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Who Will You Be After ChatGPT Takes Your Job?

Who Will You Be After ChatGPT Takes Your Job?

My friend was only partly sold. What was the equivalent now, for her?

That’s when I remembered a third Go champion who played AlphaGo but wasn’t included in the documentary. This is Ke Jie. In 2017, months after the Lee match, he was 19 years old and the best player in the world, having beaten Lee in three consecutive championships. Like Fan and Lee, Ke also lost to AlphaGo, after which AlphaGo had no human left to beat.

But Ke’s reaction is, I think, the most interesting and also the most hopeful. Pre-AlphaGo, Ke, a teenager of world-class abilities, was also a world-class brat, famous for bucking Go’s culture of humility. When Ke challenged Lee to a match, for example, he posted a video of himself as a boxer beating up Lee and ostentatiously bragged and baited his opponents. 

In the aftermath of Ke’s defeat by DeepMind’s AI, however, he underwent a remarkable change. On TV appearances since then, he has affected a stance of irony, playfulness, and humility, becoming a much loved crowd-pleaser along the way. Again, looking for lessons, I can’t help but notice Ke’s extreme youth—15 years younger than Lee, 16 years younger than Fan—and wonder if he had less invested in a particular way of valuing and understanding himself. Perhaps he was therefore better able to change how he related to the world on a fundamental level. 

Important to this story, too, is that, unlike Fan, whose pivot to temporary AI research consultant could be seen as a demotion from European Go champion, Ke’s pivot allowed him to remain at the top of the game.

The pivot from “best player in the world at humanity’s most logically complex game” to “comedian” is pretty dramatic, though, and I think the magnitude of that flip reflects the profundity of the changes coming down the pipe. And if Ke Jie has to do that, what does that mean for the rest of us? My hunch is that economic concerns will dominate in the coming years, but assuming that’s solved, where will status reemerge if the core competencies of art, design, science, law, medicine, and engineering are swallowed by GPT-7?

Webb himself thought the human niche would become something closer to judgment, “where the point is that it’s a human making the decision.” For a judge or a politician or a newspaper editor, for example, “we know we could get the AI to do it for us—we could ask it to tell us what to do—but we’d rather have a human do it.”

Again, the vanguard of Go and chess—“solved” by AI two decades earlier—offer us tea leaves to divine if we choose to read them. In these worlds, Ke Jie is not the only high-status genius to pivot as he did; Magnus Carlsen, the world’s best chess player, has in recent years become known for “interesting” gameplay in response to AI creating an indisputable hierarchy of opening moves. Even more heretical, players at much lower skill levels are beginning to overtake the old masters in popularity: The personable and attractive Botez sisters are the second-most-streamed chess players while having ELO ratings nowhere near the world’s best. And Zhan Ying, a Chinese Go player at a skill level considerably below Ke Jie’s, recently dethroned him, briefly, as the most-watched Go player in the world.

If this trend is any indication, we should expect to see softer skills—humor, presence, personality—become the game. In this light, we may already be halfway there without quite realizing it: Perhaps the future belongs to the influencer.

Barsys Smart Coaster Review: Not a Reliable Drinking Buddy

Barsys Smart Coaster Review: Not a Reliable Drinking Buddy

A precision scale is a critical tool to have in the kitchen, so why not the bar, too?

Turns out, lots of reasons. On paper, the Barsys Smart Coaster system isn’t a bad idea. Imagine a digital scale (like the Drop) that’s connected via Bluetooth to an app on your phone that tells you what ingredients to pour into a glass sitting atop it. And that’s exactly how Barsys works. Want to make a margarita? Pour in tequila until the base of the lighted coaster turns green. Then triple sec until you get another green light. Then lime juice. Then simple syrup. For the novice mixologist, all they need to do is wait until the coaster says “when” each time, and the drink is done.

Well, sort of. There are plenty of problems with Barsys in both concept and execution to the point where it doesn’t really work well, even as a novelty item.

First, the Barsys may be a scale, but it doesn’t carry any kind of readout aside from colored lights. The scale starts off white, then gradually becomes more and more blue as you add an ingredient specified by your selected recipe. Finally it flashes and turns green, moving you on to the next ingredient and starting the process over. The problem is that if you don’t know how much of an ingredient you need to pour in (and the app doesn’t tell you during mixing), you can either find yourself adding ingredients by the drop—which takes forever—or sloshing in booze and blowing right past the “stop” notification. If you’re the kind of freewheeling home bartender that isn’t hyper-concerned with getting things just so, this may not be a big deal. But in that case, it’s far easier to just estimate everything as you splash the ingredients into a shaker willy-nilly and call it close enough.

