Category: Technology

  • If the Medium Is the Message, What is the Message of AI?
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    If the Medium Is the Message, What is the Message of AI?

    “The medium is the message.” These are the words of Marshall McLuhan, a pioneer in the field of media studies. They’re misunderstood almost as often as they’re quoted. If we want to know what a medium is “saying,” we must look at the way it alters every element of our lives. What would Marshall McLuhan…

  • Is Artificial Intelligence A Digital Demiurge?
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    Is Artificial Intelligence A Digital Demiurge?

    Some provocative thinkers have compared AI to the demiurge of Gnosticism. The demiurge is a kind of false god, whom many Gnostic scriptures describe as incompetent or malicious or both. In these texts, it is the demiurge who made this material world, a flawed realm subject to pain, decay, and death. While the analogy isn’t…

  • What does “the medium is the message” mean? Marshall McLuhan Explained
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    What does “the medium is the message” mean? Marshall McLuhan Explained

    “The medium is the message.” Marshall McLuhan’s words are as often repeated as they are misunderstood. He’s not talking about the power of an influential news program, a popular website, and so forth. No, what he’s saying is that media themselves—television, the internet, the printed word—speak to us and shape us far more profoundly than…

  • The Tower of Babel: Genesis 11:1-9
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    The Tower of Babel: Genesis 11:1-9

    What is the meaning of the story of the Tower of Babel, found in Genesis 11:1-9? It is such a strange tale, and so much happens in just a few verses. Is it historical? Is it an allegory designed to teach us to live in accordance with God’s laws? Maybe the Tower of Babel story…

  • The Mock Human Sacrifice at CERN
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    The Mock Human Sacrifice at CERN

    In 2016, a video of an mock human sacrifice at CERN went viral. It’s fake, but whoever made it wants you to think it’s real. A human sacrifice is shocking enough, but the fact that it took place at CERN, in front of a statue of the Hindu god Shiva, and that CERN employees were…

  • An Economist Teaches Us How To Live In A Simulation
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    An Economist Teaches Us How To Live In A Simulation

    Inspired by Nick Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis, Economist Robert Hanson wrote a brief and fascinating article, in which teaches us how to live in a simulation. Here, he offers some advice about how one should live considering the world we inhabit might be a kind of advanced computer program. Early on, he suggests that if we’re…

  • Social Media and the Attention Economy
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    Social Media and the Attention Economy

    In the future, attention may be more valuable than money. This article examines the concept of the attention economy in the light of social media and artificial intelligence.

  • Deepfakes and the End of History
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    Deepfakes and the End of History

    Deepfakes are a threat to civilization. This article explores the social, economic, and political consequences of the coming AI catastrophe.