Technology
The longtermism that works—and the kind that doesn’t
Reading Time: 10 minutes In 2004, a tsunami and earthquake killed almost 230,000 people in 14 Indian Ocean countries. Many forms of relief then mouldered on the beaches—used clothes, high heel shoes, expired medicines—because “in-kind” donations are well known not to be effective forms of aid on a g
Anonymity, privacy, transparency, integrity: Do we even know the future we want?
Reading Time: 8 minutes In the late 2000s, research blossomed around our use of online avatars. Did our videogame icons and social media profiles represent our actual selves, our ideal selves, or something else entirely? And did they have a reciprocal impact, a “Proteus effect” that transformed self
Are AI art programs ripping off human artists?
Reading Time: 5 minutes Artists erupted in protest when they learned that AI art engines like Stable Diffusion were trained on their copyrighted works. This revelation has ignited a debate about the meaning of fair use.
AI is getting scarily good
Reading Time: 7 minutes Technological advances have made it possible for computers to hold conversations, perform surgery, create art, and more. What room is left for humans?
Why degrowth is (still) wrong
Reading Time: 6 minutes Earlier this month, I wrote an essay against degrowth, the position that drastic reductions to the modern lifestyle are our only hope of saving the planet. I argued that, to the contrary, renewable energy promises a future of greater abundance even as we tread more lightly on
Heat pumps will bring secular victory
Reading Time: 3 minutes Fossil fuels pay for Vladimir Putin’s war. The oil and gas that Europe buys from Russia become the bombs and missiles falling on Ukraine. If we had a way to break this dependence, if Europeans no longer relied on Russian gas to heat their homes, we could choke off Putin’s rev