Media and machines ⊗ We need usable futures ⊗ The great language flattening

Media and machines

This article by Anu Atluru explores the profound fusion of media and technology, which now defines our reality and shapes human attention. I feel like the “duality of the era” status she (I wrote “he” in the newsletter, apologies Anu!) gives this idea at the beginning might be overblown, or at least historically inaccurate, but the rest of the argument presents a valuable analysis of our current technological moment.

She argues that we’re experiencing a “media-machine singularity” where previously distinct domains—media (which controls attention) and machines (which master logic)—have collapsed into a single self-reinforcing system. This fusion, which began with social networks and has accelerated with AI, creates an environment where every interaction simultaneously serves as both content and infrastructure.

AI then represents the fullest expression of this fusion, with language models consuming media to produce more media in a self-perpetuating loop. The distinction between building and writing is disappearing as natural language becomes both interface and infrastructure. We’re no longer designing just products but “cognitive environments” that shape what people perceive and believe.

Even capital has adapted to this reality, with venture funds operating like media companies and founders needing to master storytelling alongside technical skills. Organizations must now function as “half-media, half-machine” to survive, with “attention guys” becoming as valuable as engineers.

Atluru concludes with ethical concerns about this fusion, noting that these systems optimize for transmission rather than truth. Our challenge is not just “not just building what spreads, but what matters”—feeding the machine “something better than its own reflex.” (Via The Nexialist #0224.)

Every engineering decision is now a cultural act. Every narrative choice carries technical consequence. The stakes have risen beyond business or tech to configuring the operating system of human attention itself. […]

The irony is that as soon as anything is observed or acknowledged, it’ll be modeled. It’s the inverse of the “tree falls in forest” parable — not whether it happened unseen, but whether it still matters once seen by all. […]

The renaissance mind returns not as dilettante but as armed philosopher, wielding systems fluency and cultural intelligence equally. The requisites: IQ, EQ, agency, taste — and a will to brute-force your way into the frame. The media-machine singularity will give us some of the most iconic, hybrid artists we’ve seen.

We need usable futures

Henry Farrell discusses the urgent need for “usable futures” in American politics, using Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s book, Abundance as one such future. In his view, the book has the potential to inspire a vision of an attractive and abundant future rather than one of scarcity. He explains that much more becomes politically possible when we are disagreeing over how to get to an attractive future, than when we are struggling to ensure that we are as close to the top of the pile as possible in a horrible one.

Farrell frames abundance as that potential common denominator that could transform political discourse from zero-sum competition in a declining system to productive disagreement about achieving a better future for all. Judging by some critiques of the book, I’m not sure that’s the right future to pick, but the basic concept aligns with the general call to “imagine better futures,” this time from a more politically savvy angle.

Another non-obvious thing is that the Torment Nexus is a nearly inevitable side effect of intellectual success. When an author sells an idea to the the world, people don’t just download the idea into their heads, just as the author conceived it. They pick it up because it can be adapted for their own purposes, or react against it because it seems to threaten something that they care about. […]

That is why I think that abundance is important as a goal. We need to aim towards some version of abundance to escape the trap we’re in. That too, is why I think that disagreement about how to reach that goal over the next couple of years is valuable.

The great language flattening

Victoria Turk explores how AI, particularly generative tools like ChatGPT, is influencing human communication. Research shows that exposure to AI-generated text can lead people to adopt a more verbose and standardized writing style, potentially diminishing the nuances of cultural expressions. As AI tools become more integrated into everyday communication, there may be a counter movement where individuals embrace their unique writing styles as a form of defiance.

I picked this one, but it’s actually just one of a growing collection of trends and research on the effects of AI on language. One of these is the so-called “ChatGPT hyphen.” Since I’ve been using em dashes without spaces for over ten years, I dislike this “finding.”

