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Baratunde Thurston

A best-selling author, podcast and television host, and cultural critic focused on the intersection of race, tech, democracy, and climate change in America.

THE LATEST ARTICLES
NEWSLETTERS
Tristan Harris, co-founder and executive director of the Center for Humane Technology.
SILICON VALLEY • May 29, 2023
The Case for (Temporarily) Unplugging A.I.
When I first heard calls for a pause on the development of advanced A.I., I was skeptical of the benefits. Now, I fear we are running out of time.
Tim Scott relies on the coded notion of “personal responsibility” to shift the burden of society’s failures onto the individual.
WASHINGTON • May 29, 2023
Tim Scott’s Audience of One
A donor class sensation, Scott perpetuates a fantasy about American self-reliance that tells you everything about his candidacy.
Writer, show creator, and WGA Negotiating Committee member Adam Conover shared a summary of the union’s proposals regarding limits on how artificial intelligence could be used.
HOLLYWOOD • May 14, 2023
Hollywood’s A.I. Art Heist Problem
News and notes on an industry reckoning with a creative and technological revolution.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres recently said, “Humanity is on thin ice, and that ice is melting fast. Our world needs climate action on all fronts—everything, everywhere, all at once.”
SILICON VALLEY • April 30, 2023
The Case for Climate Optimism
Herewith, a bottom-up view of the progress we’ve made, and may continue to make, to combat global warming—which centers, of course, on our honesty over the severity of the challenges and using technology to organize.
Rep. Justin Pearson of Memphis acknowledges supporters after being expelled from the state legislature on April 6, 2023 in Nashville, Tennessee.
WASHINGTON • April 16, 2023
Civil Unraveling in the Deep South
Reflections from Arkansas on the expulsion of Black legislators, the collapse of bipartisanship, and the possibility of a shared future.
In defending his new pay-for-verification scheme, Twitter C.E.O. Elon Musk offered some absurd First Amendment-baiting pablum.
SILICON VALLEY • April 2, 2023
Elon’s Blue Period
Marshall McLuhan famously said the medium was the message. Turns out he was only scratching the surface: social media is the message, and maybe it shouldn’t be.
SILICON VALLEY • March 19, 2023
A.I., SVB & “Woke” Finance Fears
Reflections on the new ChatGPT, “doughnut economics,” D.E.I. backlash, and what the right got wrong about Silicon Valley Bank.
OpenAI C.E.O. Sam Altman, announcing ChatGPT’s integration with Microsoft Bing.
SILICON VALLEY • March 5, 2023
Me, Myself, & A.I.
Billions of dollars are rushing into another high-tech hype cycle, this time around ChatGPT and other large language models. This time, it’s different.
“Yes, I want enlightenment for white people. I just don’t want my own growth to depend on it,” Thurston writes.
WASHINGTON • February 19, 2023
The Black Liberation Paradox
Modern emancipation needs to be more than a function of liberating white minds. Black people also need to find joy on our own terms. What’s the point of saying “Black Lives Matter” if that life is defined solely by struggle?
Rev. Al Sharpton alongside RowVaughn Wells and her husband, Rodney Wells, at the funeral of their 29 year-old Tyre Nichols.
WASHINGTON • February 5, 2023
Thoughts & Tears for Tyre
We are overdosing on fear in America. The answer lies in community, an openness to new forms of policing, a new conception of justice, and love.
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