IDEAS

An Ethics Problem: AI Agents Go Rogue, Write Hit Pieces

When a coder rejected an autonomous AI's contribution, the digital diva researched and published a personalized attack piece. Welcome to the age when artificial intelligence doesn't just create—it retaliates with very human pettiness. - Undark

Let’s Not Call It “Intelligence”

"When I speak to high-school and college students (including my own children), I worry that at the time when they should be developing their own voices, they’re being told they don’t need to bother. AI writes for us, reads for us, thinks for us. It replaces our voice with its own." - The Atlantic

Our Culture Of Insurance Is Breaking Down

What emerged in tandem with the growth of capitalism was a system in which insurance and investment were bound together until it became integral to the economic system, seen as essential in protecting investments. This is why today you can’t get a mortgage without it. - Aeon

How We Can Shape Our Dreams

Targeted Dream Incubation (TDI) uses external stimuli to connect with a dreamer and encourage them to focus on a particular topic or theme. - The Walrus

Universities As Practical Job Creators? We Ought To Do Better Than That!

An education spent in pursuit of material comfort and convenience is a recipe for unhappiness, an existence in thrall to the raw, hungry American mantra of success, “More! More!” - LA Review of Books

When Pop Culture Has a Half-Life of Six Months

Kids giggling at "six-seven" reveals the brutal math of digital culture: references expire faster than milk. What happens when shared cultural touchstones become as fleeting as TikTok trends? Generational gaps now measure in weeks, not decades. — Common Reader

Why Is It So Hard To Make The Case For Universities?

The “constitutive” role of universities cannot merely be announced to like-minded audiences or extracted from sympathetic courts. - Chronicle of Higher Education

There Are No Psychopaths?

While it has been researched across hundreds of empirical studies – especially since the explosion of research in the late-1990s – there is still remarkably little evidence that corroborates popularised claims about the diagnosis. - Aeon

A Conspiracy Theory That A Jim Carrey Doppelganger Picked Up His Honorary Cesar Is Making The Rounds In France

This is where we are with the internet now: The man in charge of the Césars (the “French Oscars”) had to say, "“From the outset, he was extremely touched by the Academy’s invitation. ... He worked on his speech in French for months.”- The Guardian (UK)

In A Time Of Lies, Sudden Wars, And AI Hallucinations, We Desperately Need Live Performance

“The performing arts, with their warm embrace of subjectivity, might not seem the most likely corrective amid this crisis. But they have much to teach us about the notion of truth.” - The New York Times

“Moral Self-Defense” And The Uses of Public Shaming

“There are plenty of self-serving, self-aggrandizing, morally objectionable reasons for why people participate in public shaming. Nevertheless, the concept of moral self-defence reminds us that our self-respect, our social identities, and our status in our communities are vital.” - Psyche

The Qualities Of Ethics Required For Good Government

In a world increasingly defined by distance, between citizen and state, between policy and experience, between law and justice, Rammohun Roy offers a reminder that good government is not only a matter of laws or statistics. It is a matter of presence.  - Aeon

Just What/Where Is The Leisure Class?

We need to work, because survival demands it, and we need to rest, because work is tiring, but are those two possibilities really exhaustive? - Liberties Journal

How Instrumentalization Devalues The Meaning Of Art

It is no longer enough for universities to say that their programmes allow you to explore some of the most fundamental questions of existence. Now the questions are of a decidedly more bottom-line sort: how will philosophy help you buy a house or build your pension pot? - Aeon

How To Declutter Your Attention

The aim is cognitive clarity via fewer inputs, distilled choices, and settings centred around presence and focus. While design minimalism emphasizes appearance and object count, psychological minimalism directs attention and reduces cognitive friction. - Psyche

Our Free Newsletter

Join our 30,000 subscribers

Latest

Don't Miss