Technology

In this essay, Talbot Brewer argues that our understanding of the nature of words and their relationship to human nature is “teetering” due to artificial intelligence chatbot systems and large language models (LLMs). (42 minutes)

In this lecture, Brad East builds a case for why he believes digital technology is the greatest threat facing American Christians today. (57 minutes)

FROM VOL. 150 Eric Jacobsen argues that the emblematic items of the car windshield, the television, and the cell phone — “three pieces of glass” —have led to alienation from people and the places where we live. (22 minutes)

Christine Rosen argues that we must reckon with serious moral and ethical questions raised by the acceleration of "artificial intelligence" into almost every area of life. (31 minutes)

In this lecture, D. C. Schindler argues that misology — hatred for reason and contempt for language — is a deep cause of our current cultural crisis. (56 minutes)

FEATURED GUESTS: Nicholas Carr, Thomas Ward, Joseph Stuart, Steven Knepper, Robert Wyllie, Ephraim Radner, and Andrew Willard Jones

Steven Knepper and Robert Wyllie discuss philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s thought on Nietzsche and on the effects of digital media on concepts of freedom, desire, and receptivity to others. (14 minutes)

Josef Pieper and Marc Barnes on how chatbots pervert the nature of conversation

Nicholas Carr on how technology has transformed our understanding of progress (and people)

Nicholas Carr on the numbing effect of technology

Nicholas Carr encourages us to consider how automation technologies impact our ability to engage with the world and whether — like a good tool — they present a more inviting world or close us off from that world. (30 minutes)

Jeanne Schindler advocates for a return to an understanding and prioritizing of sensory experience — real engagement with the real world — as foundational to learning and living. (35 minutes)

FROM VOL. 141 Literary and media scholar Grant Wythoff talks about the “father of science fiction,” Hugo Gernsback. (26 minutes)

John Durham Peters discusses the history of the idea of communication, saying that our hopes are too high when we believe that the solution to social discord is just better communication. (49 minutes)

FROM VOL. 94 Mark Bauerlein talks about the ways of learning and living practiced by contemporary youth, how they impact the acquisition and use of knowledge and form intellectual habits, and what this means for the future of our society. (16 minutes)

Teacher and chaplain Mark Perkins describes forms of formation that take the body seriously 50 minutes

Jeffrey Bilbro on the persistence of techno-utopianism

Joseph Minich on how the ubiquity of technology makes atheism entirely plausible

Nicholas Carr considers how automation technologies impact our ability to engage with the world. (66 minutes)

In this essay, Michael Hanby unpacks the summons of Laudato si’ to an ecological way of life based on a proper understanding of creation in its fullness and integrity. (57 minutes)