AI Has Lost Its Magic
Ian Bogost
I frequently ask ChatGPT to write poems in the style of the American modernist poet Hart Crane. It does an admirable job of delivering. But the other day, when I instructed the software to give the Crane treatment to a plate of ice-cream sandwiches, I felt bored before I even saw the answer. "The oozing cream, like time, escapes our grasp, / Each moment slipping with a silent gasp." This was fine. It was competent. I read the poem, Slacked part of it to a colleague, and closed the window. Whateve...
Why Rich Shoppers Get So Angry About Hermes
Amanda Mull
Should you want to own an Hermes Birkin handbag, there are two main reasons that's probably not in the cards. The first limiting factor is that even in its smallest size and most basic format, the Birkin, which has been one of the luxury industry's ultimate brass rings for decades, has a starting price tag of more than $11,000--roughly what you'd currently pay for a gently used 2013 Honda Accord. The second is that even if you have the money, one does not simply waltz into one of the hundreds of H...
Sam Bankman-Fried's Dream Came True
Will Gottsegen
If there's a single image that defines the crypto frenzy of 2021 and 2022, it's that of the actor Matt Damon, calm and muscled, delivering the immortal proverb "Fortune favors the brave." It was part of an ad for Crypto.com, yet it somehow captured the absurdity of what the crypto industry promised at the time: not just a digital asset, but a ludicrously magnified vision of the future.Sam Bankman-Fried was the opposite of all that. The crypto mogul did not outwardly aspire to build futuristic cry...
You Can't Even Rescue a Dog Without Being Bullied Online
Caroline Mimbs Nyce
Lucchese is not the world's cutest dog. Picked up as a stray somewhere in Texas, he is scruffy and, as one person aptly observed online, looks a little like Steve Buscemi. (It's the eyes.)Isabel Klee, a professional influencer in New York City, had agreed to keep Lucchese, or Luc, until he found a forever home. Fosters such as Klee help move dogs out of loud and stressful shelters so they can relax and socialize before moving into a forever home. (The foster can then take on a new dog, and the pr...
Social Media Is Not What Killed the Web
Ian Bogost
This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here."Was the internet really this bad?" I wondered to myself as I read the September 1995 issue of The Atlantic. I was reading the issue in digital form, displayed on Netscape Navigator 3 on a mid-'90s Macintosh. Or, at least, on a software version of the browser and Mac provided on the website OldWeb.Today. The site houses an emulator that connects to the Internet Archive's record of websites, providing a full c...