• Gen Z is calling em dashes “ChatGPT Hyphens” and people are mad
• Is this a ChatGPT Hyphen — or just good writing?
• Some think the em dash is a ‘ChatGPT hyphen.’ Writers disagree.
• The algorithm has adopted our punctuation. So we made our own. (The Am Dash)

Writing on the internet is now more likely than even a year or two ago to be a blended product—the result of a human using AI somewhere in the drafting or refining phase while making subtle tweaks themselves. “And so that might be a way for patterns to get laundered, in effect.” […]

“Essentially, we’ve come up with a protocol where the machines are using flowery, formal language to send very long versions of very short, encapsulated messages that the humans are using.” […]

Philip Seargeant, an applied linguist at the Open University in the U.K., told me that when students use AI tools inappropriately, their work reads a little too perfect, “but in a very bland and uninteresting way.” Kirby says that AI text lacks the errors or awkwardness he’d expect in student essays and has an “uncanny valley” feel. “It does have that kind of feeling [that] there’s nothing behind the eyes.”

§ Do data centres dream of electric pasture?. “Despite being scraped and trawled to create private products, digital commons do nonetheless subsist. The challenge is creating sufficient incentives to maintain them when derivative entities are given huge legal and financial backing. As our medieval forbears might attest, it is hard to compete with something that enjoys unopposed reign over once shared space.”

Futures, Fictions & Fabulations

• Futures thinking and strategic foresight in action: Insights from the global south. “This joint report by the UN Futures Lab/Global Hub and the International Science Council (ISC) explores this question by highlighting how countries across the Global South are applying futures thinking and strategic foresight in real-world contexts – from food security and climate resilience to digital governance and social protection.”
• A matter of choice: People and possibilities in the age of AI. “Instead of trying vainly to predict what will happen, this year’s Human Development Report asks what choices can be made so that new development pathways for all countries dot the horizon, helping everyone have a shot at thriving in a world with AI.”
• Not Here, Not Now. New book by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby on “speculative thought, impossibility, and the design imagination.”

Algorithms, Automations & Augmentations

• Wrestling with originality. “In this new episode of Dream Logic, I talk about what this metaphorical grappling with generative AI feels like. I reveal one way in which I shape characters through a term I call hyper collage. And I question what we can really call our own when it comes to art in this emergent medium.”
• This startup has created AI-powered signing avatars for the deaf. “Developed by and for the deaf community, Silence Speaks can accurately translate text into British Sign Language (BSL). There are more than 150,000 BSL users in the UK. The model was trained with datasets covering regional dialects, contextual language, and emotional tone to power an AI-generated avatar that goes beyond simple direct translation to convey intent and emotion.”
• oio.school is back with “another week of design and coding! A chance to work alongside the oio team, crafting future products and interactions with AI and emerging technologies, in the beautiful settings of a villa. No previous skills or experience required.” Applications are now open.

Built, Biosphere & Breakthroughs

• Wooden wind turbine towers reach new heights. “The Gothenburg-based company is using engineered wood to build wind turbine towers, and it recently received design certification for the tallest one to date: 119 meters, matching the height of most onshore wind turbines in operation. The company’s tower can support a 6.4-megawatt turbine.”
• Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer. “The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies. He said that without insurance, which is already being pulled in some places, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments.”
• Urban designs that make cities more family friendly. “A Pulitzer Prize-winning series explores how urban design and architecture affect parents and kids.”

Asides

• The phony physics of Star Wars are a blast. “What scientific things in Star Wars are just not scientific? I'm going to go over some of the more interesting ideas, but don’t get me wrong. I'm using these errors as a way to talk about science, but I don't think they need to be fixed. A more realistic Star Wars would probably be boring.”
• The Roman Colosseum deconstructed: 3D animation reveals the hidden technology that powered Rome’s great arena. Shared for engineering prowess, not as middle-aged white guy fixated on Rome (I’m not). “Take the velarium, a retractable awning consisting of “long strips of fabric wound around drums, which were mounted on a wooden frame and supported by 240 masts fixed into sockets along the amphitheater’s upper cornice.” With each of its 240 strips operated by a separate winch, it required at least as many human operators to deploy or retract at speed”
• The company with the world’s largest aircraft now has a hypersonic rocket plane. “This is the first time anyone in the United States has flown a reusable hypersonic rocket plane since the last flight of the X-15, the iconic rocket-powered aircraft that pushed the envelope of high-altitude, high-speed flight 60 years ago.”