Machinesociety
Publishing · Digital Media
Overview
Cyberpunk non-fiction: artificial intelligence, AI glasses, spatial computing, augmented reality, virtual reality, synthetic media, extended reality, mixed reality and the future of work. Click to read Machine Society, by Mike Elgan, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.
News
OpenAI built a safer ChatGPT, just not for you
SILICON VALLEY, CALIFORNIA (AUGUST 18, 2026) - OpenAI launched a teen version of ChatGPT today. Here's why the move is an admission not only that the company is cynically serving toxic, harmful features to adults, but that it can switch them off at will a
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AI 'productivity pollution': the hidden tax on everyone
SILICON VALLEY, CALIFORNIA (AUGUST 12, 2026) - Early refrigerators ran on ammonia, methyl chloride, and sulfur dioxide. These gases were toxic, flammable, and deadly to families that owned refrigerators. So in 1928, Thomas Midgley Jr. solved the problem b
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Apple's war on OpenAI is really about who owns the Attachment Economy
SILICON VALLEY, CALIFORNIA (AUGUST 8, 2026) - Apple is suing OpenAI, saying the company "has been stealing Apple's trade secrets and confidential information" and that it's using these "stolen trade secrets" as the foundation of its "nascent hardware busi
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The Friend AI Pendant is not a product
SILICON VALLEY, CALIFORNIA (JULY 30, 2026) - A superficial glance at the Friend AI Pendant suggests another entry in the burgeoning AI hardware market. It's a wearable that gives you a virtual "friend" to confide in and maintain a relationship with. A sup
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If AI companies avoid AI slop, shouldn't we?
SILICON VALLEY, CALIFORNIA (JULY 23, 2026) - 404 Media reported recently that AI companies are buying pre-AI books for training AI. One major source for book data is a company called ISBNdb, which started out as a source of book metadata for libraries and
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How AI makes people confidently wrong
SILICON VALLEY, CALIFORNIA (JULY 20, 2026) - New research published last week reveals the mechanism behind the workplace pandemic of people who are overconfident and underqualified. The mechanism is fluency-based substitution: The ready availability of a
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Amazon invents the Attachment Economy bait-and-switch
SILICON VALLEY, CALIFORNIA (JULY 18, 2026) - In the early days of Amazon, the company innovated in many ways. Some of those innovations were ethical and beneficial, such as their recommendation engine that could somehow guess exactly which books you would
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Why "maxxing" is made for social media and terrible for real life
It all began with "looksmaxxing," the practice of young men spending all their time mewing and chewing gum to enhance the jawline, protein-loading, hairstyling, teeth whitening, tanning, taking steroids, getting plastic surgery and practicing at-home faci
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OpenAI's first hardware device will be a portable desktop robot
SILICON VALLEY, CALIFORNIA (JULY 14, 2026) - OpenAI is working on a portable home smart speaker with robotic movement and a "personality," according to a report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The device won't have a screen. The AI will essentially be a voice
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