Opinion Tech Public Interest - The Boston Globe

Masego Morgan, an influencer in South Africa who promotes sustainable fashion online, at a vintage shop.

Being an influencer is harder than it looks

Emily Hund investigates how the shifting definition of “authenticity” is the basis of a $16 billion industry. 3:00 a.m.

ChatGPT represents a leap forward in the capacity of machines to scour the vast volumes of text written by humans that exists on the Internet, and to infer relationships and knowledge to create original content — from pithy responses to your questions, to short stories in the style of Chekhov, to compelling undergraduate philosophy essays.

Are you for real? The most urgent question with artificial intelligence as a new interlocutor.

It’s ChatGPT’s fluency and even eloquence that poses its most imminent threat — it’s difficult to detect mistakes and falsehoods in text that reads like credible news. 3:00 a.m.

The annual migration of wildebeest in Tanzania, a process that began long before humans existed.

Pondering a world without humans

Antihumanists and transhumanists see technology in totally different ways, but some of them come to the same conclusion: Homo sapiens’ time may be up. 1:16 p.m.

ChatGPT taught me something powerful about human collaboration

A system that produces plausible paragraphs can chat — but will it ever be able to tell you what you really need to hear? 3:00 a.m.

A badge of the US flag is seen on the uniform of a US soldier as she stands near tanks at the US Army military training base in Grafenwoehr in Germnay in July.

Europe is facing a Russian-imposed energy crisis and US military bases there could be affected

The Biden administration can revisit US agreements with host nations to ensure that the US military supports and participates in the dramatic energy transitions underway across the continent. 12:13 p.m.

Ideas

AI can detect signs of depression. Should we let it?

New apps promise to detect when you’re feeling blue and offer some assistance. But they still have to prove that the benefits of sharing sensitive data outweigh any drawbacks. 12:56 p.m.