Steven Poole

Europe

Author and Cultural Critic at The Guardian

composer: https://t.co/f3BCC3fbpN | author: RETHINK, UNSPEAK, &c | writer: @Telegraph @WSJ @Guardian &c

Articles

The AI Con by Emily M Bender and Alex Hanna review - debunking myths of the AI revolution

2 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Steven Poole

At the beginning of this year, Keir Starmer announced an “AI opportunities action plan”, which promises to mainline AI “into the veins of this enterprising nation”. The implication that AI is a class-A injectable substance, liable to render the user stupefied and addicted, was presumably unintentional. But then what on earth did they mean about AI’s potential, and did they have any good reason to believe it?
The Illegals by Shaun Walker review - gripping true stories of spies who lived deep undercover

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Steven Poole

One of the best series of the golden age of TV drama, The Americans (2013-2018), centred on a pair of Russian sleeper agents operating in suburban Washington DC during the height of the cold war. By day they seemed to be a boring married American couple; by night they set honey traps, sabotaged facilities, recruited traitors and assassinated enemies.
The dark truth behind that delicious bottle of Coca-Cola you’re craving

2 months ago | independent.ie | Steven Poole

Some scientists would tell you there’s no difference, because “a calorie is a calorie”, and you will get fatter if you consume too many calories from any type of food. What won’t necessarily be made clear is that some of those scientists were given money by the very same Coca-Cola Company.
Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams review - Zuckerberg and me

2 months ago | theguardian.com | Steven Poole

If Douglas Coupland’s 1995 novel about young tech workers, Microserfs, were a dystopian tragedy, it might read something like Careless People. The author narrates, in a fizzy historic present, her youthful idealism when she arrives at Facebook (now Meta) to work on global affairs in 2011, after a stint as an ambassador for New Zealand. Some years later she finds a female agency worker having a seizure on the office floor, surrounded by bosses who are ignoring her.
That delicious can of Coke? It may be helping to kill you

2 months ago | yahoo.com | Steven Poole

Which is more likely to contribute to obesity: a can of Coca-Cola, or the calorie-equivalent amount of broccoli? Some scientists would tell you there’s no difference, because “a calorie is a calorie”, and you’ll get fatter if you consume too many calories from any type of food. What won’t necessarily be made clear is that some of those scientists were given money by the very same Coca Cola Company.
Perspectives by Laurent Binet review – a dazzling Renaissance romp

Feb 12, 2025 | msn.com | Steven Poole

Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
Perspectives by Laurent Binet review - a dazzling Renaissance romp

Feb 12, 2025 | theguardian.com | Steven Poole

Florence, 1557. A painter is murdered with a hammer blow to the head and a chisel to the heart. It looks as though someone has painted over a section of the frescoes he has been labouring on for years at the church of San Lorenzo. But who could have killed old Jacopo da Pontormo, and why? So begins this historical epistolary detective novel, stuffed with real-life Renaissance artists behaving badly.
Source Code: My Beginnings by Bill Gates review – refreshingly frank

Jan 31, 2025 | msn.com | Steven Poole

Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
Source Code: My Beginnings by Bill Gates review - refreshingly frank

Jan 31, 2025 | theguardian.com | Steven Poole

Bill Gates is the John McEnroe of the tech world: once a snotty brat whom everyone loved to hate, now grown up into a beloved elder statesman. Former rivals, most notably Apple’s Steve Jobs, have since departed this dimension, while the Gates Foundation, focusing on unsexy but important technologies such as malaria nets, was doing “effective altruism” long before that became a fashionable term among philosophically minded tech bros. Time, then, to look back.
The Extinction of Experience by Christine Rosen review - smartphone nation

Jan 8, 2025 | theguardian.com | Steven Poole

People who walk along the street with their heads down, staring at their phones, are enemies of society. They are narcissistic babies who have unilaterally derogated from the social contract that says you should look where you’re going to make sure you don’t bump into people. They implicitly believe that others should do that cognitive work for them while they shuffle along scrolling for porn or doom.