While “war drones are unlikely to be what most people picture when they think of Silicon Valley,” defense tech startups wrapped in the American flag, complete with self-serving claims of patriotism, are taking over the Valley, @tfa.ng writes. www.noemamag.com/silicon-vall...

“AI ‘answer engines’ have ruptured the web’s value loop by separating content creation from the traffic & revenue that used to reward it.” — @hamiltonmann.bsky.social www.noemamag.com/the-ai-power...

“The design choices we make about what dynamics to simulate & what behaviors to reward will shape the AI agents that emerge in the future.” —Ben Bariach

Issue VI is nearly sold out — order today to ensure you get a print copy: bit.ly/4uzNEk6

Pope Leo’s new encyclical not only calls for “transparency, accountability & accessibility” for AI, but also for its “disarmament,” Nathan Gardels writes. #popeleo #vatican #pope #ai

In an award-winning piece for the @berggruen.org Essay Prize Competition, renowned neuroscientist @anilseth.bsky.social explains why consciousness is more likely a property of life than computation.

"We've long desired technologies that intuitively respond to our interactions. As we look at our screens today, it's easy to wonder, how soon before they look back at us?" — @chenoehart.bsky.social #ai #ux

People need user interfaces to navigate computers. Do AIs need reverse user interfaces to navigate people? I sought to find out in a new article for @noemamag.com. www.noemamag.com/how-ais-see-...

How much compute does the Pope have? www.noemamag.com/only-god-can...

“Colors have repeatedly given politics a public body, allocating attention, rallying coalitions & making claims visible at a glance.” — @frederic-hanusch.bsky.social

The collapse of political belonging is reshaping democracy, Anton Cebalo argues.

"As AI rapidly reshapes our world, narrow, single-view thinking risks mistaking part of the picture for the whole. Adopting a fuller, multifaceted perspective can help us govern this technology rather than be governed by it." —Anthea Roberts #ai #airisk

It’s amazing how much damage agriculture has done to the Prairie. This is a very good read

“Compared to other forms of American wilderness, prairies are hard to love — they don’t easily fall into the category of the sublime like giant sequoias or Yosemite waterfalls. You have to get really close to appreciate the complex beauty.” – @christianelliott.me

Could the U.S. strike a deal with Iran to transform its highly enriched uranium into nuclear energy? Similarly far-fetched deals have happened before, Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow writes. #nuclear #nuclearenergy #geopolitics

Added to my little bucket of hopeful things.

A follow-up to the article I posted that prompted a lot of discussion. 🙂 #neuroscience 🧪

“AI cannot replace human scientists.” — @saraimari.bsky.social www.noemamag.com/the-death-of...

“The machines are coming for us, or so we’re told. Not today, but soon enough that we must seemingly reorganize civilization around their arrival.” — @jamesosullivan.bsky.social www.noemamag.com/the-politics...

“These new Noahs are posing profound questions about what humans believe is worth saving — & how to preserve something for a distant future that we can’t quite imagine.” —Jess McHugh www.noemamag.com/the-ark-buil...

Consciousness is not the "hard problem" that philosophers say it is, Nathan Gardels writes. #consciousness #hardproblem

Scientists working on synthetic "mirror life" have come to realize that, if created, it could pose an existential threat to life on Earth. Can the genie be put back in the bottle? @joezadeh.bsky.social explores. #mirrorlife #syntheticbiology #biology

This tracks: “With Wi-Fi, we invited the world into our homes. With smartphones, we inverted our homes into the world.” @noemamag.com www.noemamag.com/limiting-not...

Otto Scharmer identifies the symptoms of the depletion of our "social soil": Anomie: "Erosion of our moral norms" Atomie: "Breakdown of relationship bonds into loneliness, distrust & polarized echo chambers" Atrophy: "Loss of the deeper human capacities needed to create, converse & collaborate"

“We need a new social contract for the age of AI. The current arrangement — the commodification & extraction of our lived experience into data analytics that are sold to manipulate human behavior — should not be legal.” —Otto Scharmer #ai #humanai

“We do not need to explain why [a red object] looks red for the same reason that we do not have to explain why the animal that we call 'cat' looks like a cat. Why should we have to explain why 'red' looks red?" Carlo Rovelli takes on the "hard problem": www.noemamag.com/there-is-no-... @noemamag.com

"A new trusted voice has appeared in China's cyberspace— the virtual influencer Ying Li, known popularly as Teacher Li." —Nathan Gardels #democracy #authoritarian #china

"A fierce debate is raging around the slippery notion of consciousness. It retraces a trotted pattern of cultural resistance: We humans are often scared by anything that may disturb our image of ourselves." — @rovelli.bsky.social #consciousness #soul

FYI. Noema Magazine’s posts, especially if you like current thinking and topics on humanity. I’ve been impressed with their ideas and quality writing.

