A month later, the world saw images of mass graves in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, dead limbs sticking out of the sand. Outside our building one morning, on an old brick wall that was previously empty, was a fresh message, the paint still wet: “Russians, go home.” My boyfriend went back to Russia so … Read more
In her new memoir, Burn Book, Kara Swisher cites a 2014 profile that dubbed her “Silicon Valley’s Most Feared and Well-Liked Journalist.” She might prefer to downplay the first and emphasize the second. Some people would switch that around. But there is no dispute about Swisher’s impact: When it comes to tech punditry, she’s at … Read more
Around us at Zephyros, kids and silverware clamor and motorbikes cough, but Marinaâs voice is barely above a whisper. âWhen the hippopotamuses quarrel, then the frogs get stepped on,â she says of geopolitical conflicts, including the war in Ukraine. Sheâs sphinxlike, at times. Iâm starting to think she may have the rare quality that Fitzgeraldâs … Read more
TikTok has irreversibly bent our culture’s trajectory, but that doesn’t guarantee it’ll be around to reap the benefits. (India banned the app long ago, and it’s under growing scrutiny in a handful of other countries.) It has walked the political tightrope this far, but any bad PR could knock it off. Maybe that’s why TikTok’s … Read more
Representing Xenovia, the Leiden team took full responsibility for the explosion but said their client repossessed Candidia’s satellite in full accordance with the Outer Space Treaty. Having given notice to the Candidian company that it was late on payments, they argued, the Xenovian creditor had satisfied the treaty’s requirement for “appropriate international consultations.” Katsande felt … Read more
You learn a lot about people by hanging out with robots. QT made it plain to me how much human interaction depends on tiny movements and subtle changes in timing. Even when armed with the latest artificial intelligence language models, QT can’t play the social game. Its face expresses emotion, it understands words and spits … Read more
Once we get computers to match human-level intelligence, they won’t stop there. With deep knowledge, machine-level mathematical abilities, and better algorithms, they’ll create superintelligence, right? Yeah, there’s no question that machines will eventually be smarter than humans. We don’t know how long it’s going to take—it could be years, it could be centuries. At that … Read more
You booked this doctor’s appointment weeks in advance. You took off work, endured the trip here, filled out paperwork while a cooking show blared from a TV on the wall, and now you’re finally in the inner sanctum, awkwardly perched on an exam table and staring at a jar of tongue depressors. Your doctor comes … Read more
