Countries I have called home (and that my ancestors called home) have problematic aspects to their histories, and I worry that celebrating the good can seem like I’m ignoring the bad. After wrestling with history, optics, intention, and impact as a tourist in Germany, I think there’s an effective way to elevate what we’ve learned from darker days and celebrate efforts to do better.
Our search results shape how we view the world, and (with nearly 90% market share) Google shapes our search results. Data privacy has been a major criticism of Google for years, but the objectivity and accuracy of the results should be a concern too. With AI-generated overviews to take the place of doing our own research, we’re more susceptible than ever to groupthink.
You can get more done with efficiency – to a point. Unfortunately, many of us believe multitasking is efficient, even though it usually makes us even less productive in the end. Multitasking can reduce our effectiveness as well as our capacity for critical thought, meaning that the real key to success is identifying critical tasks and prioritizing them, rather than trying to do it all.
Rights are like muscles: use them or lose them. There are many reasons to feel apathetic about voting, but that’s no reason to sit it out. With that said, if you feel like voting isn’t making a difference, there are other ways to get involved too: that includes reaching out to your local, state, and federal representatives to let them know your concerns.
The 250th anniversary of the American Revolution (during unprecedented tumult in our democracy) has had many thinking about what it takes to stand up to tyranny. The rise and fall of authoritarian regimes can hinge on outside-the-box thinking and the presence of an educated populace armed with critical thinking skills and knowledge of history – and we saw a call for that this past week.
During our time in Japan, we had the opportunity to meet with government officials, reporters, and residents of Tokyo, all of whom are responding to climate change in different ways. Because Japan has the ability to mitigate its emissions but also must adapt to more severe weather, it was interesting to explore what has been effective (or not) from the standpoint of shifting a hard-to-shift culture.
My Halloween costume in 2024 honored San, the heroine of “Princess Mononoke.” While she is flawed and biased, she is passionate and driven, and no one can deny her strength. But the concept of “strong” female characters raises many questions about what that word means and how it is portrayed in popular culture. Director Hayao Miyazaki has a perspective more grounded in reality than most.
We use machines to make our lives easier, but we are not making use of the time we save in a meaningful way. Omnipresent AI tools in our daily lives are contributing to our reduced capacity for long attention spans, research and curiosity, critical thinking, and creativity. We’re relinquishing some of the things that make us human, and it’s not AI’s fault; it’s ours.
While we don’t (yet) have artificial intelligence that can match human intelligence, we seem to have enough difficulty interacting with the Narrow AI that exists now. Such technology is supposed to make our lives easier – and in some ways it does – but some of our distinctly human skills, such as critical thought, creativity, and discernment seem to be eroding as we rely more on AI.
As an avid science fiction fan, I have spent much of my life focusing on what is possible – good and bad. The potential negative outcomes of our technology are concerning if we let our achievements outpace any consideration of their implications. Man vs. machine narratives can serve as a popular cautionary tale in that vein, but are they simplifying the situation too much?