The Critical Loop

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Society

Images of events and locations depicting real people and and real settings

WILL AI SAVE OR DESTROY PHOTOGRAPHY?

From film to digital, photography has always evolved with technology. But generative AI presents a different challenge: images are created without ever witnessing the world. Dylan Garcia asks if photography will drown in a flood of synthetic sameness or if human input will be even more valuable.

A bright yellow sunflower center. Its central seeds look like a crowd of people converging towards the center.

THE FUTURE IS FOR EVERYONE. IS IT REALLY?

Vania La Rocca contrasts Mark Zuckerberg’s manifesto with what is already happening far from Silicon Valley. In Uganda, a locally built AI tool based on an open Chinese model is serving farmers in their own languages more effectively and affordably than leading American systems.

A street in Oxford is packed with a crowd of hundreds of people celebrating May Day.

AI MEETS UI: HOW HUMANITY CAN SUCCEED WITH TECHNOLOGY

As AI reshapes how we work, learn, decide and organise our lives, Nigel Nicholson asks whether technology will diminish what makes us human, or help us construct new environments in which our unique individuality can flourish.