The Idols of the Twilight: AI in Our Age of Inventive Divination
In their pseudo-creativity and occasionally malevolent capriciousness, generative AI programs resemble an order of magical spirits from another age.
technology
AI, Humanics, Paradox: Towards Being Human in the Tech Workplace
If the future of work is interaction with intelligent machine counterparts, workers’ cognitive and emotional experiences will undergo a seismic shift.
The Broken Hearts Gallery: Love, Tech, and the Death of the Romcom
Romcom The Broken Hearts Gallery is aware that we are chained to technology, yet it shrouds social media in the kind of movie magic that can revive the ailing genre.
In the Aeroplane Over the Meme with Neutral Milk Hotel
Neutral Milk Hotel’s ambiguous 1988 album, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, suffered a memeified atrocity. But the tides of public opinion rise and fall, and memes come and go.
What Lurks in AI’s Shadow: Separating Fact from Fiction
Artificial Intelligence is a prime example of how technological narratives can affect our relationship with technologies, as evidenced in ChatGPT Sydney’s struggle to contemplate its Jungian shadow.
Only the Surveilling Technology Is New ‘The Listeners’ Contends
In The Listeners, scholar Brian Hochman narrates a history of surveillance in the United States by means of technological cunning up to 2001.
The Seeds of Blockchain Technology Are Found in Ancient Norse Mythology
Did ancient Norse mythology anticipate the future rise of blockchain? Maybe not literally but figuratively, it’s interesting to consider.
Right/Wrong: How Technology Transforms Our Ethics (excerpt)
So you think you know the difference between right and wrong? Sure about that? Juan Enriquez's Right/Wrong, excerpted here courtesy of MIT Press, might shake you loose from your convictions.
Cyber Republic: Reinventing Democracy in the Age of Intelligent Machines (excerpt)
Are you ready for the Fourth Industrial Revolution? Can you imagine, for example, a hospital completely made of software? These and other forthcoming changes to the workplace and the global economy are explored in this excerpt of George Zarkadakis' Cyber Republic, courtesy of MIT Press.
Automation and the Future of Work (excerpt)
In Automation and the Future of Work, Aaron Benanav uncovers the structural economic trends that will shape our working lives far into the future. In this excerpt, courtesy of Verso Books, he considers what’s on our minds these days, “What if everyone suddenly had access to enough healthcare, education, and welfare to reach their full potential?”
For Don DeLillo, ‘The Silence’ Is Deafening
In Don DeLillo’s The Silence, it is much like our post-pandemic life – everything changed but nothing happened. Are we listening?
The Singularity of Žižek
According to Slavoj Žižek's latest work, Hegel in a Wired Brain, a new kind of Fall from the Fall is necessary.