Do I really want the net to forget my teenage self? | Aeon Essays

Forgetting is a feature, not a bug. It makes us feel like we’re moving forward through time, rather than standing still or running in circles. My grandmother and her ancestors knew this all too well. Artful forgetting, editing, and curation allowed them to craft narratives that helped their children understand the past and orient towards the future... See more

I have thousands of photos of my children but few that I’ve set aside to revisit. I have records of virtually every text I’ve sent since I was in college but no idea how to find the ones that meant something. I spent years blasting my thoughts to millions of people on X and Facebook even as I fell behind on correspondence with dear friends. I have

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If a simplistic description of AI is computers learning to be more human, then the persistence of Hawk Tuah for six months and counting is the inverse: Humans learning how it feels to be a computer—forced to remember, unable to move on, endlessly consuming and regurgitating our past output in slightly different formats—a video here, a podcast there... See more