AIpocalypse
Timeless stories from our 174-year archive handpicked to add context to the news of the day.
Resisting Artificial Intelligence
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Read Benjamín Labatut and Laurent Dubreuil’s essays on AI in our current issue, then explore the Harper’s archive for more on man vs. machine.
Read “The Gods of Logic” by Benjamín Labatut
Read “Metal Machine Music” by Laurent Dubreuil
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“Automatic computers are already having a profound effect in many sectors of science and technology. Ultimately, they may shake modern society to its foundations.”
Read “Electronic Calculators: Brainless but Bright” by Leonard Engel
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On how computer science redefines “life.”
Read “Programming the Post-Human” by Ellen Ullman
Juneteenth
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A republication of Frederick Douglass’ 1850 letter.
Read “To the Editor of the London Times”
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James Baldwin’s classic essay tracing white supremacist ideology.
Read “A Stranger in the Village”
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1619, 1776, and the politics of the past.
Read “History as End” by Matthew Karp
Putin in Pyongyang
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“To say that the DPRK is a singular and unpredictable country would be to put it mildly.”
Read “In the Land of the Dear Leader” by Orville Schell
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A forum taking stock of our nuclear present.
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On the increasingly direct road to armageddon.
Read “How to Start a Nuclear War” by Andrew Cockburn
Papal Problems
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A close look at the then-new Pope’s image.
Read “Francis and the Nuns” by Mary Gordon
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Things for which Roman Catholic popes have apologized.
Read “The Sins of the Fathers”
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“There was joy at Rome in the year 1513, for Pope Julius II was dead.”
Read “Leo and Luther” by Eugene Lawrence