Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

Airports and airlines have a fake service dog problem

This past month I, like many Americans, flew back home for the holidays. On the first leg of that trip, from New York to Los Angeles, a dog in a “service dog” vest barked at me at the gate. The dog (not its given name), looked to be a stout French bulldog, paced back and […]

We’re probably going to learn to live with AI music

According to the French music streaming service Deezer, there are about 50,000 fully AI-generated songs uploaded to its platform every day. Many of these songs won’t reach a wide audience, but over the past year, a few have gained millions of listens.  Which raises the question: If our future is going to be filled with […]

Imagine enjoying a customer service experience

The weirdest thing happened to me recently. I contacted a customer service department and enjoyed it. I sent an email, heard back promptly, and got a refund. What was most notable about the positive problem-solving experience was the fact that I couldn’t tell if there was a human other than me involved. It dawned on […]

Grok’s nonconsensual porn problem is part of a long, gross legacy

For the past few weeks, Elon Musk’s Grok AI bot has been generating pornographic images of women and underage girls, without their consent, at an astounding rate. A recent Bloomberg analysis found that Grok creates 6,700 such images per hour, or more than one per minute. On Friday, X at last put some minor guardrails […]

How the US shut the door on asylum-seekers

When he first emerged on the political stage more than a decade ago, Donald Trump made closing America’s borders and remaking our immigration system a central plank of his agenda.  A year into his second administration — and as this week’s events in Minneapolis underscore — the issue has defined his presidency and changed America’s […]