Bewildering and Discombobulating
This is the first of a series of pieces based on Mary Meeker’s recent deck about AI. The first is an overview of the technology and its current impact.
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The First First-Person War
Drones are changing the way wars are fought, but they’re also changing the way we experience those wars. Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America — not on the battlefields of Vietnam. — Marshall McLuhan (1975) Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar … Read more
Breaking the wall: Drawing the right lessons from Blade Runner(s)
This is the second in a series of pieces I am writing on dystopian movies — — broadly defined — and what they tell us, or could tell us, about our own condition and what prescriptions they might offer for a way forward. In this piece I offer a different interpretation of the two Blade Runner movies and the … Read more
Anticipating the wave train of AI
We’ve been poor about trying to predict the real, lasting impact of generative AI. It’s not through lack of trying: some have talked about rethinking the way our economies run and how we think about our lives, to treating it as an existential risk, to treating AI as a foundational, or general purpose, technology that will change everything. I’m … Read more
We need to talk about our AI fetish
Artificial intelligence puts us in a bind that in some ways is quite new. It’s the first serious challenge to the ideas underpinning the modern state: governance, social and mental health, a balance between capitalism and protecting the individual, the extent of cooperation, collaboration and commerce with other states. How can we address and wrestle … Read more