Josh Bowen

Ultimately, she said, a world made up of atomized, physically isolated people is a world without a true shared reality—which is a recipe for civic disengagement, misinformation, and perhaps even political extremism.

Can artificial intelligence help us to be creative? That’s the important question, and it’s a question about user interfaces, not about who has the biggest model.

The ersatz third place is a consequence of a culture obsessed with productivity and status, whose subjects might have decent incomes but little recreational time.