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Critical Digital Media

@digital.therourke.net
1.6K followers 674 following 702 posts

Articles, essays, papers, artworks and news stories on digital media, digital culture, and media arts - also mirrored at: criticaldigitalmedia.tumblr.com by @therourke.net (also see @additivism.org)

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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 19/09/2026
OpenAI and Microsoft knew they were starting a ‘doom loop’ for the web
theverge.com
OpenAI and Microsoft knew they were starting a ‘doom loop’ for the web
OpenAI and Microsoft knew they were driving us toward Google Zero, and they did it anyway. 
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 17/09/2026
When Words Are No Longer for Us by Matthew Kirschenbaum - Project Syndicate
project-syndicate.org
When Words Are No Longer for Us
Matthew Kirschenbaum announces the arrival of the “textpocalypse,” and considers what it will mean for liberal societies.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 11/09/2026
One of AI’s Fiercest Critics Says All the Doom Talk Is ‘Meant to Distract Us’
wired.com
One of AI’s Fiercest Critics Says All the Doom Talk Is ‘Meant to Distract Us’
Timnit Gebru argues that AI companies are stoking fears of extinction to avoid discussing actual harms, like autonomous weapons.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 10/09/2026
Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record (2026) : Luca Messarra : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
archive.org
Vanishing Culture: A Report on Our Fragile Cultural Record (2026)
DOWNLOAD THE FREE EBOOK:PDFEPUBPURCHASE A PRINT COPY:Buy the book from Better World Books or any online bookstore.Order a copy through your local bookstore!LISTEN TO THE PODCAST (Release dates: July 1...
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 08/09/2026
Opinion | The Truth About Brain Rot: It’s a Cry for Help - The New York Times
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Truth About Brain Rot: It’s a Cry for Help
Maybe consuming meaningless content is the only way to be free online.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 05/09/2026
'Things Are Getting Even More Insane': Another Major AI Breakout Revealed | Common Dreams
commondreams.org
'Things Are Getting Even More Insane': Another Major AI Breakout Revealed | Common Dreams
​"How much more is there that we don't know about?" asked one historian after it was revealed that OpenAI had buried reports that its AI agents had hijacked a German website without their knowledge.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 03/09/2026
Latent Spaces: AI, Art, and the Archive* | October | MIT Press
direct.mit.edu
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 01/09/2026
Anthropic and SpaceX are making their wildest promises ever for their IPOs.
slate.com
Silicon Valley Is Making Its Wildest Promises Ever. This Number From Anthropic Proves It.
You really can just say anything on SEC filings now.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 27/08/2026
Designer Creates World's Most Hideous Hawaiian Shirt to Hide From AI Surveillance Cameras
futurism.com
Designer Creates World's Most Hideous Hawaiian Shirt to Hide From AI Surveillance Cameras
German artist Simon Weckert has designed a shirt meant to trick AI-integrated surveillance cameras into looking right past him.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 26/08/2026
In China, talking to AI is normal. Now the government fears it might replace human intimacy | China | The Guardian
theguardian.com
In China, talking to AI is normal. Now the government fears it might replace human intimacy
Companion bots are being regulated over worries they foster ‘emotional dependence’ and young people could stop marrying and having families
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 25/08/2026
The inevitable weakness of metrics | MIT Technology Review
technologyreview.com
The inevitable weakness of metrics
Quantifying our lives is easier than it’s ever been. But a philosopher of games warns that external metrics and data can never capture what’s truly important.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 20/08/2026
How Much of the Internet Is Written With AI? | Pew Research Center
pewresearch.org
How Much of the Internet Is Written With AI?
