September 12 is a very special day. Every year, reliably, something big happens on that day. This year will be no different. The women’s final of the U.S. Open will be played that afternoon. New York Fashion Week will be in full swing. The Golden Lion will be awarded at the Venice Film Festival. Hollywood will

I know something about AI hallucinations. I know how convincing they can look, how easily an invented citation can pass as real, and how much damage can be done before anyone discovers the truth. That is why a new investigation by Guardian Australia got my attention. The Guardian found that Australia’s parliamentary inquiry system is being

When I wrote about Alex Garland’s movie “Ex Machina” for Forbes back in 2015, I drafted a post with a wry smile. “If you think of a night at the movies as a chance for escapist fantasy, then you may want to think twice before screening ‘Ex Machina.’” When I read Yuval Noah Harari’s “Nexus”

There has been a growing tug-of-war between publishers and authors over AI. Until recently, I thought we were slowly beginning to figure out some reasonable ground rules. If you ask an AI to write your book and put your name on it, that’s one thing. If you write the book and use AI to check spelling

I’ve been thinking a lot about robots lately, but not the ones that assemble cars or wander around warehouses. I’m thinking about the robots that call, email and text me every day, each one pretending there’s a person on the other end. Every morning, I receive emails from various so-called people who claim to represent a

Lawyer, activist, and friend of mine Larry Lessig was on stage at the P&T Knitwear Bookstore a few weeks ago. Talking about the corrosive nature of money in politics, he used a metaphor about the Titanic. “The captain of the Titanic, he hits the iceberg, looks out on the deck, and there’s a whole bunch of

I realized recently that I’m talking to more creatures, devices, AI, and machines in my life every day. It didn’t used to be this way. Back when I first thought about the dog days of summer, I was a filmmaker and television producer. And the dog days of summer were, to be honest, a great subject.

For the past month, a strange question has been bouncing around the internet: Is Mitch McConnell dead? Not politically dead. Actually dead. McConnell went into the hospital, disappeared from public view, and the rumors started. Then came a series of oddly specific assurances from people who said they had spoken with him. Twenty minutes with Mitch.

I was in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing room on January 31, 2024, when the CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X, Snap, and Discord faced hours of questioning about the harms their platforms have caused to children. At one point, Senator Lindsey Graham looked directly at the executives and said: “You have blood on your hands. You