Isobel Cockerell

England

Journalist @CodaStory: covering tech, climate, migration. 🎥 💻 🎙 Also @Guardian @TheEconomist @NoemaMag @Wired @Audible_com @ColumbiaJourn

Articles

The Vatican challenges AI's god complex

3 weeks ago | codastory.com | Isobel Cockerell

As Rome prepared to select a new pope, few beyond Vatican insiders were focused on what the transition would mean for the Catholic Church’s stance on artificial intelligence. Yet Pope Francis has established the Church as an erudite, insightful voice on AI ethics.
War on Science - Coda Story

1 month ago | codastory.com | Derek Beres |Emily Schultheis |Isobel Cockerell |Erica Hellerstein

War on Science Science once stood as society’s trusted compass for understanding the modern world and our place within it, but today, this foundation faces unprecedented attacks from multiple fronts. Our special series War on Science reveals how fringe skepticism has infiltrated mainstream discourse, reshaped public policy and threatens global progress on critical issues from climate change to public health. How have these anti-science movements gained legitimacy?
I’m trans, and in 2016 I voted for Donald Trump. Now I want to leave the country

1 month ago | codastory.com | Danielle Marie |Isobel Cockerell

As Donald Trump tries to effectively prevent trans people from participating in public life – most recently asking the Supreme Court to reinstate a ban on trans troops – it’s difficult to imagine that he might have any supporters at all who identify as trans. But they exist. In March 2018, as a graduate student at Columbia Journalism School, I wrote an article for the Daily Beast called The Transgender Conservatives Who Are Sticking With Trump.
Pope Francis's final warning

1 month ago | codastory.com | Isobel Cockerell

Whoever becomes the next Pope will inherit not just the leadership of the Catholic Church but a remarkably sophisticated approach to technology — one that in many ways outpaces governments worldwide. While Silicon Valley frames Artificial Intelligence as a quasi-religious force capable of “saving humanity,” the Vatican has been methodically developing theological and ethical arguments to counter this narrative.
Pope Francis’s final warning

1 month ago | flipboard.com | Isobel Cockerell

NowVatican City: ‘Drone-killing’ soldiers patrol Vatican City ahead of Pope’s funeralSHOTLIST: VATICAN CITY (APRIL 25, 2025) (ANADOLU - ACCESS ALL) 1. VARIOUS OF PEOPLE GATHERING AT ST. PETER’S SQUARE 2. VARIOUS OF SOLDIER CARRYING ANTI-DRONE RIFLE 3. MOUNTED POLICE TEAMS PATROLLING 4.
Who owns the rights to your brain?

2 months ago | codastory.com | Isobel Cockerell

Jared Genser and Rafael Yuste are an unlikely pair. Yuste, a professor at Columbia University, spends his days in neuroscience labs, using lasers to experiment on the brains of mice. Genser has traveled the world as an international human rights lawyer representing prisoners in 30 countries. But when they met, the two became fast friends.
Captured: how Silicon Valley is building a future we never chose

2 months ago | codastory.com | Isobel Cockerell

In April last year I was in Perugia, at the annual international journalism festival. I was sitting in a panel session about whether AI marked the end of journalism, when a voice note popped up on my Signal. This story is part of “Captured”, our special issue in which we ask whether AI, as it becomes integrated into every part of our lives, is now a belief system. Who are the prophets? What are the commandments? Is there an ethical code? How do the AI evangelists imagine the future?
In Kenya’s slums, they’re doing our digital dirty work

2 months ago | codastory.com | Isobel Cockerell

This article is an adapted extract from CAPTURED, our new podcast series with Audible about the secret behind Silicon Valley’s AI Takeover. Click here to listen. We’re moving slowly through the traffic in the heart of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. Gleaming office blocks have sprung up in the past few years, looming over the townhouses and shopping malls. We’re with a young man named James Oyange — but everyone who knows him calls him Mojez.
When I’m 125? - Coda Story

2 months ago | codastory.com | Isobel Cockerell

I grew up in rural Idaho in the late 80s and early 90s. My childhood was idyllic. I’m the oldest of five children. My father was an engineer-turned-physician, and my mother was a musician — she played the violin and piano. We lived in an amazing community, with great schools, dear friends and neighbors. There was lots of skiing, biking, swimming, tennis, and time spent outdoors.
Captured: how Silicon Valley is building a future we never chose

2 months ago | flipboard.com | Isobel Cockerell

1 day agoWorry over worker visas goes viral in Silicon ValleyGerrit De Vynck of The Washington Post reports that tech workers with H-1Bs are being advised to not leave the country in case they can't reenter. The industry fears that major constraints on skilled immigration would hold back innovation, he says. 1 day agoSo Much for the MAGA DivorceThe nativist right is starting to make peace with Elon Musk. Steve Bannon seems resigned to sharing power with the “tech bros,” as he calls them.