Mary Martin

If an AI companion becomes someone’s most consistent emotional presence, the right question isn’t “how do we stop this?” It’s “what does that say about the world around them?” Technological relationships are not new. What’s new is how effective they’ve become; and how clearly they mirror the gaps we’ve refused to address.

We’ve tried prohibition... See more

Taking the green pill is depressing, socially alienating, and deeply countercultural; those who make the leap often struggle to get their loved ones to see the obvious, all while being told by society that they are actually the weird ones. I’ve been one of these weird people since relatively early in life, and most of my time on Earth has been... See more

Hope is a flower of a different order, one that blooms in a striving acknowledgment, even celebration, of finitude and whatever we can bear through its innumerable relations.

sensationalist headlines conjuring fears of a techno-dystopian near-future overshadow more material issues over AI ethics that already exist – including how they reflect human biases, and the many ways in which they’re capable of manipulating users.

it would appear the plague-clouds are within us, too. They illustrate the interconnectedness of our inner and outer worlds. They betray a certain flimsiness of human agency, painting our decision-making in strokes of environmental influence far bolder than our intuition suggests. And they throw the climate crisis into fresh, stark relief: because,... See more

Our findings suggest that mindfulness may be beneficial for reducing self-reported short-term stress for English speakers from higher-income countries.

LY Corporation has been digging through the data for Pokémon Sleep, and the overall results show that users have been resting easy and well since the app came out.

Ritualization is a potent stabilizing agent, a simple salve for a stressful time if only we are mindful of how we use its powers.

I want to defend and buoy hope – it’s a fragile, quirky thing, but it has the power to help us act in the face of finitude

Hope is vitalising. When it pulses, we aspire toward better futures and conspire with what we have and have been. In its absence, we often grow listless, even court despair. I thus want to defend hope, underscore what we gain... See more