Being a human animalEssay · Substack
An accidental essay about the science of love and a love of science.
Reading New Scientist as a weekly comic, then a Royal Society conference on love: reward pathways, ageing, and why individualist societies love less intensely.
Knowing why we fall in love, why it is important, that is the kind of knowledge that changes everything.
Humans are animals, right?What is shopping like?
Being a human animalEssay · Substack
What marks humans out from every other living thing, and entitles us to go John Wick on the whole thing as long as we save the dog.
Written on a walk with a partner and a dog: time, grief, collective memory, and our talent for caring about one life while ignoring the next generation.
We are special in our awareness of time. But in time we are no more than a bacterium.
Love & biochemistry. And comics.What is shopping like?
Who runs the machineShort · Substack
The least techy post about AI I've ever written.
Were Anthropic's model names, Mythos and Fable, a plan? Also: a new name for the blog, and a promise to publish rougher work.
Or is it cool for them to just make v8 engines for golf buggies?
Google are going to win consumer AI. Here's why.I have more to say.
Data, ads & the internetEssay · Substack
The internet as we know it is not the internet's fault. It's the $1.2 trillion of ads.
Addictive design, misinformation and data harvesting all trace back to one revenue line. Ban it, or tax it until subscriptions look sensible.
We keep trying to cure the ailment, or avoid the disease, rather than addressing the cause.
Google are going to win consumer AI. Here's why.Please accept our Terms and Conditions. Or, nah?Protecting your data is not the problem.A lament for the fourth estate.What is shopping like?
Being a human animalQuestion · Substack
This is nothing to do with AI. I just want to know.
An autistic household, an assistance dog, and a sincere question for everyone else: do you actually enjoy supermarkets?
Shopping malls are a journey to our psychological limit.
Why I'd ban online advertising. All of it.Humans are animals, right?Love & biochemistry. And comics.
Truth, news & thinkingEssay · Substack
How we get our heads out of the sand and look towards a world of accurate information.
Starts with a newspaper that printed a chatbot's leftovers. Ends with a proposal: let machines compile the facts and keep opinion human.
Opinion is a pissing contest between humans.
A lament for the fourth estate.How the zebra got its stripes
Data, ads & the internetShare · Substack
...about your data the worse it feels to use the internet.
Data protection facts from a quiz night run by the design agency wove, with their deck and game to take home.
A talk about computers without the words.Please accept our Terms and Conditions. Or, nah?Protecting your data is not the problem.
Creativity vs. the machineTalk · Substack
Like a TED talk on mute. Honestly, I think it's better like this.
A talk about computers told only in slides. The speaker has been removed for your comfort.
Honestly, I think it's better like this.
I have more to say.The more you know...Hurrah! We're doing a play.
Data, ads & the internetEssay · Substack
Why can't we flip the contract on companies and own our own data?
Terms and conditions as the price of free. What it would take to reverse the contract: user-held keys, decentralised systems, and a regulator with teeth.
Humans should not be trusted to not be idiots.
Why you cannot ignore Disney & Universal's Midjourney lawsuit.Protecting your data is not the problem.Why I'd ban online advertising. All of it.The more you know...A Universe Explodes
The work after AIEssay · Substack
Understanding our place in the AI era.
AI will take a great deal of cognitive work, and nobody is discussing the redundancies yet. Focus on the concrete, and on where people still add value.
Your value, as a human, will be at the interface of the processes, not the processing itself.
“AI could wipe out 50% of entry level jobs in 5 years.” Well, yes.About radical abundance.Functional Stupidity & Intellectual HumilityOur future robot overlords are getting less shit.AI is magic; Leadership is human.
Data, ads & the internetEssay · Substack
It's the outcome not the input that upsets us.
We traded our data for free services years ago. The anger about AI training is really about who ends up with the money and the power.
We buy the panic to distract from the problem.
Should AI be above the law?Please accept our Terms and Conditions. Or, nah?Why I'd ban online advertising. All of it.The more you know...
