Keely Adler

In the city, meanings and connections are multiplied until we can’t see them at all. In the country or the wilderness, we may feel that our actions take place outside the grid of human meaning entirely.

On another, we might peer into the machine itself. After all, as it stands today, one of AI’s greatest strengths is in highlighting its own weaknesses (and thereby, illuminating those qualities that we’re uniquely suited to as living, breathing thinkers and makers). We might consider our imagination a strength, or our capacity for recursive thought... See more

The narrative vacuum in an information society makes people feel discontent, especially in times of crisis, such as the pandemic.

Identity is contextual and, if we are to live, breathe, and grow, it has to remain contextual. The Internet of the “authentic self” — a loathsome, aberrant idea if there ever was one — is an exercise in slowly getting strangled by your past selves.

Crucially, this doesn’t mean that people don’t continue to seek individuation. As I’ve argued elsewhere exclusivity is fundamental to any meaning-amplifying strategy.

Warzel: Oh, that’s really interesting. I like the idea that Discord is kind of like the TV Guide and each platform is a different channel and people just switch back and forth depending on what’s on. Au: I think this is what Mark Zuckerberg and other would-be Metaverse builders right now are missing. It’s not the platform that matters as much as... See more

When more and more of the “things” we take up during the course of our day are digitized or virtual realities, which leave few if any traces in the world?