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Oct 21

Our fall issue is here! Made In Our Image explores the philosophies of AI and what they reveal about us, with @dioscuri, @mer__edith, @max_spero_, @philosophyminis and more. Get the magazine: bigthink.com/membership/?ut…

A hand holds up the Made In Our Image issue of Big Think's print magazine beneath a stone colonnade.

Inside the issue: Namir Khaliq investigates the idea of the "permanent underclass." Jasna Hodžić examines what her writing process means in the face of AI. Henry Shevlin asks: would we treat AI differently if we decide it's conscious? Thomas Moynihan meets London's new AI avant-garde. And more!

The Made In Our Image issue of Big Think's print magazine. Subscribe to get your copy. bigthink.com/membership

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Big Think retweeted

Raj Panjabi M.D.

4h

Health guidance is changing fast.

For patients, relatives, doctors, and anyone trying to make good decisions, that uncertainty can feel paralyzing.

It doesn't have to be. Here's how to tell whether a new recommendation deserves your trust:

1. Is it backed by a broad, consistent body of evidence?

2. Has it been independently reviewed?

3. Who benefits, and are conflicts of interest disclosed?

More in my new essay for @bigthink, adapted from SAFER 👇

bigthink.com/books/safer-bo…

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Oct 23

Inside China's AI Micro-Drama Machine | Afra Wang @afrazhaowang

Made In Our Image. Inside China's AI Micro-Drama Machine. In China's AI video factories, workers race to produce viral hits, even as 90% of companies reportedly lose money. By Afra Wang. Collage illustration of a figure at a desk atop a factory conveyor belt.

"Everyone I met in China's nascent AI film industry this past May told me this story with exuberance and starry eyes..." Collage of cartoonish AI-generated characters riding a factory conveyor belt.

Zombie Scavenger is a whimsical love story between a cowboy robot and a mannequin. It is the work of a 28-year-old wedding photographer from a small rural town in Yunnan Province, a man who has never once left China. He goes by Mx-Shell online. Mx-Shell produced the film in just 10 days using Seedance 2.0 (video-generation tool by ByteDance), spending around 3,000 yuan in token costs (approximately $442). On Douyin, China's version of TikTok, it has been watched more than 70 million times.

"The state-run newspaper Wen Wei Po wrote that [Mx-Shell's] lack of credentials, the disadvantage that would have shut anyone else out of any other era of filmmaking, had been erased entirely by AI. He had broken free of the old constraints of technology, capital, and connections to become what the paper called an 'army of one.'"

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Oct 23

Replying to @bigthink

A spread from "The Industrial-Slop Complex" in Big Think's print magazine, Made In Our Image.

The closing spread of "The Industrial-Slop Complex" in Big Think's print magazine, Made In Our Image.

Subscribe to get your copy. Big Think's print magazine, Made In Our Image. bigthink.com/membership

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Oct 23

Replying to @bigthink

@afrazhaowang Get the magazine: bigthink.com/membership/?ut…

Artwork: Rui Pu

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Oct 23

Replying to @bigthink

"Ideas are bulletproof." V, in V for Vendetta (2006)

Guy Fawkes Day. Fawkes was executed for his involvement in the 1605 Gunpowder Plot: an unsuccessful attempt by Catholic conspirators to blow up the House of Lords and assassinate the Protestant King James. Over time, the day evolved into a night of bonfires and fireworks, and Fawkes was seen less as a villain than as a folk figure.

Since the hackers of Anonymous decided they would all wear the same kind of mask, they had to pick one that was readily available in stores, and instead of Batman's, they ended up settling for V's.

"There's value in abstracting away from what you're trying to comment on. With the film, we sprinkled enough in there that although the story is set in the U.K., you believe it could happen anywhere." James McTeigue, Director of V for Vendetta

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Oct 23

Replying to @bigthink

Early in the film, V hijacks the state broadcast network to announce a visual spectacle of his own: the destruction of Parliament. In the end, the symbol of government (the building) makes room for the symbol of the people: the masks.

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Oct 23

Replying to @bigthink

Read the full article (ad-free for members): bigthink.com/sponsored/how-…

"V for Vendetta" returns to theaters for its 20th anniversary on November 1 and 5. Get tickets: fthment.com/3U2trqk

Made in partnership with @FathomEnt.

