Lance Ulanoff·PinnedMember-onlyTechnology Taught Us To Never WaitAre we too impatient for our own good? — I think it started with microwaves. A typical microwave can cook an entire chicken in 16 minutes. That’s three times faster (or more) than the best convection oven. We started using microwaves to reheat and cook virtually everything back in the late 1970s. It's also around that time that we…Internet4 min readInternet4 min read
Karla Starr·Apr 18, 2022Member-onlyYou Can’t Just Solve the ‘Fake News’ Problem by Getting Rid of Social MediaWe have to think about why people are so angry in the first place — Last week, The Atlantic published “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid” by Jon Haidt, the NYU professor and author of The Coddling of the American Mind. Haidt has perfected the art of “Get Off of My Lawn-ism,” or finding ways to rationalize and codify…Culture6 min readCulture6 min read
Cory Doctorow·Apr 17, 2022Revenge of the Chickenized Reverse-CentaursAlgorithms and worker power — In AI circles, a “centaur” describes a certain kind of machine/human collaboration, in which “decision-support” systems (which the field loves to call “AI”s) are paired with human beings for results that draw upon the strengths of each, such as when a human chess master and a chess-playing computer program collaborate…Labor8 min readLabor8 min read
Amelia Winger-Bearskin·Apr 17, 2022Is AI Art Real Art?Millions of images generated with code have fueled the engine of a new economy. But modern art has been associated with a lot of shenanigans over the years — is AI art the dawn of a new era, or the art world’s latest prank? — Generative Art uses techniques from Machine Learning and Machine Vision to generate images. And it has produced a lot of headlines around the subject of what is and isn’t real art.AI3 min readAI3 min read
Clive Thompson·Apr 15, 2022Member-onlyOf ‘Algospeak’ and the Crudeness of Automated ModerationSaying ‘le dollar bean’ instead of ‘lesbian’ so you don’t get demonetized — In China, people often speak in code online. Why? To evade the Chinese government’s filters. The authorities don’t want conversations they don’t like — most notably criticisms of major officials. So they run software to autodetect banned keywords on the major Chinese social networks. As a result, Chinese Internet users…Algorithms8 min readAlgorithms8 min read
Alex Kantrowitz·Apr 14, 2022Member-onlyElon Musk Tries To Buy Twitter: What’s Actually HappeningReading between the headlines to get the real story on Elon’s Twitter bid — On Thursday, Elon Musk announced an offer to buy Twitter. He proposed buying the company’s shares at $54.20 each, a $9 per-share premium, presenting its board with a tough decision. Musk is a brilliant businessman. He founded one company that sends rockets to space and another that popularized electric vehicles…3 min read3 min read
Benya Clark·Apr 14, 2022Member-onlyWhy I Changed My Mind About Virtual RealityI thought it was nothing more than a fun gimmick. I was wrong. — I was skeptical of virtual reality. For the past few years, I’ve been reading articles and watching videos about the technology as it has rapidly risen in popularity, but I wasn’t so impressed by what I saw. VR looked fun. I’m a lifelong science-fiction reader, and it was certainly cool…Virtual Reality3 min readVirtual Reality3 min read
Micah Sifry·Apr 13, 2022Member-onlyCan Tech Strengthen Civil Society Now?Why aren’t there more Wikipedia-scale successes online? — On Monday night, I participated in a class session of Technology, Media & Democracy, a partnership of five academic institutions in New York City, co-taught by Justin Hendrix, combining two classes he runs at NYU and Cornell Tech, David Carroll at The New School, Douglas Rushkoff at CUNY Queens College…Civictech6 min readCivictech6 min read
Brandeis Marshall·Apr 13, 2022Member-only17 Questions Tech Doesn’t Want You AskingA practical blueprint for assessing the value, limitations and quality of new technologies for ourselves and our families — Our modern digital society has us switching amongst a series of technologies/apps throughout our day. We’ve become conditioned to reach for the laptop or mobile device to find answers to our questions, connect with family and friends, stream your favorite shows, or droomscroll on social media. Over past few years…4 min read4 min read
Jamie Cohen·Apr 12, 2022Member-onlyWhy We’re Creating Language to Hide from Tech’s Censorship SystemsAs content moderation continually shifts, we should scrutinize what tech is doing to our language — From txtspk to l33tsp34k to emojis to memes, we’ve been encoding language based on both our technology’s capabilities and our ability to find ways to communicate effectively on digital platforms. Recently, however, the rise of “algospeak” has emerged to show us we’ll create new speech to hide from the systems…Algospeak5 min readAlgospeak5 min read