Entertainment and tech companies have gotten smarter about putting consumers into bastardized flow states that leaves people feeling drained and sad rather than challenged and enlarged as selves. - Derek Thompson
It’s a phenomenon that has long puzzled psychologists and philosophers alike. Given that we usually dread sadness and strive to avoid it because it feels so bad – from painful conversations to the grief of loss – why do we actively seek it in art? - Psyche
This is a war over whether technology will merely optimise calculations or eliminate a quintessentially human element such calculations can’t capture. But beneath these debates, the question still lurks: what makes us so special? And can it be computed? - Aeon
A combination of technological, economic, political, and cultural forces, at work both within and without the university, had by the early 2020s effectively pummeled the tradition of universitarian humanism into unconsciousness. - Chronicle of Higher Education
Artificial intelligence is both a technology and a theology, and in its latter aspect, it too often resembles a doctrinal dispute among an assortment of shrieking priests. - The Nation
Even if you spend very little time online, there’s little you can do outside the logic of the internet. It is a force that warps our reality, a cosmic background noise that is everywhere and nowhere — something inhuman that’s subtly reshaping our language, our politics, even our minds. - The New York Times
The further artists move out of amateur hour and into the professional realm, of course, the more we expect their work to reflect their “real” capabilities. But what is real? - The New Yorker
In the dream world of an executive, fandom is something like a parasitic disease — contagious through mere exposure, trafficking quickly between hosts with immediate contact and little to no external intervention. - Words from Eliza
“What started as a technique to support human understanding in the face of increasingly complex tools became a way to replace human understanding. Ease became an unquestioned good. Complexity became something to hide.” - Slate
“The role of the critic isn’t to summarise or repackage art, but to actively participate in a conversation about it,” and using AI isn’t going to help with that. - The Conversation
The letter characterizes this tech, also known as “age assurance,” as a tactic for the “centralization of power.” The letter notes, “Those deciding which age-based controls need to exist, and those enforcing them gain a tremendous influence on what content is accessible to whom on the internet.” - The Baffler
Two-thirds said they had observed the decline among children who they also said no longer felt the need to spell because of voice-to-text technology. - The Guardian
