Science & Technology Archives

Literature

The New Millennium

What might the autobiographical project mean for readers if a published “I” is produced artificially, by a bot?

July 21, 2026 • by Nancy K. Miller

Every style is a means of insisting on something.—Susan Sontag, "On Style" Language expresses and style stresses.—Michael Riffaterre, "Criteria for Style Analysis" Inevitably, in the collective imagination of what developments the new millennium might bring, new social and cultural innovations were anticipated, projected, and marketed. But while such transition from one century ...

Artificial Intelligence

The Silicon Empire’s Interregnum

Nick Srnicek’s new book maps an emergent form of techno-nationalism

July 9, 2026 • by Nolan Young

Military and surveillance tech giant Palantir recently published an unsettling and dystopian manifesto penned by billionaire CEO Alex Karp. Karp’s 22-point document extolls American hegemony and claims that democracies need “hard power” to survive; it also treats one thing as a foregone conclusion—the militarization of artificial intelligence. “Our adversaries will ...

Climate & Ecology

We Need Industrial Agriculture

Local small farms offer an ideal of food production, but only industrial agriculture can meet modern needs

April 29, 2026 • by Rafael Gonzalez

When I think about farming, I imagine the simple farming my Filipino great-grandfather did, and that students at my alma mater, Amherst College, still do at the Book & Plow Farm, an organic operation that employs students part time and supplies the college dining hall. Many consider this an ideal form ...

Philosophy

Philosophy in the Time of Techno-Fascism

Longtermism’s story is about how money gives immensely damaging ideas a foothold with philosophers and the public

April 8, 2026 • by Alice Crary

This is an inaugural lecture, delivered at an intense, precarious moment. Staff and faculty at the New School for Social Research, including legacy Schools of Public Engagement, and staff and faculty at parts of Lang and Parsons, have been told many will soon be fired. We are members of a ...

Philosophy in the Time of Techno-Fascism

Artificial Intelligence

Stop Asking Whether AI Can Write Good

Can I, um, use it at a friend’s house?

March 25, 2026 • by Elvia Wilk

Is it ok to use AI for spell check? What about grammar? Writing image captions? Smoothing transitions between paragraphs? Translating from other languages? Search Engine Optimization? Is my email autoresponder some kind of AI? If I accidentally click an ad for a Large Language Modal (LLM) targeted to me by ...

The Internet

Showering for Salvation

The viral, hours-long “everything shower” promises women purity

March 23, 2026 • by Drew Vogelsang

The influencer Vanessa Faga has amassed 1.6 million followers on TikTok, posting a new self-care routine video each day. Her content ranges from a “productive Monday morning” to a “winter self-care night,” to promote a new set of wellness products. She presents a life of curated optimization, where every moment ...

Sex & Gender

Erotic Pleasure and Technological Mastery

An excerpt from The Comedy of Computation: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Obsolescence

December 17, 2025 • by Benjamin Mangrum

Slavoj Žižek argues that gaming and virtual reality programs figure the computer as “a consistent other, stepping into the structural position of an intersubjective partner.” This claim follows on the heels of a reference to Jacques Lacan’s diagnosis in an infamous koan about the impossibility of sexual relations. For Lacan, ...

Erotic Pleasure and Technological Mastery

Artificial Intelligence

First as Comedy, Then as Farce

A conversation with Benjamin Mangrum on the assembly of The Comedy of Computation

December 16, 2025 • by Benjamin Mangrum and Rayna Salam

When confronted with change we don’t understand, there is only one thing to do: laugh. Or so says MIT literature professor Benjamin Mangrum. In his new book, The Comedy of Computation: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Obsolescence (Stanford University Press, 2025), Mangrum peers into the archives ...

Art & Design

Joanna Walsh’s E-Elegy

Amateurs! How We Built Internet Culture and Why It Matters offers a remembrance of posts past

December 10, 2025 • by Eva Szilardi-Tierney

Here’s a theory: The posts, tags, and profiles that constitute the internet are all works of art, produced by amateur artists. Whether or not these amateurs recognize their work’s “artiness” is irrelevant; participation on the internet requires acts of intentional creation and studied self-representation, with the express purpose of display, ...

Democracy

Is Social Media Destroying Democracy—Or Giving It to Us Good and Hard?

It’s easier to blame the algorithm than the bewildered herd

October 28, 2025 • by Dan Williams

One of our era’s most influential narratives is that social media is destroying democracy and perhaps civilization itself. For the liberal establishment, this story helps to explain the surging success of right-wing populism, as well as collapsing institutional trust, growing polarization, and an apparent explosion of misinformation and deranged conspiracy ...

Is Social Media Destroying Democracy—Or Giving It to Us Good and Hard?

Artificial Intelligence

Data Sovereignty vs. Digital Prospecting

AI’s reckoning in the Amazon

October 23, 2025 • by Annie K. Lamar and Sarah B. McClure

“Now, for the first time in history, anyone can conduct archaeological research,” or so promised artificial intelligence giant OpenAI in a recent promotion-via-public competition. Marketed as an Indiana Jones–style adventure, the “OpenAI to Z Challenge” invited users to digitally scour the Amazon rainforest for archaeological treasure. More than 2,500 teams ...

Data Sovereignty vs. Digital Prospecting

Capitalism

Peter Thiel and the Decline of the West

The last priest of a dead faith

September 24, 2025 • by Ahmed Bouzid

In the twilight of the secular Western project, as its elites scramble for a vision to forestall cultural entropy, Peter Thiel has emerged as one of its most articulate and celebrated prophets. In a remarkably candid interview with The New York Times, Thiel laments the stagnation of modern life—not just ...