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Technology and media

A double exposure image of a person using a smartphone overlaid with a bustling city street scene with cars and tall buildings.

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What I learned from sharing my private self with an AI journal

‘Quantified self’ apps analyse our physical and behavioural data. Now, AI journals want to access our emotional lives too

by Angela Chen

A kindergarten-age child plays with a padlock and key at a white table

Thinking and intelligence

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Innovative three-year-olds expose the limits of AI chatbots

New experiments show that very young children are better at solving creative puzzles than ChatGPT and other AI models

by Shayla Love

People of different ages and genders sitting on park benches, some chatting, some looking at their smartphones

Technology and media

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The illusion of closeness: how social media redefined respect

As we share and like and post, have our notions of restraint transformed so profoundly that all dignity becomes abandoned?

by Lutif Ali Halo

A girl is shown reading from a device in her hand, her face illuminated by the screen’s light

Technology and media

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What does switching from paper to screens mean for how we read?

It’s well established that we absorb less well when reading on screen. But why? And can we do something to improve it?

by Lili Yu, Sixin Liao, Jan-Louis Kruger & Erik D Reichle

A man in a light suit stands with a smiling woman while a faceless figure with exposed circuitry stands in the background.

Technology and media

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Chatbots remind us that natural conversation is artificial too

People fret about the authenticity of AI chatbots but precisely the same issues confront everyday exchanges between humans

by Larry S McGrath

Silhouette of a lorry driver drinking from a bottle inside the cabin at dusk.

Work and vocation

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Why AI surveillance at work leads to perverse outcomes

In the name of efficiency, workplace AI technologies shift burdens long-assumed by employers onto workers

by Karen Levy

A person walks past a billboard under a bridge, featuring an image of eyes superimposed on a sky with clouds, next to a café entrance.

Work and vocation

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Kafka warned us: surveillance turns the watched into watchers

Surveillance changes us in powerful ways, as Franz Kafka warned. Neither the watched nor their watcher escapes unscathed

by George Alliger

A bowl containing a mobile phone, keychains, earrings, a key, and other small miscellaneous items.

Technology and media

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The pleasure, the pain and the politics of a digital detox

Studying why and how people take digital-media breaks can reveal what individuals and societies value in unmediated spaces

by Trine Syvertsen

A sepia-toned photograph of a man with a moustache, overlaid with handwritten text in cursive script.

Stories and literature

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Remembrance of telephony past: what Proust made of the phone

For Marcel Proust, the telephone gave distance a sensory form and allowed new ways to experience absence more profoundly

by John Attridge

Three men stand around a computer, with one holding a mouse and speaking into it, and one wearing an “I Quit Smoking” badge.

Technology and media

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What the journey from Star Trek to Siri says about our culture

The talking computer in Star Trek takes the culture and technology of the present and dreams up future possibilities

by Liz W Faber

Three people working on laptops in a festive café with hanging decorations and fairy lights.

Technology and media

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Can algorithms speak? And should their opinions be protected?

Algorithmic expression is not the classic, liberal model of speech. Instead, it is speech unmoored from personhood

by Jennifer Petersen

Laughter and comedy

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When will humorous AIs press our buttons with their jokes?

A sense of humour is a tough test of an AI. Our devices won’t be truly smart until they know how to make us laugh

by Tony Veale