“He was a self-made tech millionaire looking for a good time. But a Tinder date turned out to be a brazen car theft scam.”
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Technology That Lets Us “Speak” to Our Dead Relatives Has Arrived. Are We Ready?
“Digital clones of the people we love could forever change how we grieve.”
Escaping China with a Spoon and a Rusty Nail
“I never imagined that I would stay there for three years and eight months, from the ages of 16 to 19.”
Unraveling the Mystery of the Art God
“For a decade, one writer tried to unravel the story of Dorje Chang, whose artwork sold for millions and who claimed to be the third coming of Buddha. Then he got an email: Dorje Chang and his wife were dead. What really happened?”
Taking Stock
Rob Horning explores the term “creator” in this essay on labor, exploitation, and content production and consumption on the internet. “Creator,” like “creativity,” is essentially a null term that signifies nothing about one’s activity but instead marks one’s limitless availability — a willingness to make anything at all in one’s life into content for sale.
How the AI Industry Profits from Catastrophe
The demand for data labeling in the artificial intelligence industry — tagging videos, sorting photos, and transcribing audio in order to train AI — has created a massive need for cheap labor, leading data-labeling platforms such as Appen to hire low-pay workers in countries like Venezuela, the Philippines, and Kenya to do these tasks. In […]
Spiraling in San Francisco’s Doom Loop
“What it’s like to live in a city that no longer believes its problems can be fixed.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
In this edition: metal medicine, hyped humanoids, carnival crossroads, divine defiance, and optimization obsession.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Recommending notable stories by Kelley Engelbrecht, Sam Anderson, Lindsey Liles, Jeannette Cooperman, and Claire McNear.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we feature stories from Tom Scocca, Giles Harvey, Chris Walker, Krithika Varagur, and N.C. Happe.