Barsys Smart Coaster lit up green with finished drink resting on top

Photograph: Barsys

Another big issue is mixing. While Barsys is available with an optional mixer unit—a plastic glass with an electromagnetic stirring unit in the base—it’s not the most powerful way to blend a drink. It’s fine for stirring a martini, but if you really want to shake the hell out of that margarita, you’ll need to put some of your own muscle into it (via a separate shaker). Barsys is vague about when and whether to put ice into the mixer during recipe-building. The motor is able to handle a bit of ice, but you can’t fill the mixer to the brim and get any traction. Any ice you do use will need to be added at the beginning (when the empty mixer is initially weighed) or the end, never the middle, as that will throw off the liquid weight measurements. For recipes that require dry shaking—such as sours made with egg white—and then a second shake with ice, the Barsys is particularly ill-suited. It’s also worth noting that the system is really designed to produce only one drink at a time.

The Radical, Expansive Future of Period Technology

The Radical, Expansive Future of Period Technology

When hormonal contraceptive pills were first introduced to the public in 1960, they were initially packaged in a bottle, like other drugs. A few years later, Ortho-Novum was the first to create the circular dispenser that so many of us are familiar with: 21 days on, seven days off. This dispenser gave a sense of temporality to periods, as they occurred in a regular fashion every few weeks. The “off” week was designed by pharmaceutical companies to create a menstrual period because they felt patients, pharmaceutical executives, and religious officials would find hormonal contraception more acceptable this way. Experiencing somewhat regular menstruation is also a major way people know they are not pregnant. Though menstruating people have for decades been hacking their own contraception to avoid periods around certain life events, such as vacations or athletic competitions, it wasn’t until the turn of the 21st century that pharmaceutical companies began to sell hormonal contraceptive pills that explicitly skipped placebo weeks in order to decrease the frequency of menstruation. 

Chemical menstrual suppression, like hormonal contraception, represents the next step of what the historian Sharra Vostral calls “technologies of passing.” Menstrual management products were the first “technology of passing,” in that they allow a menstruating person to move through the world as though they are not menstruating. Tampons make it possible to wear bathing suits and go swimming; all forms of menstrual management products decrease the risk of bloodying clothes, furniture, and bedsheets. Menstrual suppression technologies are a logical next step in pharmaceutical executives’ quest to gain customers, but it also seems like a good idea to those looking to survive in hustle and productivity cultures that leave less and less room for experiences like menstruation, not to mention those for whom eliminating menstruation would help affirm their gender. While the acceptance of menstrual suppression technologies was initially quite low, acceptability has increased dramatically over the past several decades, in no small part due to the advertising of pharmaceutical companies and advocacy by vocal physicians. And the increased accessibility to menstrual suppression technologies is part of what we need in our period (or for some, period-free) future. 

Menstrual Suppressions and Manipulations

Most menstrual suppression technologies are varying types of hormonal contraceptives, which are not nearly as well tolerated by menstruating bodies as most of us believe. Across multiple studies, about half of people on hormonal contraceptive methods discontinue them. Even those who do stick with hormonal contraception often experience unwelcome side effects, which they endure as an acceptable cost in order to avoid getting pregnant or menstruating. Many groups are invested in menstruating people staying on hormonal contraceptives, including pharmaceutical companies, those who fear teen pregnancy, and those interested in global population control. But it’s possible menstruating people are not always as invested themselves, at least in the management and suppression technologies as they currently exist. According to a recent Cochrane review—effectively, the gold standard in health care if you are trying to assess quality of evidence—direct, in-person counseling, the most common intervention for improving the continuation of hormonal contraceptives, does not increase the rate at which people choose to stay on hormonal contraception. In the papers they sampled, anywhere from a quarter to half of those on a given hormonal contraceptive regimen discontinued their use over the study period. One recent study comparing self-reported continuation rates to actual pharmacy claims suggests people may overestimate how continuously they use hormonal contraception. People skip a month here or there because they forget to get their prescription in time, because the prescription is expensive, because they aren’t having potentially conceptive sex, or because they don’t love how the hormonal contraception makes them feel and need a break from it. 

Hormonal contraception, especially shorter-acting forms like pills, rings, patches, and injections, are a hassle, and users often report side effects, such as loss of libido, weight gain, vomiting, dizziness, and depression, as well as amenorrhea, irregular bleeding, and heavy bleeding. Two studies have reported some improvement in continuation among users with adverse side effects who received counseling, but the certainty of the finding was weak. Note that the goal of these studies was to figure out how people suffering serious effects could continue taking hormonal contraception. The fear of pregnancy—particularly the fear of the wrong person getting pregnant (for example, a teenager or a brown or Black person)—motivates the continued use of hormonal contraceptives that cause harm to about half of the people who try them.