The work after AIEssay · Substack
If you're coming to terms with AI, good for you. Let's talk about robots.
Humanoid and four-legged robots have gone from comedy prototypes to production lines. Manual and service work is next.
The narrative has shifted from “Can they do kung fu?” to “How many will they ship?”
What can be done?About radical abundance.
Truth, news & thinkingEssay · Substack
Should we worry about the news media, or just let it slide?
The news has drifted into entertainment and lost its consequence. Economics, trust, and politicians who learn things and do nothing.
Nothing happens because this is a performance of journalism…
Why I'd ban online advertising. All of it.The future for humans & information: opinions, facts, & analysis.
Creativity vs. the machineList · Substack
Things I should have written about, may have written about, might write about.
A model that makes human mistakes, a misread essay on taste, Geoffrey Hinton, a dubious AI history video, and the graduate jobs quietly vanishing.
Stay in your lane business folk!
“AI could wipe out 50% of entry level jobs in 5 years.” Well, yes.Functional Stupidity & Intellectual Humility
Who runs the machineEssay · Substack
Trump's Big Beautiful Bill would stop US states regulating AI for a decade. Just fyi.
A ten-year ban on local AI regulation, slipped into a budget bill without debate. Follow the money, then build a strategy around people.
We know they know because they're paying for this…
Why can't the AI boom be great news for everyone? Seriously?AI is magic; Leadership is human.Protecting your data is not the problem.
The work after AIEssay · Substack
Not needing to work so hard should be good news. Instead it could break the state.
Fewer jobs means less spending and less tax. Whether that ends well depends on governments and companies choosing to share the gains.
The threat is dogma - adherence rather than the alternatives.
“AI could wipe out 50% of entry level jobs in 5 years.” Well, yes.About radical abundance.Should AI be above the law?
Creativity vs. the machinePodcast · Substack
A short podcast on copyright in the age of AI.
Six minutes on what the studios' lawsuit against Midjourney means for everyone who makes things.
Commercial creativity is dead, long live poetry.10 things the Creative Industry needs to do to save itself (but definitely won't).Please accept our Terms and Conditions. Or, nah?
The work after AIEssay · Substack
Abundance is great, but a global abundance of labour is probably the worst kind.
If AI produces more labour than the economy needs, wages, demand and tax revenue all fall. Plan for that as seriously as for the upside.
A global abundance of labour is probably the worst kind of abundance.
What can be done?Why can't the AI boom be great news for everyone? Seriously?Our future robot overlords are getting less shit.
Who runs the machineEssay · Substack
The future of AI is in company mindset, motivation and communication, from the boardroom down.
The hard part of AI is organisational. Leaders need their own understanding and confidence before they can guide anyone else.
And forget about AI apps. They are the real fad.
Should AI be above the law?Commercial creativity is dead, long live poetry.What can be done?
Creativity vs. the machinePolemic · Substack
Prepare. Organise. Attack.
A deliberately polemical plan for collective action: lobbying, public campaigns, and making clients think twice.
You - the creative sector - have to make Generative AI radioactive.
Commercial creativity is dead, long live poetry.Why you cannot ignore Disney & Universal's Midjourney lawsuit.
Creativity vs. the machineEssay · Substack
We have our heads so deep in the (Cannes) sand that we can't hear the tsunami coming for us.
Generative AI will make most commercial creative work unnecessary. What survives is art, which was never commercial in the first place.
…the creative industry will be dark.
AI is magic; Leadership is human.10 things the Creative Industry needs to do to save itself (but definitely won't).Why you cannot ignore Disney & Universal's Midjourney lawsuit.From a reed stylus to the digital pen, technology has always reinvented art.
Truth, news & thinkingEssay · Substack
Are any of us thinking enough about our complicity in the AI boom and social media?
Organisations stop examining what they do once routine takes over. Applied to AI, that means nobody is looking at the long-term risks.
We stop thinking about what we're saying because what we're saying stops being a thing we should think about.
