You mention hiking boots over dinner. The next morning, an advertisement for hiking boots appears on your phone. You never remember searching for them. The coincidence feels too precise, and an unsettling explanation immediately suggests it...
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Pour cornflakes into a bowl. Add cold milk. Pick up a spoon. You have made breakfast — unless, according to one of the internet’s most persistent culinary arguments, you have accidentally ma...
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You see someone stretch their jaw, squeeze their eyes shut and take a long, involuntary breath. A few seconds later, your own mouth opens. Sometimes you do not even need to see the yawn: hea...
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Watch a herd of cows for long enough and the group begins to look less anonymous. Certain animals repeatedly graze near one another, rest side by side or seek each other out. Some lick and g...
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Put a glass of water near a cat and it may drink calmly. Turn on a faucet and the same cat might become fascinated, batting at droplets for minutes. Lower it into a bathtub, however, and you...
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A bitcoin cannot be held in your hand. It does not represent a legal claim on a company, pay a dividend or give its owner a stream of rental income. There is no warehouse containing one bar...
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Artificial intelligence used to be the sort of technology most people encountered without thinking about it. It filtered spam, ranked search results, recommended movies and helped cameras re...
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Look down at almost any laptop, desktop keyboard or smartphone in the English-speaking world and the first six letters are the same: Q-W-E-R-T-Y. The arrangement feels so inevitable that it...
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Ask a modern AI whether it is frightened, lonely or aware of its own existence and it may produce an answer that sounds uncannily introspective. It can discuss its “thoughts,” describe imagi...
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You are almost asleep when the floor seems to disappear. For a fraction of a second, your body feels as though it has stepped off a ledge. A leg kicks, an arm jerks or your whole torso jumps...
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