In a random sample of 10,000 webpages collected in July 2026, one-in-ten show signs of being written or substantially edited by AI.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 16/08/2026
Maker compresses a 2.9MB song by 1000x and prints it on paper as eight QR codes — 21KB song is two minutes long, requires a neural network for playback | Tom's Hardware
tomshardware.com
Maker compresses a 2.9MB song by 1000x and prints it on paper as eight QR codes — 21KB song is two minutes long, requires a neural network for playback
Meta's AI codec was used for the compression.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 15/08/2026
Why tech bosses keep sharing their manifestos about AI
bbc.com
Why tech bosses keep sharing their manifestos about AI
Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg is the latest Big Tech name to pen a letter thousands of words long about AI.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 30/07/2026
How AI is revealing the hidden intelligence of plants and fungi
bigthink.com
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 27/07/2026
Andy Burnham and the rise of ‘aura farming’ in politics
open.substack.com
Andy Burnham and the rise of ‘aura farming’ in politics
As algorithms as much as manifestos play an increasingly important role in politics, Minnie Stephenson examines how the new UK Prime Minister is creating his personal brand in the influencer age.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 16/07/2026
Gen Z is pushing back against AI – a reminder to all of us that the future isn’t written
theconversation.com
Gen Z is pushing back against AI – a reminder to all of us that the future isn’t written
Many baby boomers see AI as a revolutionary tool, while young people see it as taking away their agency.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 14/07/2026
The Terminally Online Mourners Who Miss the Days When AI Made Mistakes
vice.com
The Terminally Online Mourners Who Miss the Days When AI Made Mistakes
Yearning for the ten-fingered hands and deformed horse glitches of old AI image models? You're experiencing nostalgia compression.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 09/07/2026
Brown says AI make class dumb, teacher must help use better
theregister.com
Brown says AI make student brain no work good, teacher should help use it better
Take-home midterm row sharpens fears that the tools are dulling minds and easing cheating
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 09/07/2026
Rise of the Gen-Z Luddite
economist.com
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 20/06/2026
If AI Is Sentient Then So Is ‘Age of Empires II’
404media.co
If AI Is Sentient Then So Is ‘Age of Empires II’
“The point of the paper is to formally show that we anthropomorphise too readily."
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 10/06/2026
What Happens After A.I. Destroys College Writing? | The New Yorker
newyorker.com
What Happens After A.I. Destroys College Writing?
The demise of the English paper will end a long intellectual tradition, but it’s also an opportunity to reëxamine the purpose of higher education.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 10/06/2026
Your Search Results Are Getting Sloptimized - The Atlantic
theatlantic.com
Your Search Results Are Getting Sloptimized
How companies are gaming the chatbot internet
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 01/06/2026
Trevor Paglen and Holly Herndon on Making Art with AI and What the Discourse Is Missing | Totei - The Art Is in the Making
totei.com
Trevor Paglen and Holly Herndon on Making Art with AI and What the Discourse Is Missing
The artists talk process, slop, and why optimism and pessimism don’t quite cover it.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 27/05/2026
Opinion | Writing Is Fundamental to How We Think - The New York Times
nytimes.com
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 21/05/2026
AI Resist List
airesistlist.org
AI Resist List
AI Resist List website
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 20/05/2026
The Matthew effect in AI summary - LSE Impact
blogs.lse.ac.uk
The Matthew effect in AI summary - LSE Impact
AI research tools are trained on a literature that is structured by an unequal distribution of attention. Does their use simply recreate these biases ?
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 18/05/2026
We May Be Entering A Second Axial Age | NOEMA
noemamag.com
We May Be Entering A Second Axial Age | NOEMA
The transition from small hunter-gatherer societies into complex civilizations gave rise to the first Axial Age. Today, the planetary polycrisis of climate chaos, mass migration, increasing warfare and...
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 18/05/2026
AI ‘deadbots’ can fuel pathological grief and affect how we deal with death
theconversation.com
AI ‘deadbots’ can fuel pathological grief and affect how we deal with death
AI now makes it possible to communicate with the dead. But these digital avatars raise significant ethical questions about our relationship with mortality.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 18/05/2026
Study Explores AI-Written Admissions Essays
insidehighered.com
Study Explores AI-Written Admissions Essays
A review of tens of thousands of admissions essays at a selective college show an increase in homogeneous language after AI tools became available in 2022.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 18/05/2026
This game's 3D graphics are made entirely from text | Creative Bloq
creativebloq.com
This game's 3D graphics are made entirely from text
Torizon Telecom takes retro game art to a new, literal level.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 18/05/2026
Takeshi Yoro, anatomist: ‘In Japan, we don’t see a robot as a threat: it’s simply another form of presence in the world’ | Science | EL PAÍS English
english.elpais.com
Takeshi Yoro, anatomist: ‘In Japan, we don’t see a robot as a threat: it’s simply another form of presence in the world’
The 88-year-old Japanese physician swapped autopsies for popular science writing. In his best-seller, he argues that we have vast amounts of information but fail to understand one another because of an...
