Ethics
Fear of technology is not new. But we misunderstand its origin. In reality, we don't fear technology but each other.
Memory, responsibility, and mental maturity have long been difficult to describe objectively, but neuroscientists are starting to detect patterns. Coming soon to a courtroom near you?
Does humanity have a moral imperative to seed life on lifeless worlds? And should we avoid colonizing a planet if life already exists there?
Within a month of that initial conversation, Peter Singer became a vegetarian.
Rather than sending serial killer art to auctions, it should be sent to abnormal psychologists for research.
You can learn a lot about life through literature's most unrespectable and heinous characters.
We have become the greatest threat to ourselves and to life on this planet. We need a set of agreed-upon safeguards to preserve our future.
Robots must identify themselves.
We do not need to pause AI research. But we do need a pause on the public release of these tools until we can determine how to deal with them.
The biggest lingering question about GPT-4 isn't if it's going to destroy jobs or take over the world. Instead, it is this: Do we trust AI programmers to tell society what is true?
Always look on the bright side of death.
Being a jerk gets you rich, promoted, and laid (if you're a man). But there is a downside.
Some classic books, like Mark Twain’s "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," remain controversial to this day.
Albert Camus was a Franco-Algerian philosopher with some great insights on the meaning of life, why you should look to this life and not the next, and why suicide is a poor choice.
How can you fit a camel through a needle?
So far, two papers have been retracted, and a third is under investigation. Accusations of plagiarism appear convincing.
Social media has made yelling past each other all the easier.
Virtually anyone can now create convincing deepfakes. That doesn't mean you should.
Are anti-workers the lazy children of privilege or the brave vanguard of a utopic upheaval?
About 1 in 5 adults now say they have no religious affiliation, up from 1 in 50 in 1960.
Everyone loves a good underdog story, but the lessons we derive from them depend on how they’re told.
Science will lead us to a universal morality and a cosmic religion.
Fear of being scammed can lead us to make decisions that go against our values and goals — both as individuals and as a society.
Some effective altruists “earn to give” — they make as much money as they can and then donate most of it to charities.
“We suffer more often in the imagination than in reality.”
Adopting a healthy scepticism towards inherited ideas means “emptying the container of the Self.”
Evil is easy to identify and fight against; not so with stupidity.
Close to 70% of drugs advertised on TV offer little to no benefit over other cheaper drugs.
In many city-states, it was perfectly acceptable for older men to have sexual relationships with young boys.