Latest articles Friday March 26, 2021

1. Featured Story: Pandemic pain is fueling robo-realism

   Financial Times columnist Sarah O’Connor recently wrote the type of humility-driven reflection I wish pervaded tech coverage. She begins “Why I was wrong to be optimistic about robots” with an about-face confession that won’t surprise anyone steeped in political economy, but nevertheless is a refreshingly honest dose of fourth estate realism.

   By Evan Selinger

1. Parler users are still trying to convince everyone they're leaving Twitter

   Since the U.S. election, Parler downloads have skyrocketed as millions of users have signed up to escape a perceived “anti-conservative” bias among mainstream social media platforms.

   By Aimee Pearcy

   From the Twitter desk

2. AI can now produce passable parody song lyrics

   The coronavirus pandemic has caused many outbursts of creativity, but few have the potential to be as meaningful as Mark O. Riedl’s lockdown project. The academic at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s school of interactive computing has spent the last several long months producing an artificial intelligence system that’s able to produce lyrics for parody songs, similar to those produced by Weird Al Yankovic.

   By Chris Stokel-Walker

   From the Culture desk