technology - Quillette

An AI generated image similar to Waterhouse's "Echo and Narcissus" but Narcissus is staring into his phone.

The Digital Mirror of Narcissus

Technology steers my life along tracks chosen for my digital double, not for me. But this proxy personalisation wouldn’t work at all if I didn’t play my part.

Timandra Harkness

23 May 2024 · 11 min read

Two boys looking out at the skyline of Greenwich, London, from above.

More People, More Prosperity: The Simon Abundance Index

The Simon Abundance Index 2024 finds Earth’s resources 509% more plentiful than in 1980.

Marian L. Tupy

22 Apr 2024 · 5 min read

To Accelerate or Decelerate AI: That is the Question

Explaining the “accel/decel” split at the heart of the OpenAI power struggle.

Sean Welsh / Michael Timothy Bennett

18 Dec 2023 · 13 min read

The Communication Revolution

Like the first iPhone, Gutenberg’s Bible opened up avenues of development that entrepreneurs have been exploiting ever since.

James Hannam

27 Sep 2023 · 10 min read

Artificially Intelligent Offense?

ChatGPT has been programmed to avoid giving accurate information if it may cause offense.

Lawrence M. Krauss

21 Feb 2023 · 12 min read

Why Environmentalists Pose a Bigger Obstacle to Effective Climate Policy than Denialists

The opposition to nuclear energy is not the only way in which mainstream environmentalists have, with the best of intentions, hurt the cause of climate action.

Maarten Boudry

27 Jan 2022 · 10 min read

Machine Learning, Deep Fakes, and the Threat of an Artificially Intelligent Hate-Bot

Fake news isn’t new. More than a century ago, newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer helped stir up enthusiasm for war against Spain by hyping the dubious claim that Spanish agents had used explosives to sink the USS Maine in Havana Harbor. The cry of “Remember

James D. Miller

4 Nov 2021 · 6 min read

Technology and the Golden Age of Taxonomy

After decades of experience, the sharpest naturalists in history may have been able to identify a few hundred species in the field.

Malcolm Cochran

14 Oct 2021 · 6 min read

A Contrarian View of Digital Health

Sending millions more people to clinicians, creating a society even more fearful of lurking diseases, and systematically robbing people of the normal arc of life and death–this, I am afraid, is where the digital health expansion is heading.

John Mandrola

17 May 2019 · 6 min read

Down the Rabbit Hole of Political Intolerance in Silicon Valley

I took it as a good sign that by the time I got back to our family brunch all I could talk about was what I’d read about this kid (Palmer Luckey) and his incredible company (Oculus).

Blake J. Harris and Clay Routledge

12 Mar 2019 · 10 min read

We Can Put an End to State Bidding Wars

Amazon would still have paid tax revenue, and, more likely than not, other tech startups would have followed, growing the taxable population even further.

Christopher Sabaitis

23 Feb 2019 · 6 min read

Deepfakes and the Threat to Privacy and Truth

In an age of heated polarization of it will be difficult for politicians to convince their opponents that damaging videos are in fact deepfakes.

Ben Sixsmith

23 Feb 2019 · 6 min read

What’s Happening to Technological Progress?

We’re blinded by incremental progress in electronic gadgets of marginal utility—new smartphones, larger monitors, and more powerful computers.

Hans Peter Dietz

21 Feb 2019 · 9 min read

Understanding China's Confucian Edge in the Global AI Race

China now stands poised to lead the world in the development of artificial-intelligence technologies, which rely, for their machine-learning algorithms.

Craig Smith

14 Feb 2019 · 5 min read

Video Games and the (Male) Meaning of Life

Research indicated that improved technological entertainment options, primarily video games, are responsible for between 20 and 33 percent of reduced work hours.

Andrew Yang

14 Dec 2018 · 9 min read