In a 2019 speech at Georgetown University, Mark Zuckerberg made a bold statement. Rather than to help college kids get dates, he claimed, Facebook was invented as a platform for “free expression.” Six short years later, Zuckerberg’s company is trying to muzzle yet another whistleblower — one who happens to have written a book full of […]

The Environmental Protection Agency announced this week that it’s starting the process of undoing 31 environmental regulations, including a ruling that’s foundational to US climate policy. But undoing any regulation is a cumbersome process, and with the climate rule in particular, the EPA may end up painting itself into a corner.  The big target here […]

The US and Canada are meant to be the best of friends, but they’re in the midst of a pretty ugly fight.  It began with President Donald Trump’s ascent to the White House, when he began referring to his outgoing Canadian counterpart as “Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada.”  Things escalated from […]

People have known for centuries that drinking too much alcohol is bad for you. The short-term physical effects on cognition and motor function speak for themselves. The longer-term physical consequences of abusing alcohol — liver damage, jaundice, and cancer — have long been impossible to ignore. So why, in that case, has there been a widespread […]

Modern large language models are really good at a lot of tasks, like coding, essay writing, translation, and research. But there are still a lot of basic tasks, especially in the “personal assistant” realm, that the most highly trained AIs in the world remain hopeless at.  You can’t ask ChatGPT or Claude “order me a […]