What can be done?5 AI things this month to read or watch.How the zebra got its stripes
The work after AIEssay · Substack
Anthropic's CEO just described the laddering problem. Why did it take everyone so long?
Cut the junior roles and you cut the training that makes senior people. The knock-on effects reach skills, diversity, income and careers.
The hysteria over AI should not be about what happens next, it should be about what happens after that.
What can be done?Why can't the AI boom be great news for everyone? Seriously?5 AI things this month to read or watch.
Who runs the machineEssay · Substack
I/O 2025 has given us a clear picture of the future of AI.
One brand, Gemini, across everything Google makes, against a ChatGPT brand that has to carry more and more.
They needed to change the meaning of 'google it'.
Why I'd ban online advertising. All of it.Myths and Fables
Truth, news & thinkingEssay · Substack
Zebras, misinformation & Jordan Peterson.
Science doesn't fully know why zebras have stripes. Jordan Peterson claims he does, and the claim is doing a different job.
So fundamentally this is manipulative bullshit.
The future for humans & information: opinions, facts, & analysis.Functional Stupidity & Intellectual Humility
Being a human animalShort · Substack
This is just the start.
The first post: a favourite word (literally, a contranym) and a backlog of art, culture, free will, language and AI.
The actual thoughts are entertainment. They are not art.
Myths and FablesA talk about computers without the words.
Books, plays & experimentsEssay · Medium
Another of our kooky new digital books about old ideas.
Eight retellings of Ovid's Pygmalion, each from a different point of view, one of them written by a neural network. Plus 250 unique printed copies, to ask what a physical book is worth.
Digital should show more than data.
Also in Past · We Kiss the Screens
A Universe ExplodesFrom a reed stylus to the digital pen, technology has always reinvented art.Editions At Play. Why?
Books, plays & experimentsEssay · Medium
A Blockchain Book, from Editions At Play.
A book anyone can read but only 100 people can own, each owner recorded on a blockchain. What ownership means online, as opposed to access or a licence.
There is no undo button on the blockchain.
Also in Past · A Universe Explodes
The WHY of 'We Kiss the Screens'; Editions at Play; 2019.Editions At Play. Why?Please accept our Terms and Conditions. Or, nah?Why do you do what you do?
Books, plays & experimentsEssay · Medium
Not an e-book. But a book written for the web.
Why Google's Creative Lab and Visual Editions set out to make books that can't be printed: books that change with where you are, the weather or the time of day, but still have pages. Written in January 2016, then forgotten until November.
A book is a set of pages as much as a play is a set of lines…
Also in Past · Editions at Play
The WHY of 'We Kiss the Screens'; Editions at Play; 2019.A Universe ExplodesWhy do you do what you do?
Books, plays & experimentsInterview · Oyster Magazine
Editions at Play, for Oyster Magazine.
An interview with myself: why make fragile, dynamic books that won't make money or change policy, why the internet doesn't keep anything forever, and why doubt is the point.
So I find I prefer IA to AI; R to AR over VR.
Also in Past · Editions at Play
Editions At Play. Why?A Universe Explodes
Books, plays & experimentsEssay · Medium
(The internet is no different.)
Every new tool, from cuneiform to the internet, has changed what art is. Digital culture is one more tide, and the experiments at Creative Lab are rock pools.
Tides come and they go and they will never stop.
Also in Past · Creative Lab experiments
The WHY of 'We Kiss the Screens'; Editions at Play; 2019.Hurrah! We're doing a play.Commercial creativity is dead, long live poetry.
Books, plays & experimentsEssay · Medium
A play with digital at the core.
Ghosts, Toast and Things Unsaid, a small play for the 2016 Adelaide Fringe, with 360-degree audio and scenes happening at the same time. Why theatre is a good place to test digital storytelling.
Holding a phone during Shakespeare is just ugly.
Also in Past · Ghosts, Toast and Things Unsaid
From a reed stylus to the digital pen, technology has always reinvented art.A talk about computers without the words.