They will remain rich and powerful, and they will continue to have many bright and competent people working within their ambit. And yet their authority will grow more brittle and their appeal more sectarian. - Compact Magazine
It is worth remembering the vast majority of what we call free-speech issues have little basis in the First Amendment, which only forbids the abridgment of speech by the government, not private organizations like magazines, cultural centers, or Hollywood production companies. - New York Magazine
Among all the questions that enable us to orient ourselves in the world and in our common lives – who? what? how many? where? when? – this one, “why?“ seems necessary for a certain meaning to emerge, whatever the sense we give to the word. - 3 Quarks Daily
There is "value of parody and satire in human communication. This is a very old format for making a social critique, often used quite strategically. A really famous case which predates the internet is Jonathan Swift’s (1729) pamphlet, “A Modest Proposal.” - Nautilus
A.I. fans argue that if artists ignore ethical questions and embrace A.I., we could produce more. “A.I. could help you write 100 books in a year!” they say. My question is always: Will A.I. produce 100 times as many readers? - The New Republic
"There was a time in my life when it was trivial to sign up to a new social network and pick up its patterns and mores on the fly. Now, I feel exhausted by the prospect." - The New York Times
The very idea of popularity is up for debate: Is that trend really viral? Did everyone see that post, or is it just my little corner of the internet? More than before, it feels like we’re holding a fun-house mirror up to the internet and struggling to make sense of the distorted picture. - The Atlantic (MSN)
Researchers such as Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge have shown that various measures of student well-being began a sharp decline around 2012 throughout the West, just as smartphones and social media emerged as the attentional centerpiece of teenage life. Some have even suggested that smartphone use is so corrosive, it’s systematically reducing student achievement. - The Atlantic
Children start to distinguish fantasy from reality around preschool, but a belief in Santa Claus or Father Christmas usually lasts longer, to around seven or eight years old, according to research conducted in the United States in the 1980s and ’90s. - Psyche
Poets should not be threatened by the fact that every person with internet access can now create the poetic equivalent of hotel art. Although it involves technique, poetry is not a technical problem. - The Walrus
Long before generative AI became widely available, people were making “cheapfakes” or “shallowfakes.” It can be as simple as mislabeling images, videos, or audio clips to imply they’re from a different time or location, or editing a piece of media to make it look like something happened that didn’t. - Wired
In 2022 alone, 1,266 non-physics authors published the equivalent of one paper every 5 days, including weekends, compared with 387 in 2016. The accelerated growth since 2016 was surprising because an earlier analysis showed that extreme productivity was beginning to plateau in 2014. - Nature
You know what watching a movie felt like to my easily-distracted hamster brain? It felt like an accomplishment. It felt smart. It felt like a spa day for my skull. It felt like…finishing a book. - The Wall Street Journal
"If you want to know who someone truly is—what they eat, what books they read, what movies they watch, or how furious they get inside their own minds—you should probably check their Notes app." - Wired
