombarded with the woes of the world is a recipe for emotional turmoil.
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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 ›
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 ›
Americans Are Lonely. Sometimes Even When They’re Together
Technology can obstruct our connection with others, but it can also train us to not even want friendship in the first place“Hell is other people,” wrote Sartre. For the modern apologist of self-love, no one spoke a truer word.
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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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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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Here Are Some Good Pieces to Read Over the Long Weekend
Reflections on love and freedom from two gifted writersHappy Independence Day to all the American readers, which, presumably, is most of you! Condolences and best wishes to our British friends as they deal with a large-scale election tomorrow. Many people will be enjoying a particularly long weekend full of hot dogs, fireworks, and summer heat, but one can always use the spare time to catch up on some reading. Here are just a couple of links that I’ve found worthwhile over the last couple days. The first comes from novelist Tara Isabella Burton, who writes a candid piece on overcoming smartphone addiction in Plough. Like many of us, Burton both wrestles with spending too much time on screens but has also made resolutions to overcome her dependency again Read More ›
“Dopamine-Maximizing AI”
Elon Musk on addictive algorithms and the future of AITech lords often vacillate between hype and doom, and Musk, who signed a petition to curb AI research until its effects are known, falls into that tendency, too.
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How I Turned My Smartphone Into a “Dumbphone”
I've had it being a pawn of Big TechAt the end of the day, I had to examine the real reasons I had an iPhone, and realized most of them were connected to distraction and entertainment.
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Einstein Meets Lemaître
The significance of Lemaître’s work remained mostly unnoticed for three yearsGeorges Lemaître’s work provided the first interpretation of cosmological redshifts as a natural effect of the universe’s expansion within the framework of general relativity.
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I, Robot Merges Sci-Fi and Noir Beautifully
Will Smith versus a world of robotsI, Robot is one of those rare movies that manages to merge two genres seamlessly: sci-fi and noir.
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Is AI’s Future Open or Closed?
Watch Archana Vemulapalli, Head of Solutions Architecture at Amazon Web Services, discuss developments in artificial intelligenceWatch Archana Vemulapalli, Head of Solutions Architecture at Amazon Web Services, discuss developments in artificial intelligence with Bryan Mistele, CEO of transportation analytics provider, INRIX – especially ways in which AI can be employed to make people more productive and efficient, and in the end, make the world a better place. You can watch this video and many more from the most recent COSM conference, which featured leading thinkers and pioneers in the fields of tech, artificial intelligence, and computing.