There were numerous news items last week about surveillance and algorithmic decision-making in the workplace. These kinds of stories aren’t new, of course. But as Elon Musk has infiltrated the White House, instructing his minions to eliminate as much of the federal workforce as possible; and as the Trump
“If you’re so rich, how come you’re not smart?” The quotation above, from Dan Davies's new book The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions – And How the World Lost Its Mind, has been playing on repeat in my head since I read it this
On Friday morning, a few hours after I sent you the last newsletter, we picked Poppy up from the veterinary hospital. The nurse presented us with the little tennis ball Poppy had picked up in the park and tried to squirrel home unseen, swallowing it, we think, just as we
The political-technological crisis is only deepening in the United States, and I hardly know where to begin today's email to you, other than to say that I hope you're okay. And if you're not, do feel free to hit "reply" – I can&
Among the myriad negative reactions to the recent release of the Chinese AI model DeepSeek, one of the most common involved what was an obvious “gotcha” query: questioning the chatbot about the 1989 student protests Tiananmen Square, and noting that – tut tut – the results were so clearly censored. Rarely was
Digital technology and algorithmic recommendations have, as the story goes, segmented society into a million little data-driven designations, where we all watch and listen to different content – a radical individualization that has shattered any shared consensus about culture or politics, about reality. Even the classroom, particularly thanks to "personalized
Some time in the coming months, tickets will go on sale for the fall production of Waiting for Godot on Broadway — a new production starring Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves — and I swear to you right now, I am already ready to hit the “buy” button. I first read Samuel
That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn't even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn't even an enemy you could put your finger on. – Margaret Atwood, The
“DeepSeek R1,” venture capitalist Marc Andreessen declared last week, “is AI’s Sputnik moment.” And as Sputnik – in its original 1957 instantiation and in its subsequent and repeated invocations – has always shaped education policy, particularly in regard to ed-tech, I thought I’d better say something. But one of the
"AI Will Empower Humanity," says Reid Hoffman, venture capitalist, OpenAI funder, co-founder of Linkedin, and member (along with Peter Thiel, David O. Sacks, and Elon Musk) of the "PayPal Mafia." (Related, from The Guardian's Chris McGreal: "How the roots of the ‘PayPal mafia’
Ideally, on Monday mornings, I've got an essay for you. (Schedule of events here at Second Breakfast: Monday’s newsletter: essay, most of it for paid subscribers; Friday’s: the week’s news, yay! the news!, for everyone.) Although the word “essay” comes from the French essayer (to
One of the things I told myself when I decided to return to writing about education technology was that, thanks to therapy (and, no doubt, to leaving social media), I’d learned how to better manage my emotions around the onslaught of very-bad-news. This week has been a real test.
