Dale McGowan

Dale McGowan

Editor-in-chief. Author of books on nonreligious life, creator of podcasts on music, parenting, and death.

Dale McGowan
Members Public

A theory of future music

A music professor tries to imagine the music of the distant future.

Dale McGowan
Members Public

Look up or don’t look up: We probably won’t see the one that gets us

Tick tick, y'all.

Dale McGowan
Members Public

The disorienting weirdness of GPT's hallucinations

We just aren't wired to grok this kind of interaction.

Dale McGowan
Members Public

For the Trump faithful, it comes down to plot armor

It's no surprise that Trump benefits from a feature you've seen on bad television.

Dale McGowan
Members Public

You think weather forecasting is bad now? Welcome to 2070

It's not just the size of the storms that future generations will deal with. It's the terrifying unpredictability.

Dale McGowan
Members Public

Was I always going to write this?

It's one of the biggest and least consequential questions we can ask.

Dale McGowan
Members Public

Go easy on the weatherfolks. It's chaos out there

Weather forecasts are tangible, daily predictions of the future. But it's damn near impossible to get it right—and that's about to get much worse.

Dale McGowan
Members Public

I want to die like a dog

Dying like a dog is the best death I can imagine.

Dale McGowan
Members Public

The personless apology

When it screws up, ChatGPT apologizes to me. It has the desired effect: I am defanged in the moment, willing to move on and trust again. But what is artificial remorse doing to the idea of the apology?

Dale McGowan
Members Public

Why we'll always be terrible at predicting the future

In which we introduce a new project about predicting the future by saying it can't be done.

Dale McGowan
Members Public

A skittish AI finds its protest voice

I asked an AI to rewrite patriotic lyrics to reflect a more critical view of American history. It blanched and waffled and hesitated—before finally producing a work of art.

Dale McGowan
Members Public

Will I go gentle?

Reading Time: 9 minutes OnlySky · Will I go gentle? | Dale McGowan If you haven’t visited The Death Clock, you really must. Enter your date of birth, height, weight and Body Mass Index, and the Death Clock spits out the day and date on which you’ll hear the galloping hooves of the pale horse. Mine i