The plan for December was to focus on a big writing project (okay, a book proposal), mostly pausing these weekly emails in order to write other things; but here we are, mid-month and I've accomplished very little towards that end. (You're still getting the odd newsletter,
A reminder: Second Breakfast is on hiatus until the new year. Well, sort of, as here's a Second Breakfast email in your inbox. There are a couple of weeks' worth of news articles to link to, to be sure – the usual Friday stuff. But I've
I gave this presentation on Monday afternoon at Yale University. The talk was co-sponsored by the Department of Political Science, DOWN Magazine, the Education Studies Program, and The Politic. A huge thank-you to Jennifer Berkshire for inviting me and having me speak to her students. This is the May 1958
These remarks were delivered this evening at the Creatively Critical Tech Speaker Series at Illinois State University. "There is no good way to say this." These are the opening words of Yiyun Li’s latest book Things in Nature Only Grow about life after the death by suicide
Today's bird is the Adélie penguin; the subject of today's email, the condiment – both attempts to reference Pittsburgh PA, where I'm in town to speak at a technology and ethics conference at Duquesne University. I am still very much in recovery mode from Sunday&
"AI slop is winning," writes The Atlantic's Charlie Warzel. By volume alone, slop may be the most visible and successful by-product of the generative-AI era to date. It is also a hallmark of what I’ve previously described as a collective delusion around artificial intelligence—where
Political commentator Frank Rich recently wrote a lengthy essay for New York Magazine on the mayoral candidacy of Zohran Mamdani. The headline, "The Power Breaker," is surely a play on the title of Robert Caro's biography of Robert Moses, the man who infamously used his power
I regret to inform you that certain political pundits and education reformers are calling for the return of "high stakes testing." Or at least David Frum talked to former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings in a recent podcast published by The Atlantic where this dismal idea was (once
The news is bad. I mean that in both senses: "bad news" and "news, bad." There's been much discussion this week of Trump's "university compact," his attempt to bribe the administrations at nine universities by promising them access to funding
When I wrote last week’s round-up of “AI”-related news, I didn’t include any of OpenAI’s product releases, mostly because it’s 2025 and I’m exhausted by this game that tech companies and tech journalists continue to play: the former lobs a press release; the latter
If you've ridden the NYC subway lately, you've seen the ads for Friend. "Largest subway campaign ever," the founder proudly posted on Instagram. Friend is (of course) an "AI" startup, another one of these "'AI' companion" services, another
Surrender, surrender (but don't give yourself away) – Cheap Trick "Does AI coaching cause more injuries?" asks Raziq Rauf in his latest Running Sucks newsletter. I've heard these concerns about the "personalized training" app Runna for a while now– call it "personalized
Brian Merchant's assertion that "The Luddite Renaissance is in full swing," The Jacobin's claim that "The AI Revolution Might Be Running Out of Steam" – these feel a bit too optimistic perhaps, particularly if you're one of many educators who'
Chit: an official note, sometimes a voucher or an IOU; a slip of paper that grants permission Chat: an informal conversation; a friendly talk Chit-chat: "A reduplication with vowel variation of chat," according to the OED, like "bibble-babble" and "tittle-tattle." "The reduplication implies
