They are fouling our information spaces with false facts, deepfake videos, ersatz art, invented sources, and bot imposters—the fake increasingly difficult to distinguish from the real. The post The Lie of AI first appeared on James Gleick.

What if the future is as real as the past? Physicists have been suggesting as much since Einstein. It’s all just the space-time continuum. “So in the future, the sister of the past,” thinks young Stephen Dedalus in Ulysses, “I may see myself as I sit here now but by reflection from that which then I shall be.” Twisty! What if you received knowledge of your own tragic future—as a gift, or perhaps a curse? The post Remembering the Future first appeared on James Gleick.

A neuroscientist and geneticist sets out to rescue the beleaguered concept from its many deniers—including some famous physicists. “We make decisions, we choose, we act. These are the fundamental truths of our existence and absolutely the most basic phenomenology of our lives. If science seems to be suggesting otherwise, the correct response is not to throw our hands up …" Is he right? The post Free Will—Yea or Nay? first appeared on James Gleick.

With the entity formerly known as Twitter vanishing in the rearview mirror, here are two articles from the early days, when we wondered what it was and what it might become. A global conversation? A mosaic of communities and interests? Perhaps you remember. The post Twitter, We Hardly Knew Ye first appeared on James Gleick.

If you could choose one superpower—to fly, or to be invisible—which would you pick? If you were invisible, what would you do? Dreams of invisibility in a world of ubiquitous surveillance. The post Now You See Me, Now You Don’t first appeared on James Gleick.

Stephen Hawking surrounded himself with a cloud of myth, made himself into a commercial product and an international brand. The celebrity eclipsed the scientist. There’s a scientific story to tell, and most of Hawking’s later life served to conceal it. The post Hawking Stephen Hawking first appeared on James Gleick.

First it was a heavenly body—a beacon, or a world, a place where no one could possibly go. Then, from 1969 to 1972, twelve people landed there in spaceships. On behalf of all humanity, they said. Is it time to go back? The post Moon Fever first appeared on James Gleick.

Your favorite time traveler may be missing from my chronicle, _Time Travel: A History_. I'm sorry about that. Some readers are already pointing out the omissions. Consider the case of Alley Oop. The post Oop: Time Travelers Missing from My Book Time Travel first appeared on James Gleick.

The time has come to deep-six not just Daylight Saving Time but the whole jury-rigged scheme of time zones that has ruled the world’s clocks for the last century and a half. The post Time for Earth Time first appeared on James Gleick.

What was the "most characteristic feature of the thought" of the early 20th century? The post The Discovery of Time first appeared on James Gleick.

Ben Lerner's appreciation for "Chris Marker, whose name was not 'Chris Marker' ... " The post Remembering “Chris Marker” first appeared on James Gleick.