Why Even Try if You Have A.I.? Now that machines can think for us, we have to choose whether to be the passengers or pilots of our lives.

We’re drawn to activities that invite us to grow, by trying and trying again, because we want to evolve as people. Life is mostly repetitive—wake, eat, work, sleep, repeat—and each day can feel like an unsatisfying circle. But repetition with variation broadens us. It makes our circular days into spiralling journeys. “The spiral is a…

Microsoft Publishes Garbled AI Article Calling Tragically Deceased NBA Player “Useless”

This is what we have to look forward to, as a torrent of AI-generated slop that’s good enough for the CEOs to monetize squeezes out the human-generated content that actually matters. Former NBA player Brandon Hunter passed away unexpectedly at the young age of 42 this week, a tragedy that rattled fans of his 2000s…

Stop sharing those unsourced memes about “be woke” and “God doesn’t need soldiers” — here’s what Pope Leo XIV is actually saying.

Pope Leo XIV, in his first address to journalists at the Vatican, called for the release of imprisoned journalists, championed the free press, and urged caution about AI. My social media feed is full of memes that purport to represent the words of Leo XIV. Legitimate news sources have already published stories about Pope Leo…

A.I. Is Getting More Powerful, but Its Hallucinations Are Getting Worse

The newest and most powerful technologies — so-called reasoning systems from companies like OpenAI, Google and the Chinese start-up DeepSeek — are generating more errors, not fewer. As their math skills have notably improved, their handle on facts has gotten shakier. It is not entirely clear why.   Today’s A.I. bots are based on complex mathematical systems that learn…

Doctor Bashir, I Presume #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 16) Smarmy hologram designer exposes a Bashir family secret, romances Leeta

Rewatching ST:DS9 Quark watches with detached bemusement as Rom backs out of declaring his interest in Leeta. As O’Brien celebrates a win over Bashir at darts, Dr. Zimmerman, a hologram researcher (whose face Star Trek fans will instantly know from the then-contemporary Trek series Voyager) says he’s here to make Bashir “immortal.” Starfleet has chosen…

More than a million people die on roads every year. Meet the man determined to prevent them

Imagine a society that engineers its highways so that ordinary people who make mistakes, and even people who intentionally break the law, are less likely to kill people with their cars. On 22 May 1997, the Swedish government presented Bill 1996/97:137 to parliament. It cemented zero deaths as a long-term goal for road fatalities. It reiterated that…

The Darkness and the Light #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 11) A serial killer targets Kira’s former resistance colleagues

Rewatching ST:DS9 In a cave (again with the caves), a pleasant-looking Bajoran monk welcomes guests to a “days of atonement” retreat, and is zapped by a beam of light. In the infirmary, the very pregnant Kira, griping comically that the herbs she’s been prescribed mean sedatives don’t work, learns that Latha, formerly a violent member…

Is AI making us less intelligent?

This morning, after students submitted a homework assignment (a 200-word evidence-based argument paragraph), I asked them to annotate a printout of the instructions (including a rubric), had them peer-review their own submission, and then had them write additional annotations on the assignment sheet, in which they stated what changes they now realized they needed to…

Don’t Be a Sucker (antifascist film from 1945)

  Full version Similar:Voiceover artist Gayanne Potter urging ScotRail to remove her voice from new AI announceme…Why Even Try if You Have A.I.? Now that machines can think for us, we have to choose wheth…The Missing Will, by Agatha Christie (WAOB Audio Theatre)'Most Transparent’ White House In History Keeps Majority Of Trump’s Remarks SecretMicrosoft Publishes…

Hey there, chaotic world in academia and beyond, could you settle down just a bit so I can mark these papers on August Wilson? Thanks!

Similar:Voiceover artist Gayanne Potter urging ScotRail to remove her voice from new AI announceme…Why Even Try if You Have A.I.? Now that machines can think for us, we have to choose wheth…Spring 2025 Final Grades Submitted!The Missing Will, by Agatha Christie (WAOB Audio Theatre)'Most Transparent’ White House In History Keeps Majority Of Trump’s Remarks SecretMicrosoft…

For some reason, I saw a bump in traffic to a page that linked to a “make-your-own-Trump-executive order” page

This sort of thing was funnier back in 2017. Similar:Voiceover artist Gayanne Potter urging ScotRail to remove her voice from new AI announceme…Why Even Try if You Have A.I.? Now that machines can think for us, we have to choose wheth…Spring 2025 Final Grades Submitted!The Missing Will, by Agatha Christie (WAOB Audio Theatre)'Most Transparent’ White…