Severin Matusek

What appealed to me wasn’t the monetary use of blockchains but the idea that they could provide the basis for a more user-centric alternative to the unpleasant state of affairs known as Web 2.0.

The disappearance of third places—a social space separate from work and home—has exacerbated the problem. Youth culture has a rich history in cafes, clubs, libraries and parks. But many young people now feel priced out of physical experiences. The virtual world has become a vessel for creativity and self-expression, otherwise inaccessible in the... See more

We’re looking at what’s going on in the world and using words to help people make sense of it. It’s ultimately a service to the reader — here’s what’s happening out there, why it’s important, and what it means for you.

There’s a sense of omnipotence: where Talos was powered by “divine ichor”, the blood of the immortal gods”, AI is powered by vast amounts of data collected from billions of (non-consenting) internet users which is then processed and stored in vast facilities such as OpenAI’s Stargate I in Abilene, Texas.

There was, however, an alternative theory. The internet was not primarily a channel for the transmission of information in the form of evidence. It was better described as a channel for the transmission of culture in the form of memes. Users didn’t field a lot of facts and then assemble them into a world view; they fielded a world view and used it... See more

However, with the trend of deglobalisation, major powers are now placing greater emphasis on self-strengthening and self-reliance. Their competitive strategies have shifted toward enhancing their relative advantage by restricting the development of rivals. Even if their own growth slows, they aim to ensure that their competitors develop at an even... See more

Screentime has become a colosseum where everything is in competition with everything else: email from work competes with text from a friend competes with Instagram and Tiktok.

A refusal of AI in creative work begins with a refusal of that product’s ideological packaging.

In fact, I’d like to propose something that sounds almost heretical in certain artistic circles: Prompt engineering, the act of crafting input to coax a desired output from an AI, may soon be regarded as a legitimate artistic medium. In the same way photography became an expressive form in its own right, so too might the process of collaborating... See more