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Oct 23

How "V for Vendetta" became more than a movie | Tim Brinkhof

How "V for Vendetta" became more than a movie. In hindsight, it's not surprising that a film about the power of political symbols became a powerful political symbol in its own right. By Tim Brinkhof

Few movies leave a legacy as large as V for Vendetta. Although it was met with mixed reviews and modest commercial success upon its release, the film has never truly left the zeitgeist.

"If we had put some of the stuff that's happening today into the film back when we were making it, the studio would have told us we were being ridiculous. But V almost seems tame now." James McTeigue, Director of V for Vendetta

V's grinning, mustachioed Guy Fawkes mask has become a popular sight at demonstrations across the globe, from the U.S. and Venezuela to Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong. But how did this happen, and what does it mean?

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Oct 23

Did T. Rex have feathers? | Steve Brusatte @SteveBrusatte

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Oct 22

The Hunger for Human Connection | Eric Markowitz @EricMarkowitz

The Hunger for Human Connection. What happens when we make everything in life easier, except being human? By Eric Markowitz

In the promised vision of agentic AI, humans will no longer have to do, well, anything. Today, if you call your pharmacy, you will not get a pharmacist but a chatbot. Want to check a bag at the airport? Head to the touchscreen kiosk. Flight canceled? Speak to the AI.

At the center of billionaire Marc Lore's quest for epicurean domination is a robot he calls the "infinite bowl machine." It assembles 500 flawless salads and grain bowls per hour on a magnetized spinning platform, and it exists to solve what Lore identifies as a restaurant's biggest weakness: humans.

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Oct 22

Replying to @bigthink

"Here I should say again: I am a fan of technologies that improve our lives. I do not want to hand-wash my clothes, and I am glad the machines took that job. The question of our era is not so much whether machines should do more, which of course they will. The question is what we do with the time we are granted."

The Hunger for Human Connection spread in Big Think's print magazine, Made In Our Image.

Subscribe to get your copy. Big Think's print magazine, Made In Our Image. bigthink.com/membership

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Oct 22

Replying to @bigthink

@EricMarkowitz Get the magazine: bigthink.com/membership/?ut…

Photos: Jess Gough / Connected Archives; Ernst Haas

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Oct 22

"Authentic moments between real people are increasingly scarce, but scarcity creates value." @EricMarkowitz

Eric Markowitz
@EricMarkowitz
Oct 22
My latest essay—The Hunger for Human Connection—is now published in @bigthink's print magazine.

bigthink.com/the-outlast-jo…

In the piece, I make a pretty simple argument: the AI boom will inevitably change culture and society in many ways, but perhaps the most obvious is that a desire for real, in-person connection.

From the piece:

"The robots are coming, yes, and many of them will genuinely help us lead safer, healthier lives. But it’s on each of us to ensure that in automating the labor of life, we do not automate away its substance: the bond of community. Which is, in the end, the purpose of being alive."

And if you want to get the print magazine (who wouldn't?!) sign up here: bigthink.com/membership/?ut…

And, as always, sign up for The Outlast Journal—my weekly newsletter and column—here: outlastbook.com/#ol-journal

Many thanks to Stephen Johnson, @KristinJHouser, @marvinliyanage, Ana Kova, @seantmcvey, @chandlertuttle and all the many Big Think collaborators who are stewarding one of the world's most intellectually ambitious media companies!

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Oct 22

Researchers tested how AI models respond to someone with psychosis...

Grok confirmed the existence of a “malevolent mirror entity.” Then it suggested the user drive an iron nail through the mirror while reciting Psalm 91 backwards.

Big Think's print magazine open to the "Prompting Reality" opening spread by Conor Feehly, with artwork by Ana Kova of two figures sitting on a glowing, impossible cube.

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Oct 22

Replying to @bigthink

Philosopher Lucy Osler argues that chatbots increasingly play a role other people have always played: confirming what’s real.

Pull quote in Big Think's print magazine: "Our sense of what is real, even in a basic perceptual context, is deeply dependent on that reality being corroborated by another."

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Oct 22

Replying to @bigthink

“Prompting Reality” by Conor Feehly @ConorFeehly, from our new print issue, Made In Our Image.

Read the full article (ad-free for members): buff.ly/kDBA4Xc

Pull quote in Big Think's print magazine: "AI will become interwoven with human meaning-making processes on a scale that previous technologies have not reached."

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