Ethan Zuckerman’s online home, since 2003
Academic summers always start with a plan. This is the summer I m going to start three new lines of research, writing key bits of code myself. It s the summer I publish those two papers I ve had in draft. It s the summer I m going to step away from the screen and finish a dozen pending house Read More The Eyes Have Had It: A (Mental) Health Update from the Summer of Sue The post The Eyes Have Had…
I write a monthly column for Prospect Magazine in the UK, covering the social implications of information technology. This month s column is about how AI has been transforming programming, and how as an educator, I am worried about our ability to keep teaching computational thinking , something that s essential for keeping AIs from going off the Read More Recent Writing, as of March 2026 The post…
Howard French is one of the leading journalists and thinkers about Africa s role in the world, and the attention the world does and doesn t pay to the continent s people and potential. He s also a UMass Amherst graduate, and is on campus this week, talking about his new book, The Second Emancipation , about pan-Africanism, Kwame Nkrumah Read More Howard French: The Second Emancipation The post…
I m teaching two classes at UMass Amherst this spring. One is the latest incarnation of my Fixing Social Media class, which I launched late in my time at MIT and brought with me to UMass. It s becoming Fixing Platform Power as we re expanding our focus from social media to include AI chatbots and generative tools. Read More Where Should We Live a new class on cities, migration and climate change…
When people talk about the beauty of the early web before the Internet was a group of five websites, each consisting of screenshots of text from the other four they re often talking about reference sites like Wikipedia, remarkable collections of information compiled by a mix of the knowledgeable, the obsessive and the strange Read More Listening to All the Music The post Listening to All the Music…
Ny friend Joachim Wiewiura invited me to give the inaugural talk at the Center for the Philosophy of AI (CPAI) at the University of Copenhagen this past Tuesday. It felt like a good opportunity to go out on a limb and explore a line of thinking I ve been exploring this past semester with one of Read More Gramsci s Nightmare: AI, Platform Power and the Automation of Cultural Hegemony The post…
I m at BU today for a conference hosted by MISI the Center for Media Innovation Social Impact at BU, a new center led by my friend Eric Gordon. The topic of the day is Communicating Climate , a topic that feels pressing given not only the climate skepticism of the Trump administration, but also Read More How do we communicate about climate without shaming audiences? The post How do we communicate…
Gary Marcus, professor emeritus on psychology and neuroscience at NYU, closes the Govern or be Governed conference in conversation with Murad Hemmadi. Hemmadi begins by asking Marcus what characteristics of a bubble he sees in current AI enthusiasm. Marcus thinks that ChatGPT and others have gotten a free ride. We looked at these systems and Read More Govern or Be Governed: Gary Marcus on Shorting…
Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, blogger and activist, who is the very best form of troublemaker. He s got a new book out on Enshitification, and I suspect everyone was expecting a talk on the book. Nope. In a frenetic and passionate talk, Cory tells us that Donald Trump is both a dark cloud Read More Cory Doctorow on the weird upside of the Trump presidency The post Cory Doctorow on the…
Justin Hendrix of Tech Policy Press asks Miles Taylor, former Chief of Staff of the US Department of Homeland Security, about President Trump s attacks on him as part of his revenge tour . Taylor invites us to take a selfie with him if we d like a trip to federal prison. He suggests that simply being named Read More Govern or Be Governed: Donald Trump Will Seek an Unconstitutional Third Term The…