Tara McMullin

Although repetition is necessary, practice isn’t just repetition. When we practice, we do two things: we isolate a technique for study, and we engage with difficulty.

The programmer Simon Willison has described the training for large language models as “money laundering for copyrighted data,” which I find a useful way to think about the appeal of generative-A.I. programs: they let you engage in something like plagiarism, but there’s no guilt associated with it because it’s not clear even to you that you’re... See more

In the context of political discourse online, moralized content containing moral-emotion expression is consistently associated with increased sharing across various topics, among laypeople and political leaders, and during consequential political events. We call this phenomenon moral contagion .

Already a fourth of the adults actually employed in the US are paid wages lower than would lift them above the official poverty line – and so a fifth of American children live in poverty. Almost half of employed adults in this country are eligible for food stamps (most of those who are eligible don’t apply). The market in labour has broken down,... See more

‘The internet is forever’ has long been the refrain of neurotics who wring their hands over privacy. But, back in the earliest days of online interaction, we couldn’t conceptualise what forever meant for digital experiences. They seemed ephemeral, intimate. We were blissfully unaware that our little exchanges might one day be part of ‘Big Data’ to... See more

Untangling the question of what I want to make from what will sell feels like crawling out of a very deep well.