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Colin Horgan
Colin Horgan

21K Followers

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Jul 5

A.I. Can Expand the Borders of Art. So What?

What does this tell us about our future relationship with technology? — In May, someone prompted Adobe’s generative AI Firefly system to ‘imagine’ what would lie beyond the boundaries of some the world’s most famous works of art, including the Mona Lisa, Starry Night (above), Nighthawks, and A Saturday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (below). The results, posted in…

Artificial Intelligence

5 min read

A.I. Can Expand the Borders of Art. So What?
A.I. Can Expand the Borders of Art. So What?
Artificial Intelligence

5 min read


May 2

The Rise of Human Machines

We create technology to do our jobs, but end up working more — and more like machines — This is an occasional cross-post from my Substack newsletter, Modern Hell. Please consider subscribing to Modern Hell for more updates like this one. Recently, I was trying to find a good example of people fearing the machines they made. The dawn of the 1900s came to mind, as it has…

Technology

8 min read

The Rise of Human Machines
The Rise of Human Machines
Technology

8 min read


Apr 3

The Pope Coat Was Helpful, Actually

We need more innocuous lessons in how to recognize AI images — To judge by the general reaction to it, the Pope Coat — the AI-generated image of the Pope Francis wearing a huge designer white puffer coat that went viral last week — was yet another sign of the looming information apocalypse. “The images fooled scores of users, in one of…

Artificial Intelligence

3 min read

The Pope Coat Was Helpful, Actually
The Pope Coat Was Helpful, Actually
Artificial Intelligence

3 min read


Mar 3

Why everyone is so sad to see their younger self

A Tik Tok filter makes people sad to see their own young faces. But what are they really nostalgic for? — “There’s this filter on Tik Tok that makes you look young, and now Tik Tok is just full of middle-aged folks being confronted by this and trying to come to terms with — trying to understand where their life went,” the user, @memo_akten, says to the screen in a video…

Technology

5 min read

Why everyone is so sad to see their younger self
Why everyone is so sad to see their younger self
Technology

5 min read


Nov 28, 2022

Twitter and the End of the Social Internet

The next step for the internet is away from personal connectivity — “The end of twitter is taking forever did tolkien write this,” Twitter user @PleaseBeGneiss (its avatar an illustrated rock) posted Tuesday. The joke garnered around 90,000 likes. (In a follow-up the account’s owner tweeted “a ton of people saying it’s actually george rr martin but have you considered i didn’t…

Social Media

4 min read

Twitter and the End of the Social Internet
Twitter and the End of the Social Internet
Social Media

4 min read


Aug 12, 2022

Alex Jones Doesn’t Have An Audience

What he’s created is something much more difficult to stop — Among the many surprising things about Alex Jones’s recent trial (he was being sued by the parents of children slain at Sandy Hook — an event he long mislabeled as a hoax — for defamation and emotional damage) was that it didn’t stop him from broadcasting his show every day…

Conspiracy Theories

6 min read

Alex Jones Doesn’t Have An Audience
Alex Jones Doesn’t Have An Audience
Conspiracy Theories

6 min read


Jun 16, 2022

The Difference Between Human and Machine

Did Google create a sentient A.I.? A Blade Runner theory of humanity — Last weekend, the Washington Post published a story about a Google software engineer, Blake Lemoine, who thinks the company’s artificial intelligence chatbot generator, Language Model for Dialogue Applications — or LaMDA — is sentient. This he decided after multiple conversations with LaMDA, some of which he published, in which the…

Technology

6 min read

The Difference Between Human and Machine
The Difference Between Human and Machine
Technology

6 min read


Jun 7, 2022

The Tyranny of the Sell-Outs

Modern mass culture needs new ideas. Why don’t we have any? — In late May, Justin Timberlake announced that he’d sold his share of rights to his entire song catalogue for $100 million to Hipgnosis Song Management, an intellectual property rights management company listed on the London Stock Exchange. It’s not the only one paying big for back catalogues. Two years ago…

Culture

6 min read

The Tyranny of the Sell-Outs
The Tyranny of the Sell-Outs
Culture

6 min read


May 26, 2022

America Should Call Mass Shootings by the Right Name: Massacres

The term ‘mass shooting’ allows too many people to avoid the problem — and the solution — A great place to start to end mass shootings in America is stricter gun control. It feels crazy to have to state this from the outset, but amidst other, certifiably insane suggestions like only having a single door defended by an armed guard or booby-trapping the buildings, it’s necessary to…

Society

3 min read

Let’s Call It What it Is: A Massacre
Let’s Call It What it Is: A Massacre
Society

3 min read


May 11, 2022

Why Are The Assholes Winning?

Bad ideas are taking over the world. Why is this happening? — If Elon Musk were the only asshole we had to put up with, things might be tolerable. At the very least, we might have the energy to deal with him. …

Technology

5 min read

Why Are The Assholes Winning?
Why Are The Assholes Winning?
Technology

5 min read

Colin Horgan

Colin Horgan

21K Followers

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