IDEAS

Does AI Collapse The Need To Get Bigger?

AI is making enterprise-grade capabilities available to companies that are a fraction of the size and without all of the bureaucratic weight that historically came along with it. If Goldberg is right, the rules of competition are changing for good, and companies no longer need to be big to compete. - Wired

Creating Art In A Time Of International And Creative Crisis

Elif Shafak's latest book "arose out of our own historical moment, which Shafak has dubbed 'The age of three As: Angst, Anger and AI.'" - The Guardian (UK)

Bernie Sanders: Let’s Not Let Big Tech Dictate The Future Of Humanity

If these were the fantasies of teenage boys obsessed with science fiction, we could laugh them off. They are not. These are the foundational beliefs of the most powerful people in the world, who are mobilizing trillions of dollars to turn them into reality. - The Atlantic

Is Their A Limit To Human Knowledge? Or Do We Keep Moving The Goalposts?

Are certain questions closed to the human mind? Are there truths about the world that we can never know? - Aeon

Yes, Reading Has Changed. Adapt.

“We have everything we need to be happy,” the hero of Fahrenheit 451 observes, “but we aren’t happy.” Maybe that’s the ultimate lever to pull: the growing awareness that our devices are exhausting and eroding us. - The American Scholar

We’re Losing Our Skills As We Lean Into Technology

We have fallen into habits that are steadily deskilling the human body, eroding capacities honed by evolution to support our wellbeing as we move through the world. Some of these capacities are weakening through disuse: we have come to rely on our phones, for example, and now, increasingly, on AI. - Aeon

Complicating The Morality Of Colonialism?

"My pessimism is reinforced by the zero-sum view of economics that typically accompanies the zero-sum view of moral agency around colonialism. A major piece of evidence for the ‘colonisation explains everything’ thesis is economic." - 3 Quarks Daily

Sorry, But The Reading “Crisis” Isn’t One

The practice of using our eyes to create and absorb systems of language instead is so difficult and so weird, in fact, that, as best as we can tell, and as Marriott reminds us, it’s been invented no more than four times in our 300,000 years as a species. - The New Republic

American Retirees Aren’t Spending Down Their Savings. This Is A Problem

A survey of older adults with at least $100,000 showed that only 28 percent were comfortable watching their savings taper off to cover living expenses, ostensibly exactly what the money was saved for in the first place. This is a problem—not just for retirees but for the country.  - The Atlantic

A Three-Year Arts Launchpad In Boston Provides A Path For Smaller Arts Groups

The Boston Center for the Arts Launchpad "is meant to provide both an anchor and a resource without restricting what each company might create." - Boston Globe

Why We Need A Four (Or More) Hour Documentary About Elon Musk

"This small group of people has tried to basically run a con on all of us. 'We’re doing this out of the goodness of our own hearts. We’re making the world better.' No, you’re padding your bottom lines and all you care about is you." - The New York Times

The Helpful Science Behind Spooky Season

"Seeking out fear is our way of preparing our bodies for the sometimes scary real world. And this vaccine is actually fun for most people." - NPR

Is AI A Brain Or A Database?

Human intuitions and mental models about how technology works govern how people use it. The idea of AI as software – deterministic, fact-retrieving – causes people to misinterpret the outputs they provide. - The Conversation

For Lifelong Learning, It’s Better With Partners

The internet is full of resources for self-directed learning: for any subject, you can easily find blog posts about essential texts, links to university syllabi, and hours of YouTube lectures. When I attempted to make use of these guides, however, I often found myself disengaged and unfocused. - Psyche

How Data Visualization Tells Stories

Because data, and how we present it, tells a story, it’s important to transform results responsibly into visuals. A good visualization can show you really interesting patterns in your data; however, a bad visualization, like truncating the Y-axis or choosing the wrong type of plot, can lead you or your audience to the wrong conclusions. - The Scientist

Our Free Newsletter

Join our 30,000 subscribers

Latest

Don't Miss