Essays
№ 01
The Golden Sphere
Roadside Picnic and the AI race
An old Soviet science fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky about contact with the incomprehensible, and what it has to say about the AI race we are running today.
№ 02
The Cocoon
McLuhan's machine and the substrate transition
McLuhan in 1964 said machines extend humans and remake the humans who use them, set against Samuel Butler's 1863 letter arguing the machines would outlive their makers.
№ 03
Means of Representation
Debord and the AI apparatus
Debord's 1967 argument that modern life is lived through mass-produced images, read in 2026 when the apparatus runs autonomously and the user is the one making the images.
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New essays as they ship.