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Baratunde Thurston

A best-selling author, Emmy-nominated television host, producer, podcaster, and cultural critic focused on the intersection of technology, democracy, race, and climate change in America.

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NEWSLETTERS
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.
The Duke And Duchess Of Sussex Attend Mountbatten Music Festival
HOLLYWOOD • January 22, 2023
Harry & Meghan in History
Despite my best efforts to not care about the British royal family, I’ve found myself entranced by the Sussexes’ journey of racial awakening, moved by their historical traumas, and transformed by their exile.
tiktok
SILICON VALLEY • January 8, 2023
TikTok on the Clock
What happens to the creator economy if the world’s most important new social platform is banned in the United States? We may be about to find out.
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