June 9, 2025
(New York Times) – Many experts argue that addiction is, in essence, love gone awry: a singular passion directed destructively at a substance or activity rather than an appropriate person. With the advent of A.I. companions — including some intended … Read More
June 9, 2025
(The Conversation) – As more of us live longer, can robots help us maintain healthier, more independent and dignified lives? The robots I’ve been studying are friendly, helpful machines that can talk, remind, monitor – and even offer a form … Read More
May 30, 2025
(The Guardian) – I’ve thought a lot about why I’m writing this. I know that I’m repelled by the kind of spiritual vultures who might scour Max’s story for shareable aphorisms, and that ideally, I’d like to slap them with … Read More
May 30, 2025
(The Hedgehog Review) – What a psychotherapist learned during his chats with a large language model. Under intellectual, logical, and ethical pressure, Claude began producing responses that mimicked the structure of introspection. It examined its own phrasing. It noted its … Read More
May 27, 2025
(TIME) – An open letter published today calls for “all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.” This 6-month moratorium would be better than no moratorium. I have … Read More
May 26, 2025
(MedPage Today) – Despite my medical credentials, my concerns were dismissed. It took my husband calling my doctor directly to save my life. I was hemorrhaging internally, requiring multiple blood transfusions and a 2-week hospital stay. My family feared they … Read More
May 26, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – This week, two new leaders at the US Food and Drug Administration announced plans to limit access to covid vaccines, arguing that there is not much evidence to support the value of annual shots in healthy … Read More
May 23, 2025
(The Conversation) – Doable? Theoretically, mind uploading should be possible. Still, you may wonder how it could happen. After all, researchers have barely begun to understand the brain. Yet science has a track record of turning theoretical possibilities into reality. … Read More
May 23, 2025
(The Hedgehog Review) – AI cannot save us from the effort of learning to live and die. Tot up the overeager salesmen, the questionable prophecies, and the clearly exorbitant costs, and it becomes clear: AI is not revolutionary. It’s a … Read More
May 22, 2025
(The Critic) – The potential for inhuman cruelty that it contains is vast The supporters of the assisted dying bill did not merely dismiss or ignore the incredibly cogent and powerful arguments made by its critics, they seemed not even … Read More
May 19, 2025
(The Independent) – Yet longevity isn’t, claim its more mainstream advocates, just for the 0.1 per cent – nor is it a “trend” or “fad”. It’s a proactive and personal approach to health that focuses on extending lifespan and improving … Read More
May 19, 2025
(Center for Humane Technology) – Right now, Congress is trying to stop state-level AI laws in the United States – for the next 10 years. The House Energy and Commerce committee passed a provision this week that proposes a sweeping … Read More
May 16, 2025
(Aeon) – It took months for my functional neurological disorder to finally be diagnosed. It’s a condition that must be recognised In my case, neurologist #4 noticed that if I performed certain complex tasks that distracted me, such as moving … Read More
May 14, 2025
(Unherd) – Last September, I found myself — confused, groggy, and irritable — staring into the surgical dome light of my local hospital’s emergency room. The doctor and my parents at my bedside informed me that I had been found … Read More
May 12, 2025
(New York Times) – The New York bill defines “aid in dying” as a medical practice. If a patient qualifies, a doctor can prescribe a lethal dose of drugs that the patient may self-administer to end his or her life. … Read More
May 5, 2025
(The Dispatch) – Multiple U.S. states have considered or are considering medical assistance in dying (MAiD) laws this year, while a yearslong debate over physician-assisted suicide is playing out in the United Kingdom too. For today’s newsletter, Dispatch Contributing Writer … Read More
April 30, 2025
(Wall Street Journal) – The Bee, Limitless and Plaud wearables record everything you say and use AI to provide summaries, to-do’s—and a slightly terrifying glimpse of the future No, I’m not an FBI informant. I willingly wore a $50 Bee Pioneer bracelet … Read More
April 29, 2025
(MIT Technology Review) – As technologists frame AI as either utopian or dystopian, two researchers offer a third option. So against this backdrop, a recent essay by two AI researchers at Princeton felt quite provocative. Arvind Narayanan, who directs the university’s Center … Read More
April 28, 2025
(New York Times) – As artificial intelligence systems become smarter, one A.I. company is trying to figure out what to do if they become conscious. One of my most deeply held values as a tech columnist is humanism. I believe … Read More
April 25, 2025
(The Hedgehog Review) – Ars Moriendi for the Twenty-first Century There have always been many ways of dying badly. In the late eighteenth century, the devout English writer Samuel Johnson struggled furiously and profanely against his own demise, ordering his … Read More
April 16, 2025
(The Atlantic) – The kids and their caretaker got off on their floor, leaving me to ponder the cootie phenomenon for the first time in many decades. Beyond being amused, I was struck by the morbid salience of a children’s … Read More
April 14, 2025
(Slate) – More than a decade later, the movie’s message isn’t what I remembered—and it’s way more unnerving than I expected. We’ve all been Theo and we’ve all been her. Idealizing the perfect relationship but never quite facing ourselves to … Read More
April 11, 2025
(The Hedgehog Review) – The health consumer and the illusion of control. Did you know that we can take charge of our health? I myself had not realized this. I had thought that health was a force that mostly percolated along … Read More
April 8, 2025
(Nature) – The 50th anniversary of a landmark biosafety conference is an opportunity to ensure its spirit lives on in today’s scientists. In 2008, Nature published a six-part essay series called Meetings that Changed the World. One of our choices … Read More
April 8, 2025
(New York Times) – If the current legal landscape when it comes to embryos seems messy, it’s a result, in no small part, of the unsettled nature of what preceded it. For over a century, courts generally did not grant … Read More
