Facebook, sadly, "is following the trajectory of the airline industry writ large. It is a once-revolutionary service that, over time, has transformed into something more soul-sucking." - The Atlantic
Under the increasingly uncontrollable uncertainty of our financialized world, speculation becomes a more productive mechanism to imagine community and collective coping with disorienting volatility. Speculation, in this sense, is not merely a symptom but a structure. - Boston Review
The dreariness of ChatGPT, the soulless works of visual art produced by similar programs seem to confirm that hunch. In the real world, the bots aren’t our overlords so much as the enablers of our boredom. Our shared future — our singularity — is an endless scroll, just for the lulz. - The New York Times
Rather than being our crowning glory as a species, is it possible that human intelligence is in fact a liability, the source of our existential angst and increasingly apparent talent for self-destruction? - The Guardian
Most experts acknowledge that we are a long way off from seeing what AI researchers have termed “artificial general intelligence”: the kind of intelligence that does not consist in performing highly circumscribed tasks, but which involves a unified conception of the world. - The Point
For 25 years I’ve begun my introductory psychology course by showing how our best artificial intelligence still can’t duplicate ordinary common sense. This year I was terrified that that part of the lecture would be obsolete because the examples I gave would be aced by GPT. I needn’t have worried. - Harvard Gazette
The deliberate attempt to emulate music culminated in the works of abstract artists like Kandinsky, where colours and shapes, devoid of representational contents, are art in their own right. But just how can an abstract painting imitate music? How can the two be associated in a deep and meaningful way? - Psyche
Think of ChatGPT as a blurry jpeg of all the text on the Web. It retains much of the information on the Web, in the same way that a jpeg retains much of the information of a higher-resolution image, but, if you’re looking for an exact sequence of bits, you won’t find it. - The New Yorker
What does it matter if Homo sapiens no longer exists? The astonishing fact is that, despite acquiring the ability to annihilate ourselves back in the 1950s, when thermonuclear weapons were invented, very few philosophers in the West have paid much attention to the ethics of human extinction. - Aeon
High expectations aren’t always a bad thing. But if you’re finding yourself flooded with disappointment more often than you’d like, you might consider the case for lowering your expectations and turning to gratitude instead. - The Atlantic
Today, nearly half a billion people qualify as Indigenous. If they were a single country, it would be the world’s third most populous, behind China and India. Exactly who counts as Indigenous, however, is far from clear. - The New Yorker
If great masses of people maintain a certain belief over long periods of time, one can be fairly sure that there is something in it. This doesn’t mean that the belief in question is true, but it’s unlikely to be complete nonsense either. Myths tend to have a core of truth. - Unherd
Another moment, that is. This certainly isn't the first go-round. Best Supporting Actress nominee Kerry Condon: "My friend at home was like, ‘Everybody’s celebrating like crazy. It’s like they’ve won the World Cup.’"- Los Angeles Times
"The company’s previously flatlining Bing app almost surpassed Google in downloads last Saturday, and search interest in Bing is spiking. The astonishing screenshots—as long as they stay within reasonable bounds—will likely bolster the surge. They’re great marketing." - Slate
A recent edited collection of essays by leading ufologists notes that, some seventy-five years after the alleged Roswell crash, we arguably know no more than we did then: “The UFO field has produced thousands of dedicated researchers over the years, and reams of literature; but to what end? - The Walrus