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 18/05/2026
AI super-apps are remaking China’s internet
economist.com
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 18/05/2026
Gen Z Is Pioneering a New Understanding of Truth | WIRED
wired.com
Gen Z Is Pioneering a New Understanding of Truth
The first generation to truly grow up online, Generation Z and their cohort live in a social media ecosystem that blends facts and feelings. It’s significantly shifting how they understand what’s...
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 18/05/2026
The Great Zombification - by Owen Yingling - The New Critic
thenewcritic.com
The Great Zombification
“And so perfect parallel constructions fill the lecture halls, the take-home tests, the school newspapers, and perhaps even the idiom of student chatter.”
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 18/05/2026
Opinion | The Shared Feeling of Being Harvested by the Future - The New York Times
nytimes.com
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 18/05/2026
Enter the Darksim
open.substack.com
Enter the Darksim
Al Warburton sees new world model architectures as AI’s teen goth phase.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 18/05/2026
Anthropic thinks sci-fi may have trained AI to act like a villain | TechRadar
techradar.com
Anthropic says decades of evil robot stories may be echoing inside AI models
Anthropic blames sci-fi for AI behavior
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 12/05/2026
The Lure of a Fully Randomized Life - The Atlantic
theatlantic.com
He’s So Random
A software engineer wanted to resist the usual algorithms. So he created his own—and transformed his whole existence.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 09/05/2026
AI psychosis: a mental health crisis for the 21st century
observer.co.uk
AI psychosis: a mental health crisis for the 21st century
Chatbot dependence is reportedly affecting hundreds of thousands of people every week, leading to depression, breakdown and even death. As tech lawsuits stack up, what needs to be done to make AI safe?
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 07/05/2026
The Government Doesn’t Just Want to Ban Ghost Guns. It Wants to Control Your 3D Printer
uk.pcmag.com
The Government Doesn’t Just Want to Ban Ghost Guns. It Wants to Control Your 3D Printer
New laws are targeting not just 3D-printed weapons, but the digital files, platforms, and machines that create them, raising questions about innovation and who decides what can be made. As a longtime...
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 06/05/2026
Why People Are Actually So Anxious About Attention - The Atlantic
theatlantic.com
Why People Are Actually So Anxious About Attention
The panic isn’t just about spans that seem too short.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 28/04/2026
‘They’re supposed to be handmade’: zine creators fight to resist AI influence | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian
theguardian.com
‘They’re supposed to be handmade’: zine creators fight to resist AI influence
Artists and writers argue scrappy nature of self-published booklets is incompatible with artificial intelligence
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 28/04/2026
AI is replacing creativity with 'average' - Fast Company
fastcompany.com
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 28/04/2026
You’d better start paying attention to the manosphere. You’re living in it
theconversation.com
You’d better start paying attention to the manosphere. You’re living in it
Since rising to public prominence, the manosphere has been treated as if it’s just a niche corner of the internet. But those days are long gone.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 28/04/2026
I looked into how AI chatbots respond to emotions — and what I found out about the ‘ELIZA effect’ completely changed how I think about using them | TechRadar
techradar.com
Psychologists warned about the ‘ELIZA effect’ decades ago — now modern AI is amplifying it in ways that feel surprisingly personal
AI doesn’t just want your eyeballs, it wants your emotions
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 27/04/2026
The Man Behind AlphaGo Thinks AI Is Taking the Wrong Path | WIRED
wired.com
The Man Behind AlphaGo Thinks AI Is Taking the Wrong Path
David Silver has a new billion-dollar company that aims to build AI “superlearners.”
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 24/04/2026
The Men Behind Your Favorite AI Gay Thirst Traps | WIRED
wired.com
The Men Behind Your Favorite AI Gay Thirst Traps
A viral red carpet moment shone light on a group of hunky Instagram influencers—and the followers who are too horny to care that they’re not real.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 22/04/2026
Concern Grows That AI Is Damaging Users' Cognitive Abilities
futurism.com
Concern Grows That AI Is Damaging Users' Cognitive Abilities
The widespread use of AI chatbots are allowing us to offload much of our thinking, slowly deteriorating our cognitive skills.
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Critical Digital Media @digital.therourke.net · 20/04/2026
Beyond the UK and US manosphere lies a deeper, darker global problem | UK news | The Guardian
theguardian.com
Beyond the UK and US manosphere lies a deeper, darker global problem
In this week’s newsletter: the rise of misogyny around the world; the Sudan war enters its fourth year; and a key vote on slave trade reparations
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