Critical Digital Media

AI’s Worst Flaws Will Become Nostalgia Aesthetic | Artificial Intelligence in Plain English

This Gen Z-created tool helps fight digital surveillance Gen Z For Change launches its "Eyes on AI" campaign against surveillance capitalism.

This Gen Z-created tool helps fight digital surveillance | Mashable

Love 3.0: How to Survive the Intimacy Apocalypse Digital anthropologist Caia Hagel and cultural theorist Shumon Basar discuss the future of sex and desire.

Love 3.0: How to Survive the Intimacy Apocalypse

Pope Leo XIV Urges Priests Not to Use ChatGPT to Write Their Sermons The Pope warns that using AI for sermons might let the human intellect wither away.

Pope Leo XIV Urges Priests Not to Use ChatGPT to Write Their Sermons

AI is turning research into a scientific monoculture The rush to study generative AI is producing a feedback loop of topical and methodological convergence, flattening scientific imagination and crowding out the pluralism needed to keep research adaptive,...

AI is turning research into a scientific monoculture | Communications Psychology

Generative AI is not just a tool for learning. It shapes how students think Framing this technology as a helpful ‘tool’ disguises how much it guides every element of critical thinking that academics seek to cultivate, says James Garvey

Generative AI is not just a tool for learning. It shapes how students think

Boredom Is the Price We Pay for Meaning When I became a father, I was forced to reckon with the emotion that consumed my days.

Boredom Is the Price We Pay for Meaning - The Atlantic

The Data Centers Have Arrived at the Edge of the Arctic Circle As AI labs gorge themselves on compute, data center operators have headed north in search of cheap and plentiful energy.

The Data Centers Have Arrived at the Edge of the Arctic Circle

What if the real risk of AI isn’t deepfakes — but daily whispers? AI is transitioning from tools we use to prosthetics we wear. This will create significant new threats we’re just not prepared for.

What if the real risk of AI isn’t deepfakes — but daily whispers? | VentureBeat

The 'QuitGPT' movement gains steam as OpenAI's Department of War deal has users saying 'Cancel ChatGPT' This comes as Anthropic refuses to surveil American citizens

The 'QuitGPT' movement gains steam as OpenAI's Department of War deal has users saying 'Cancel ChatGPT' | Tom's Guide

Episode VII. Glitch Art and the Other Side of Failure | | Flash Art "The Uncanny Valley" is Flash Art's new digital column offering a window on the developing field of artificial intelligence and its relationship to contemporary art. Everyone gets it wr

Episode VII. Glitch Art and the Other Side of Failure | | Flash Art

Can 'friction-maxxing' fix your focus? With technology offering instant gratification and quick thrills, experts explain how adding friction to our day-to-day can help heal our attention span and deepen our sense of self.

Can 'friction-maxxing' fix your focus? - BBC Future

The Piracy Problem Streaming Platforms Can’t Solve In parts of the Middle East and North Africa, a patchwork of sanctions, payment failures, and licensing gaps pushes people into piracy networks.

The Piracy Problem Streaming Platforms Can’t Solve

First Film to Depict a Robot Discovered in Michigan Created in 1897, it's over two decades older than the term "robot."

First Film to Depict a Robot Discovered in Michigan

Metaphors of AI indicate that people increasingly perceive AI as warm and human-like Analyzing 12,000 metaphors of AI from a year-long U.S. survey, this study introduces a scalable framework for quantitatively analyzing implicit perceptions from open-ended language and shows that Americans...

Metaphors of AI indicate that people increasingly perceive AI as warm and human-like

You can log into 28 vintage computer systems in your browser for free, thanks to the Interim Computer Museum — Experience legendary OSes, architectures, programming languages, and games I enjoyed playing a game of Chess on the 'MissPiggy' PDP-11/70 running UNIX v7.

You can log into 28 vintage computer systems in your browser for free, thanks to the Interim Computer Museum — Experience legendary OSes, architectures, programming languages, and games | Tom's Hardware

In 2026, We Are Friction-Maxxing In the face of technologies that sell us escapism at every turn, we need to build up tolerance for “inconvenience.”

Brooding: In 2026, I Resolve to Friction-Maxx

Parents on posting: ‘We’ve opted out, so my child is being excluded’ As concerns grow around safety, identity theft, consent and AI, attitudes to sharing images on social media are changing

Parents on posting: ‘We’ve opted out, so my child is being excluded’ – The Irish Times

Relooted: the South African video game where players take back artefacts from western museums Creators say they’re offering Africans a ‘hopeful, utopian feeling’ of retrieving objects looted by colonial armies

Relooted: the South African video game where players take back artefacts from western museums | Games | The Guardian

Why fake AI videos of UK urban decline are taking over social media Deepfakes showing grim taxpayer-funded waterparks have gone viral and drawn some racist responses.

Why fake AI videos of UK urban decline are taking over social media

Posts here do not mean I agree with everything. The critique has to come afterwards. But yes, the idea that AI is intelligent, let alone emotionally intelligent, is spreading and requires critique.

The Unregulated Rise of Emotionally Intelligent AI Millions of people now trust AI with their feelings. Can they trust the companies creating it to prioritize their welfare?

AI Is Providing Emotional Support at Scale | TIME

How the anxiety over AI could fuel a new workers’ movement New technology has workers spooked, but experts say it’s creating an opening for a resurgence in worker power

How the anxiety over AI could fuel a new workers’ movement | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian

Inside the Gay Tech Mafia Gay men have long been rumored to run Silicon Valley. WIRED investigates.

Inside the Gay Tech Mafia | WIRED

Silicon Valley’s Favorite Doomsaying Philosopher Nick Land believes that digital superintelligence is going to kill us all. In San Francisco, his followers ask: What if, instead of trying to stop an A.I. takeover, you work to bring it on as fast as...

How Nick Land Became Silicon Valley’s Favorite Doomsayer | The New Yorker

How to Organize Safely in the Age of Surveillance From threat modeling to encrypted collaboration apps, we’ve collected experts’ tips and tools for safely and effectively building a group—even while being targeted and tracked by the powerful.

How to Organize Safely in the Age of Surveillance

Race for AI is making Hindenburg-style disaster ‘a real risk’, says leading expert Prof Michael Wooldridge says scenario such as deadly self-driving car update or AI hack could destroy global interest

Race for AI is making Hindenburg-style disaster ‘a real risk’, says leading expert | Science | The Guardian

The bogus four-day workweek that AI supposedly ‘frees up’ Business leaders tout AI as a path to shorter weeks and better balance. But without power, workers are unlikely to share the gains

The bogus four-day workweek that AI supposedly ‘frees up’ | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian

The bogus four-day workweek that AI supposedly ‘frees up’ Business leaders tout AI as a path to shorter weeks and better balance. But without power, workers are unlikely to share the gains

The bogus four-day workweek that AI supposedly ‘frees up’ | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian

Literature Is Not a Vibe: On ChatGPT and the Humanities | Los Angeles Review of Books Rachele Dini discusses OpenAI’s “A Machine-Shaped Hand” and an academic sector in crisis.

Literature Is Not a Vibe: On ChatGPT and the Humanities | Los Angeles Review of Books