The best scene in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer comes towards the end of the movie. The titular physicist is talking to Einstein, recalling a previous conversation in which they’d discussed the possibility that an atomic bomb would ignite the Earth’s atmosphere. ‘When I came to you with those calculations’, Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) reflects, ‘we thought we... Continue Reading →
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
The eighth day of creation: how the new cultural technologies take us into the posthuman
In Fully Automated Luxury Communism (2018), the British writer Aaron Bastani puts a leftist spin on the Promethean view of technological development. While noting the revolutionary potential of recent genetic innovations, he insists that the latter are no different in kind from the selective breeding practices of the past: they are simply another great leap... 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 →
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 ...
Here Be Monsters reviews
The reviews for HBM are coming in and, so far, have been enormously positive ...
Out on 1 May! My New Book, HERE BE MONSTERS: IS TECHNOLOGY REDUCING OUR HUMANITY?
Order your copy here!
Machine Learning
Me on Schwartz Media's The Weekend Read, reading my article on ChatGPT, published in the April edition of The Monthly