A curated reading list cuts through AI hype and panic by recommending books that explain how the industry reached this moment and what it is doing to politics, labor, privacy and the environment. It foregrounds investigative reporting - Karen Hao’s Empire of AI on OpenAI, Anthropic and the Altman-Musk drama; Katrina Manson’s Project Maven on military-Palantir collaborations that produced autonomous-surveillance systems; Paris Marx’s Hyperscale on the environmental and community toll of data centres; and Kashmir Hill’s Your Face Belongs to Us on Clearview’s mass-surveillance database - alongside skeptical scholarship like Emily Bender and Alex Hanna’s The AI Con, which calls out “AI hype” as a driver of data theft, surveillance capitalism and the devaluation of human creativity.
The list also flags influential but contested treatises that fuel doomer and establishment narratives - Eliezer Yudkowsky’s and Nate Soares’s doomer manifesto, Nick Bostrom’s Superintelligence, Kissinger et al.’s Genesis and Palantir CEO Alex Karp’s Technological Republic - noting their ideological blind spots and controversies. For deeper context it recommends historical, political and ethical accounts: Jill Lepore on automation and authoritarianism, Virginia Eubanks on algorithmic inequality, Anita Say Chan on techno‑eugenics, Adam Becker on the beliefs shaping today’s technocrats, and several works of fiction (Asimov, Borges, Zachary Mason) showing how long‑running narratives about prediction, authority and machine intelligence continue to shape real‑world choices.
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Julian Assange has returned to X after a two-year break, marking his first activity in eight years. His previous account was managed by his defense campaign under the handle @DefendAssange. (twitter.com)
An American mother raising two children in Italy finds that parenting styles and school meals differ greatly from those in the US. Italian children enjoy multi-course, high-quality meals at school, reflecting a different cultural approach to food and upbringing. (businessinsider.com)
A Reddit user discusses a long-standing feeling about AI, resonating with others. Access is blocked by network security, preventing further reading. (reddit.com)
Ask A Monk is an anonymous platform where humans answer questions without AI involvement, offering a space for genuine human connection. It emphasizes listening and sharing experiences to help carry others' emotional burdens. (askamonk.online)
A grandmother with Alzheimer's repeatedly mentions an unfamiliar name, Tony, as her memory deteriorates. The writer reflects on how memory loss can replace familiar faces and places with unknowns, revealing the emotional toll of the disease. (sundaylongread.com)
A Netflix documentary about artists creating a 9/11 memorial inspired the effort to restore its offline website. The memorial, which used tape art to honor victims, was documented with photos and videos, and volunteers are now working to bring it back online. (gwintrob.com)
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