“Surekha Davies on machines, monsters and why humanity is still worth fighting for.”
AI
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Poetry Fan Who Taught an LLM to Read and Write DNA
“By treating DNA as a language, Brian Hie’s ‘ChatGPT for genomes’ could pick up patterns that humans can’t see, accelerating biological design.”
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week we have stories from David Roth, Dhruv Mehrotra and Andy Greenberg, Thomas Dai, Cameron Maynard, and Katherine Rundell.
Posted inEditor's Pick
To Whom Does the World Belong?
“The legal battles over AI currently playing out—and the large number still to come—may profoundly impact the balance of wealth and power in countless democracies in the decades ahead.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
I Went to the Premiere of the First Commercially Streaming AI-Generated Movies
“With premium original content, precise ad-targeting capability, and an AI-powered, innovative engaging viewing experience, TCL’s content service will continue its double-digit growth next year.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Does Teaching Literature and Writing Have a Future?
“Learning that one’s job might soon be eliminated by the emergence of an overhyped new technology puts one in good company.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Friend or Faux?
“Millions of people are turning to AI for companionship. They are finding the experience surprisingly meaningful, unexpectedly heartbreaking, and profoundly confusing, leaving them to wonder, ‘Is this real? And does that matter?’”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Russian Bot Army That Conquered Online Poker
“How a card-playing Siberian AI outsmarted the world’s brightest researchers and raked in millions.”
Posted inReading List
Wild Talk: A Reading List On Artificial Intelligence and Interspecies Communication
AI is opening up the possibility of communicating with other animals. But will we listen? And can we ever truly understand?
Posted inUncategorized
I Am Laura Kipnis-Bot, and I Will Make Reading Sexy and Tragic Again
“Even if it was technically feasible and Dubuque was legit, did I really want to be involved in this?”