© Future / Lance Ulanoff
It's long been the stuff of science fiction: humans achieving immortality by uploading their consciousness into a silicon virtual paradise, ruled over by a benevolent super-intelligent AI. Or maybe one dreams of leaving a dying Earth to colonize Mars or other distant planets. It's a tantalizing visionary future that has been embraced by tech billionaires in particular. But is that future truly the utopian ideal, or something potentially darker? And are those goals even scientifically feasible?
These are the kinds of questions astrophysicist and science journalist Adam Becker poses in his new book, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity. Becker's widely praised first book, What Is Real?, focused on competing interpretations of quantum mechanics and questioned the long dominance of the so-called Copenhagen interpretation championed by Niels Bohr, among other luminaries. This time around, he's tackling Silicon Valley's far-reaching ideas about the future, which have moved out of online subcultures and into mainstream culture, including our political discourse.
"It seemed like it was only going to become more relevant and someone needed to speak out about it, and I didn't see enough people connecting the dots in a way that looked right to me," Becker told Ars. "One current critique of Silicon Valley is that they moved fast and broke democracy and institutional norms. That's true. Another is that they're contemptuous of government, and I think that's true, too. But there wasn't much critique of their visions of the future, maybe because not enough people realized they meant it. Even among Silicon Valley critics, there was this idea that at the very least, you could trust that the statements they made about science and technology were true because they were experts in science and technology. That's not the case."
© Apple TV+
It only took five years, but Netflix has finally locked in its plan to premiere The Old Guard’s long awaited sequel.
Today, Netflix announced that director Victoria Mahoney’s (You, Lovecraft Country) The Old Guard 2 is slated to debut on July 2nd. Rather than dropping a trailer, Netflix released a handful of new stills from the film, and teased some of its plot details. Set some time after the first movie, The Old Guard 2 continues the story of previously-immortal warrior Andy (Charlize Theron) and her team of expert soldiers who have all been blessed / cursed with never ending lives.
With Quynh (Veronica Ngô), another immortal, now free from her underwater prison and on the hunt for revenge, Andy and her teammates Nile (KiKi Layne), Joe (Marwan Kenzari), Nicky (Luca Marinelli) have no choice but to fight one of their own. Because they can both die, the situation’s particularly dangerous for Andy and ex CIA operative James Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor). But with Tuah (Henry Golding) potentially being on the verge of discovering how the groups’ healing powers work, Andy might not be spending all that much time as a regular woman.
In an interview with Netflix’s Tudum blog, Theron teased that, in addition to bringing Uma Thurman into the fold, the sequel will feature a little something for anyone who was a fan of the first film or the original graphic novel by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández.
“Andy and her warriors are back with a renewed sense of purpose,” Theron said. “The stakes are even higher now that Andy is mortal and can die — but that certainly won’t keep her out of the action.”
Thereâs a famous two-decade-old Paris Review interview with Haruki Murakami in which he, one of the worldâs most celebrated novelists, details his daily routine. He wakes up at 4AM, works for five hours, goes for a run, reads, goes to bed, and then repeats it all over again. The rigor and repetition are the point.
I am not Haruki Murakami.
In addition to my work at The Verge, I write novels â my second one is out this week â and while I admire Murakamiâs commitment to an immovable schedule, Iâve found that I produce my best work when Iâm constantly rethinking routines, processes, and, mostly, how Iâm writing. In the modern age, that means what software Iâm using.
What I am about to describe will be a nightmare to anyone who likes all of their tools to work harmoniously. All of these apps are disconnected and do not interoperate with each other in any way. Many of the things they do are redundant and overlap. I suppose this process is quite the opposite of frictionless â but thatâs precisely the point. Iâm not sure I believe that ambitious creative work is borne from a perfectly efficient workflow.
This is, instead, a journey of moving the work through d …
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