Author: Nathan
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Worker-Friendly Media cohort
Are you building a cooperative newsroom or media project? Apply to be part of Start.coop’s Accelerator for Worker-Friendly Media, including financial and technical support, plus a week with my lab here in Boulder. Learn more here: https://www.start.coop/accelerator
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Humanity without superiority
I have had far too many conversations lately, and perhaps so have you, in which my interlocutor confidently or desperately attempts to assert what really, truly, and finally sets us humans apart from the increasingly clever and voluble machines. I’ve heard, for instance, that our value lies in our capacity for intention, or consciousness, or…
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Naim Aburradi on VR and genocide
Listen! My lab’s radio show this month features the extraordinary Dr. Naim Aburradi. He and his friends have risked their safety to document life in Gaza, with a 360-degree camera, before and since the ongoing genocide: https://lookslikenew.net/podcast/how-can-vr-tell-the-story-of-genocide/ Gaza is so, so much more than a headline and a plume of smoke.
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A case for AI taboos
We probably all know the person, and maybe it is ourselves, who has inundated themselves in AI use, and say they are fully aware of all the dangers, but are so, so careful as to not fall into such traps themselves. They know AI can incline us to inhibit thinking, poison our relationships, and evade…
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An inference cooperative for academic AI
Universities, like other institutions, are currently being confronted with a dilemma: embrace the AI tools currently available from big-name tech companies, and be part of the future, or reject the miraculous machines and stick your head in the sand. This dilemma is a false one, on several counts. It is far from clear what role…
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Three questions on AI for you, from Pope Leo
Tonight at my church we had a discussion about Pope Leo’s recent encyclical on AI and human dignity. It was packed, and very meaningful to hear people from so many walks of life reflect together on this challenge we’re all facing. Afterward, one of the elders asked if I could write down one of the…
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Toward a durable writing stack
I have benefited over the years from others who have documented their writing setups, and so I feel some obligation to pay the favor forward by doing so with my own. The stack I’ll describe here is one I’ve been iterating on for about twenty years, starting from when I began discovering the pleasures of…
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Magnifica Humanitas takes
Compendium of my Magnifica Humanitas takes: The Dueling A.I. Apocalypses—and What Pope Leo Has to Say about Both https://www.americamagazine.org/short-take/2026/05/29/the-dueling-a-i-apocalypses-and-what-pope-leo-has-to-say-about-both/ Pope Leo XIV Compares AI to the Industrial Revolution—as New Alternatives to Big AI Firms Take Shape https://theconversation.com/pope-leo-xiv-compares-ai-to-the-industrial-revolution-as-new-alternatives-to-big-ai-firms-take-shape-283249 Three Questions on AI for You, from Pope Leo https://nathanschneider.info/2026/06/three-questions-on-ai-for-you-from-pope-leo/
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Pope Leo and the AI apocalypses
New in America, I argue that a central thread of Pope Leo’s encyclical is to counter the secular apocalypses that have spread in AI culture: https://www.americamagazine.org/short-take/2026/05/29/the-dueling-a-i-apocalypses-and-what-pope-leo-has-to-say-about-both/
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Deadline extended: “Why We Come Together”
Deadline extended to May 30! Submit your abstracts for “Why We Come Together: Media, Religion, and Community” and come visit us in Boulder this October, along with Fred Moten, Jen Deerinwater, and more: https://www.colorado.edu/cmrc/2026/03/26/why-we-come-together-media-religion-and-community