Significant side effects and high rates of discontinuation also plague the levonorgestrel-containing intrauterine device, or hormonal IUD. One study that examined the experiences of 161 women who had the hormonal IUD inserted at one hospital in the United Kingdom found that almost half of them had their IUD removed due to side effects, including “bloating, headaches, weight gain, depression, breast tenderness, excessive hair growth, greasy skin, acne, and sexual disinterest.” This finding is particularly striking since these women were great candidates for the hormonal IUD: They had had a gynecological exam before having it inserted and, in most cases, also had hysteroscopic assessment of their uterine cavity to make sure they didn’t have fibroids or other lesions that could complicate their experience. 

In a study interviewing physicians who administer hormonal contraception, respondents were less than understanding when patients requested early removal of the IUD. Physicians in this sample were often frustrated when patients were dissatisfied with their IUDs for any reason. Intent on getting as many people as possible to use them, a physician from the study confessed: “I don’t try to influence women’s decisions, but I do try. Like I don’t want me to be the person making the decision, but I do want to guide them to make a good decision for them. But I usually say it’s my favorite method. … And I usually say that it’s our most effective method, and it’s very easy to put in.” When patients asked to have their IUD removed, physicians often discouraged them by requesting that they keep it in for a few more months to see if symptoms change. While many physicians emphasized the importance of patient decision-making, others only grudgingly ceded to patient autonomy. Others expressed disappointment or disagreement with their patients. These coercive stances run counter to the broader goals of reproductive justice. 

The Supreme Court Has Delayed Its Abortion Pill Decision

The Supreme Court Has Delayed Its Abortion Pill Decision

The legal saga over the abortion pill mifepristone isn’t over yet. On Wednesday, the US Supreme Court extended its own deadline to decide on the fate of the drug until Friday by just before midnight Eastern Time. 

The pill will remain on the market for at least the next few days. The Supreme Court’s decision on access to the pill will likely be the most important ruling on reproductive rights since the court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

Approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2000, mifepristone is the first dose in a two-pill regimen to induce an abortion in the first trimester. In recent years, the FDA has taken measures to make it more accessible, including making it available by mail and allowing patients to take the drug up until 10 weeks of pregnancy. Medication abortion now accounts for a little over half of all abortions in the US. 

On April 7, US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of Texas ruled to revoke the FDA’s approval of mifepristone and make it illegal throughout the country, writing that the drug is unsafe and its authorization in 2000 was rushed. However, more than 100 studies over several decades show that the pill is safe and effective at ending pregnancies in the first trimester. 

Last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked Kacsmaryk’s ban but upheld restrictions on the drug that haven’t been in place since 2016, when the FDA started loosening access to mifepristone. The three-judge panel said the pill could remain available but must be dispensed in person and can only be taken through the first seven weeks of pregnancy. The rulings threaten the FDA’s authority to assess and approve drugs, especially ones that are considered politically controversial. 

The Justice Department, acting on behalf of the FDA, asked the Supreme Court to keep the pill available. On April 14, Justice Samuel Alito put a hold on the rulings until the high court could consider the issue.  

GenBioPro, which makes a generic form of mifepristone, filed a lawsuit against the FDA on Wednesday in an effort to keep the drug available. In the suit, the company argues that if the FDA complies with court orders to restrict the pill’s access, it would be violating laws that dictate the process of withdrawing an already-approved drug.

Many drugs have been taken off the market, either because of risks to patients or due to commercial reasons, such as low demand. But no court has ever suspended the FDA approval of a drug before. 

Even if the Supreme Court sides with Kacsmaryk’s ruling and rolls back the drug’s approval, there’s a scenario in which mifepristone could remain on the market. The FDA could continue to allow access to the drug by exercising a policy known as “enforcement discretion,” which means it wouldn’t prosecute manufacturers or distributors, according to Allison Whelan, assistant professor of law at Georgia State University. 

But while the current FDA leadership may choose to use its enforcement discretion, a future presidential administration could always reverse course. “I don’t see any real stability for medication abortion in the short term, potentially even the long term,” Whelan says. 

Are Screens Stealing My Childhood?

Are Screens Stealing My Childhood?

“As a 12-year-old, I’ve spent much of my life on screens, in school and at home, which can definitely be fun. But I also struggle with depression, and sometimes I feel like I haven’t done enough ‘kid’ things. When I grow up, will I feel like I wasted my childhood?”

