Algorithms, or at least the ones used by social media platforms, were supposed to be about discovery. But now they’re operating more like those daytime HGTV home decorating shows. “Oh, you like horses? We turned your house into a fake stable. Your dinner table is now bales of hay.”

Either way, what has been lost since the era of the human search engine is the joy of a distinct voice—while we can now find out almost anything automatically, the answer won’t be delivered with warmth or flair.

Large parasocial platforms transformed the internet into a hostile and impersonal place. They feed our FOMO to keep us clicking. They exaggerate our differences for "engagement". They create engines for stardom to keep us creeping. They bait us into nutritionless and sensationalist content. Humanity cannot subsist on hype alone.

Small and sincere co... See more

If that’s the case, humans who want to engage with other humans and their creations may, for the first time in decades, have to avoid the internet and— gasp —return to the real world for authenticity. Sure, you won’t find shrimp Jesus there, but at least you’ll find some genuine human connection.

TikTok—one of the biggest repositories of AI slime—is exploring the possibility of releasing virtual influencers to compete for brand deals against its human influencers. Instead of a brand paying a human influencer five or six figures to flog its clothes or cars (a sum TikTok doesn’t get a cut of) the platform wants to offer brands the option of u... See more

But with AI, it’s now possible that such a thing may happen, that AI could come to generate the majority of the content we humans see on the web. Indeed, a 2022 report from European law enforcement agency Europol pointed out that experts believe that as much as 90% of online content may be synthetically generated by 2026—90%!

Each week, we see the emergence of a new tech wave that exposes a striking duality: on one side, a pursuit of simplicity and minimalism; on the other, a plethora of sophisticated technologies offering alternatives to the established leaders, aiming to define the future beyond smartphones.

Perhaps playing these puzzles and sharing our experiences of them is strangely democratising, particularly when a lot of the content we see online is widely aspirational and unrealistic. These free puzzles are something anyone can do, knowing thousands of others are doing the same.

So what is it about these puzzles that has people so invested? “Honestly, it all just tickles a very nerdy, repressed part of my brain,” says 25-year-old Chess, who plays the New York Times games every day. With most of us addicted to our phones, spending hours each day mindlessly scrolling, puzzles offer a simple and satisfying way to use our brai... See more