Technology
In Toronto, Google’s Attempt to Privatize Government Fails—For Now
Sidewalk Labs would have turned a large plot of Toronto’s public land into a private lab for data collection. Cities need better digital governance to protect against such attempts.
COVID-19 Crisis Capitalism Comes to Real Estate
Proptech is leading to new forms of housing injustice in ways that increase the power of landlords and further disempower tenants and those seeking shelter.
How Science Shapes Policy in the COVID-19 Crisis
Pandemic response is not a simple matter of listening to the science, as scientists themselves disagree. In this ongoing series, leading researchers debate how to transform knowledge into action.
Alone Against the Virus
Decades of neoliberal austerity will make it harder to fight the pandemic. We must rebuild our social safety net and forge a New Deal for public health.
The Robots Are Coming
Rumors of thinking robots are greatly exaggerated. Still, we cannot leave decisions about even lesser AI in the hands of those who stand to profit from its use.
Science Hasn’t Refuted Free Will
A growing chorus says that science has shown free will to be an illusion. But it actually has offered arguments in its favor.
Science for Sale
Using a variety of ploys to manufacture doubt, a whole industry of science-for-hire experts helps corporations put profits over public health and safety.
Technology Can’t Fix Algorithmic Injustice
We need greater democratic oversight of AI not just from developers and designers, but from all members of society.
What Is Medicine For?
In place of the hype over personalized medicine, we need a more sober evaluation of the meaning of health and health care.
AI’s Human Problem
Two new books about machine creativity mostly reveal how little appreciation we still have for the full range of human creativity.
What the Health Care Debate Still Gets Wrong
Contrary to the Obama administration, U.S. health care spending isn’t high because Americans use too much medicine. The real culprit is our fragmented and privatized system.
The Why of the World
Allured by the promise of Big Data, science has shortchanged causal explanation in favor of data-driven prediction. But ultimately we must ask why.
Is There a Human Blueprint?
A revival of the “nature vs. nurture” debate about what makes people different from one another.
A World of Electric Children
Science fiction author Ted Chiang wrote the story for the Academy Award–winning film Arrival. Now his new collection of short stories gives us further glimpses of possible futures.
Who’s Your Daddy?
Despite promising a golden age of certainty, DNA-based paternity science has failed to settle the meaning of fatherhood.
Black Resistance in Louisiana’s Cancer Alley
In Revilletown, which was founded by freed slaves, a petrochemical company has seized ownership of an ancestral cemetery. But an attack on the dead is an attack on the living.
Democracy’s Dilemma
How can democratic societies protect—and protect themselves from—the free flow of digital information?
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