Dan, a former student of mine and now an academic, activist and friend, is referring to the regular rallies that are taking place across the world in response to Israel’s annihilation of Gaza. We are talking, at my instigation, about the character of those gatherings; and while in some ways it feels indecent to focus... Continue Reading →
A Review of Here Be Monsters
By the excellent Bruce Menzies, in The Fremantle Shipping News: https://fremantleshippingnews.com.au/2024/10/16/roaming-among-monsters/
Podcast for Fremantle Shipping News
Today I had the pleasure of sitting down with Michael Barker, editor of the Fremantle Shipping News, to chat about technology and the human condition. We went deep! https://fremantleshippingnews.com.au/2024/06/17/interview-with-richard-king-thinker-author-critic-poet
Chess, nostalgia and AI: Two recent essays for Griffith Review
Paywalled, I'm afraid, but consider subscribing! The defence: Chess vs artificial intelligence Nostalgia on demand: Streaming memories in the experience machine
Orwell everywhere: Truth-telling in a post-truth age
EVERY NOW AND then a sort of morphic resonance overtakes the world of literature. For reasons that are far from obvious, a number of books about (or around) the same broad subject will suddenly materialise in a way that itself transforms public interest and even shapes public sentiment. In 2023, for example, the name of... Continue Reading →
Big Tech goes ballistic
A month or so out from Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated biopic Oppenheimer, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) community is having its own Oppenheimer moment. Like the director of the Manhattan Project and Los Alamos Laboratory, who famously came to regret his part in the development of the atomic bomb, the Big Tech Titans are falling over each... Continue Reading →
A review of Rai Gaita’s Justice and Hope
As philosopher and broadcaster Scott Stephens suggests in his introduction to Justice and Hope, Raimond Gaita’s principal contribution to the practice of moral philosophy is to have opened it up to readers and audiences that wouldn’t usually encounter it. Most notably in his memoir Romulus, My Father (1998), but also in A Common Humanity (2000)... Continue Reading →
Here Be Media
A talk to the Economic Society of Australia: Monsters in the Machine, Technology, Growth & Human Flourishing An Author Talk with Goldfields Libraries An appearance on the Breaking the Spell podcast
Here Be Monsters Fremantle launch
An open invitation to the Fremantle launch ...