Ruby

What feel-good surveillance has cost us

Everyone loves a feel-good moment. I am as susceptible to a good ‘hopecore’ video as the next person; relishing these reminders that people are normally good to one another as a reprieve from hundreds of posts asserting the opposite. I have also experienced my fair share of feel-good moments that

Sam Altman's Face on Electric Sheep

The lost privilege of an ephemeral childhood

The privilege of an offline (or mostly offline) childhood is well acknowledged, including on this website. Less so is what we lost when the current social media companies cemented their place in history and the first platform you started using at 12 survived long enough for you to still be

What’s the plan if everything isn’t over?

In early 2025, my blissfully ignorant friends started asking for a download of everything I knew about the tech billionaires present at Trump’s inauguration. They knew a few of their names and recognised some of the companies they founded but were broadly sheltered from their histories and their brain

If I'm a luddite, why am I still here?

Despite the impression the name of this website may give you - I love the internet. It is directly linked to some of the best things in my life from the best friend that I met online 16 years ago to my chosen profession. I still believe in its potential

AI is the friend that will never die

In 2025, we have no right to be surprised by the response to the GPT-5 release or the existence of forums like r/myboyfriendisAI. We have known for years that one of the primary uses for consumer LLMs was the promise of a friend that would never die. It follows

You have turned your imagination into an unskippable ad

Why would I automate away my one wild and precious life?

“today is the start of a world where you never have to think again”. That was the start of a tweet by the founder of Cluely, an AI App that promises to let you “cheat on everything”. The tweet was meant to be a sales pitch. To me, it seemed