iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 25/02/2026

The second piece in my series on finding the right line between human thought and AI assistance: “Can AI Prompt Us to Ask New Questions?” newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/can-...

We may very well look back on our first years of engagement with AI in forms like ChatGPT as we now look back on AOL before the flourishing of the World Wide Web — a comfortable, contained, and relatively inflexible introduction to a new digital world. The flexibility and expansiveness of the Web — the fact that anyone could assemble sites and services from servers, collections, and data from around the world — made it a much better environment for the generation of new ideas.

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 05/09/2025

New issue of my newsletter: “Will a Landmark AI Settlement Make Authors Feel Whole?” — The remuneration from Bartz v. Anthropic may not provide what writers really want: respect, recognition, and readers

A black and white photograph of library bookshelves in the dark

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 29/08/2025

New issue of my newsletter: “The Stones of Newton” — A bell tower with a surprising name is in danger of falling

A sepia-toned photograph of a Romanesque Revival church with a tower

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 18/08/2025

New issue of my newsletter: “AI and Libraries, Archives, and Museums, Loosely Coupled”— A new framework provides a way for cultural heritage institutions to take advantage of the technology with fewer misgivings, and to serve students, scholars, and the public better

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 14/04/2025

“When Information is Networked” — My tribute to Clifford Lynch, who sadly passed away last week. Cliff saw before anyone else how digital technology would enable new forms of research and learning, and completely transform the production and dissemination of knowledge

A watercolor of a thin waterfall in the mountains, and an associated rainbow emerging from the mist

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 04/04/2025

belated hello from Belle, Darth, she was also napping

Red dog lies on pillow with long legs outstretched

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 16/01/2025

New issue of my newsletter: “The Unresolved Tension Between AI and Learning” — If education is accelerated using AI, will we lose some crucial aspects of learning that will prove to be problematic?

A yellow neon sign that says “Teach your tongue to say “I don’t know”

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 08/12/2024

The Catalog of Distinctive Type, a visual catalog of distinctive and damaged printing type originating in books published in England from 1660 to 1700

A grid of old typewritten letters, in different shapes and shades

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 05/12/2024

A periodic reminder that you can subscribe to my newsletter Humane Ingenuity on my website

Four colorful images of creative uses of physical and digital media, including a paper peacock and a digital boat at sea

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 05/12/2024

New issue of my newsletter: “Books, AI, and the Public Good: A New Grant” — A Mellon-funded project to develop an ethical, public-interest way to incorporate books into artificial intelligence

A black and white photo of a patent model of a book sewing machine, with gears and a conveyor belt, made out of wood and metal.

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 15/10/2024

New issue of my newsletter: “Synths and Sensibility” — From Beethoven to Kraftwerk, innovative artists have used new technology to make music more human, not less

The cover of the sheet music for the 1913 song “There’s a Wireless Station in my Heart,” showing a woman answering the phone while sitting on a yellow heart, with a transmission tower below

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 11/09/2024

New issue of my newsletter: “No Happy Medium for Books” — A court ruling curtails the circulation of the written word

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 24/07/2024

New issue of my newsletter: “Break Expectations” — Where does the ability of AI to mimic human expression end? Poetry provides a helpful case study

A metal tray of roughly 100 books sits on a giant yellow arm of a machine that transports the books. Other metal trays of books are in the background. A caution sign notes that the equipment starts and stops automatically.

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 27/06/2024

New issue of my newsletter: “AI Comes for Music”—As the record labels sue AI companies for generating derivative songs, let us ask: What makes a song original and human anyway? (Includes non-spoiler references to Robin Sloan’s new novel Moonbound.)

Two men at a keyboard stare at a computer monitor that is displaying musical notes and graphs.

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 13/05/2024

New issue of my newsletter: “Humane Ingenuity 53: Books are Big AI’s Achilles Heel”—AI companies may have the money and the data centers, but they are badly in need of what humble libraries have in abundance. (Co-authored with Dave Hansen of Authors Alliance)

A four-story old library with thousands of books and a glass ceiling.

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 08/04/2024

One way of seeing the eclipse here in Boston: a graph of the electricity produced by the solar panel array on the roof of my library, with peak eclipse at 3:30pm

Northeastern Snell Library Solar PV System graph in blue on a lined background; the chart dips at 3:30pm

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 08/04/2024

From the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections, a photo of viewers of the 1994 solar eclipse, when safety glasses were less advanced

Two men with white shirts and ties hold boxes over their heads to look at the solar eclipse

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 01/04/2024

New issue of my newsletter: “Humane Ingenuity 52: Is Science Becoming Conceptual Art?” — A combination of new technologies may represent a new era for science, but one in which the lone scientist may no longer need her lab mates. Is that a good thing?

A wall painting consisting of stripes of grey, yellow, blue, and red, bordered by black bands

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 28/02/2024

How much does it cost to save a book for 100 years, or forever? What about a web page? I look at hidden long-term preservation issues for cultural artifacts, print and digital, in the new issue of my newsletter Humane Ingenuity. Plus: Apple’s vision (not the Vision Pro)

A drawing of the interior of the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

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Dan Cohen @dancohen.org · 27/02/2024

New issue of my newsletter: “Apple’s Vision + The Cost of Forever” — revisiting the original design documents for the Macintosh computer to understand why we’re in a love/hate relationship with Apple, and a comparison of how much it costs to save a book and a web page forever.

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