# tech
Turns out artificial intelligence needs a nap every once in a while to stay accurate, and that may tell us something fundamental about our own minds.
# tech
China is aiming for AI supremacy to automate and export totalitarianism. This effort is bound to backfire, but not for the reason you may think.
# science
It looks like our future is fewer humans, not more. And while that may be good for our long-term survival, it means rethinking our economic and political systems.
# science
It's not just you. We're all nearing our wits' end this year, and that's going to make the pandemic and what comes after it worse.
# space
Astronauts get a very rare and unique perspective on our planet, one in which our world isn't just a steppingstone to the stars, but a fragile home to be protected.
# oddities
Older, conservative Americans have become engrossed in conspiracy theories and fear-mongering propaganda. Now, they're paying the price as their families start to cut ties.
# tech
While most apps you use today collect a lot of data, TikTok goes far beyond normal logging and location services, and straight into the realm of spyware.
# science
Writers constantly tell us about mavericks whose genius overturned the status quo. Their stories aren't just wrong, they're dangerous.
# tech
With the EARN IT bill, politicians are unwittingly and stubbornly putting us at greater risk from criminals and terrorists while insisting they're just trying to protect us.
# space
Private companies launching humans into space is a profound game changer. We just need to follow it to its logical conclusion.
# tech
Pay no attention to the tech personalities double guessing COVID-19 models. They're not the experts they think they are, or pretend to be.
# space
Astronomers looking into the orbits of Kuiper Belt objects may have found a flaw in data we thought pointed to the existence of a large planet beyond Neptune's orbit.
# sex
As the pandemic reveals more and more weaknesses in the economy, more people are turning to creating homemade porn. What will happen to them when the pandemic ends?
# science
Stephen Wolfram joins a long line of theoreticians who believe they uncovered how the universe really works. He, like all of them, is almost certainly wrong.
# longform
When populists, demagogues, and authoritarians insist on attacking experts for trying to fix the problems their dogmas created, the consequences can destroy entire nations.