“Since before the dawn of the space age, an eclectic mix of futurists, visionaries & oddballs have pushed the idea that humanity’s future lies among the stars.” — @rdword.bsky.social

As humans co-evolve with AI systems, there are two forms of autonomy emerging, Daniele Cavalli writes. One belongs to the intelligent machine — think not only of self-driving cars & drones, but also digital minds. The other belongs to humans. #ai #autonomy www.noemamag.com/how-to-prote...

The key to repairing our increasingly divided societies might be found inside a dive bar on karaoke night, @lisabubert.bsky.social writes.

“Most of nature’s economic contributions are like infrared radiation: Although felt by people, they lie outside the visible spectrum of existing metrics & markets.” It’s time to change that, Tong Wu argues.

“Bioregionalists are leveraging novel technologies to reorganize social & economic life into alignment with nature, & to reverse the immense damage done by traditional forms of capital.” — @dougbierend.bsky.social

"Effective leadership is about accurately reading the room of reality to sort out what is true & lasting from what is ephemeral & passing — & acting accordingly." —Nathan Gardels #leadership #politics

2/2 The longer version of my case against conscious AI is in my 2025 @berggruen.org Prize essay – The Mythology of Conscious AI – published in @noemamag.com www.noemamag.com/the-mytholog...

Deep below the Nevada deserts lies a nuclear waste repository designed to outlast U.S. sovereignty, & possibly even humanity. But no such waste has ever been buried there, @vincentialenti.bsky.social writes. #nuclear #nuclearwaste #politics

Most people don’t realize there are glaciers in the tropics — we think of palm trees, not ice. This explorer gives us a rare close-up look at the disappearing phenomenon: www.noemamag.com/when-the-ete... #climatechange #glaciers

"Unlike the hyper-scaling accelerationists of AI, researchers at the frontier of the biosciences tend to harbor an admirable humility & sense of precaution." —Nathan Gardels #bioscience #biology

“I have many thoughtful friends who are depressed about the state of the world. I am less depressed than they are because I believe history reveals a pattern that leaves reason for hope.” —Danny Hillis #democracy #fascism #tyrant

re: what happens when "We fail to acknowledge that the virtual operates within — and not beyond — the spatial, material world." www.noemamag.com/limiting-not... via @noemamag.com

Instead of broligarchs, we need more Sandel. Palantir's manifesto is honest — terrible, but honest — and a sign democracy is in trouble. Popper's paradox of tolerance applies: a liberalism that won't defend itself gets devoured.

“What were once signature proposals in the far-right playbook are now mainstream policies.” —Helle Malmvig & Fabrizio Tassinari

“The world is not a machine. We have no dominion. We must learn to collaborate with the rest of nature, living & abiotic.” —Stuart Kauffman #life #biology

OpenAI is proposing a new policy framework that states “the promise of advanced AI is not just technological progress, but a higher quality of life for all.” How can this be meaningfully achieved? Noema’s Nathan Gardels weighs in.

"Smell is a vital though poorly understood component of human intelligence. So why is it that in our quest to advance artificial intelligence, it isn’t more of a priority?" Philip Maughan explores. #ai #intelligence

“When we think of political systems, we usually turn to human processes. But some animals model political practices that we could learn from to improve the health of our societies.” — @jay-griffiths.bsky.social

“The only way to contend with the shadows & the peril that hang over our democratic life, is to seek a more engaged, vigorous kind of public discourse than the kind to which we have become accustomed.” —Michael Sandel #politics #equality #democracy

✨ “The ultimate aim of authoritarian propagandists is often to sow so much doubt and confusion that it leaves people passive and ready to give up their agency to a strongman leader...” #Perspectives #Navigatingchaos #Authoritarianism #Hungary #Synthesis #Propaganda

"Tech companies control the options we see. This affects what we choose. At a minimum, we should collectively decide what AI chatbots see, so we can affect what they do.” —Martin Skladany