 —Future Me


Dear Future,

The ability to project oneself into times yet to come, to think about the present as one phase in a much longer life, is a sign of uncommon maturity—though this prudence often comes with burdens of its own. You appear to be searching for a way to “live deliberately.” That phrase, as you might already know, comes from the opening line of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, a literary experiment that was similarly driven by a suspicion of modern technologies and the fear of future regrets. Whereas you are trying to anticipate the disappointments of your adult self, Thoreau was looking even further into the future. He went into the woods because he was afraid that, upon his death, he would find that he “had not lived.”

It seems to me that you are burdened by common misperceptions about the purpose of childhood. On the one hand, youth in the 21st century is often regarded as a means to an end: a time to cultivate the skills and personal qualities that will allow you to excel as an adult, which requires post­poning your immediate desires for the sake of some future ideal—scholastic success, hireability, financial stability. On the other hand, childhood is often said to be a unique period (as I’m sure many adults in your life remind you) of freedom, perhaps the only years when you can indulge in fun, creativity, and personal enjoyment without the ambient worries and responsibilities that adulthood brings. While this second idea seems to provide license for aimless exploration, I can sense that you find it just as stressful as the mandate to prepare for the future. I don’t think you’re alone in this. In a way, the injunctions against wasting one’s childhood belong to the same future-oriented logic that regards the formative years as an investment. Doing “kid things” becomes, in other words, just another checklist to tackle, a way to ensure that you become the kind of well-rounded adult who has happy memories of the past and is immune to regrets.

Adding to the stress and confusion of childhood is the fact that digital technologies have insidiously blurred the distinctions between work and play. When you spend your free time gaming, reading, and posting on the same devices that you use to complete homework assignments, it’s easy to become confused about whether you are having fun or merely fulfilling duties. And when you realize that all the adults in your life similarly spend much of their work and leisure time on screens, it’s tempting to conclude that your own adulthood will be a slightly upgraded continuation of your current existence: The image quality will be sharper, the processing speed will be faster, but the basic structure of your days will remain the same.

The thing is, projecting oneself into the future is always a treacherous gambit. Our assumptions about how life will be 10 or 20 years from now are unavoidably limited by the conditions of the present. If you’ve ever watched sci-fi movies from several decades ago, you’ve probably noticed that the imaginations of even the most visionary directors contain the odd anachronism. Stanley Kubrick, in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), envisioned a bold future of commercial space travel and sentient robots but could not, apparently, wrap his mind around the possibility of a world without pay phones (his space stations are full of them). The citizens of 2015, as envisioned in Back to the Future (1989), have access to flying hoverboards and hi-def video walls but still use fax machines to transmit highly sensitive information.

Given the pace of technological development, it’s very possible that your adulthood will be radically different from your life now. Maybe screens will be replaced with retinal implants and you’ll spend your days immersed in a metaverse, one that makes your childhood memories of clicking and scrolling seem quaint by comparison. Or maybe AI will have automated most occu­pations and created enormous wealth, such that you’ll be free to spend your limitless leisure time gardening, traveling, and attending philosophy lectures.

I don’t say this, Future, to cause more anxiety about the path ahead. Quite the opposite. To my mind, the uncertainty about what adult life will be like gives you an unusual measure of freedom. If childhood cannot be seen as the kiln of future ambitions (or a time to frantically gather ye rosebuds for the sake of fond memories), then it might be viewed, somewhat radically, as an end in itself. Instead of trying to tick off the kinds of things your future self might wish you had done as a child, perhaps you should attend to how you feel about those things now. When you think about the activities usually grouped under the rubric of “kid things”—going to the zoo, catching fireflies, creating your own graphic novels, to name just a few possibilities—do any of them excite you? When you think back on the times when you were most happy and content, or felt life to be particularly meaningful, do they share anything in common? More importantly, when you spend all day on screens, how does it make you feel afterward? If you suspect that your depression is connected to the technologies you use, that’s reason enough to think about how you could reorder your life.

Spending more time outdoors might be something to experiment with, but tempering your use of technology needn’t lead to an infatuation with nature. The tendency to associate childhood activities with wilderness pursuits (climbing trees, building forts, swimming) comes to us from the Romantic tradition, which idealized both nature and youth as sites of innocence and spontaneity. And it’s precisely during times of technological change that we most long to see nature as a realm of unchanging purity.

Thoreau’s time in the wilderness taught him just the opposite. The natural world is itself full of change: Seasons come and go, birds migrate from north to south and back again. While these conditions don’t preclude the possibility of planning for the future, they also reveal how futile it is to live in service to one’s future self. Thoreau wrote in his journal, in 1859, that in a world of constant flux, we must “let the season rule us.” The life of intention can only be lived in the present, by giving energy to the things that have value in the here and now. Given that he put this better than I can, I will leave you with his words: “You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment … Do what you love … let nothing come between you and the light.”

Faithfully, 

Cloud


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