Many of us are hostage to our phones – and it's not unlike having head lice. Rob Brooks @OurANU UNSW theconversation.com/your-smartphon…

More on parasitic social media. Philosopher Rachael Brown and I argue that smartphones are more than extensions of our minds; they are in many ways like parasites. theconversation.com/your-smartphon… via The Conversation - Australia + New Zealand

Is the Stigmatization of Female Sex Workers About the Money or the Sex?, - article about some work led by Dax Kellie, in collab with Khandis Blake, Ph.D. & me open.substack.com/pub/robbrooks/…

Companies are mining the history of human creativity and experience. Is it time to charge for AI training data and build a global wealth fund? open.substack.com/pub/robbrooks/…

Apparently Americans swear more than Brits, with Aussies in #3. But do they swear *properly*? Given US tendency to talk about "curse words" like it's fucking Hogwarts or something, I have doubts. Analysing 1.7 billion words shows how the world swears theconversation.com/201-ways-to-sa…

Artificial Intimacy News #7, is out! open.substack.com/pub/robbrooks/…

The sociopath in your pocket: how virtual friends can go over to the dark side. open.substack.com/pub/robbrooks/…

Artificial Intimacy News #8 open.substack.com/pub/robbrooks/…

Simpson’s gender-equality paradox @PNAS Catchy title. Paper suggests that "Simpson's Paradox" type effects are responsible for the so-called "gender-equality paradox" in which sex differences are often bigger in more gender equal countries. Thoughts? pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn…

Is the gender equality paradox real? My long-promised commentary on the PNAS paper that argues it is a Simpson's paradox. open.substack.com/pub/robbrooks/…

Artificial Intimacy News #9 is out! - Paul Bloom on Losing Loneliness - Grok enters the AI companion market - AI and mental health - A polarising idea about sex differences and gender equality gets seriously challenged open.substack.com/pub/robbrooks/…

Pretty cool piece of work by Google DeepMind - inferring missing text and context from fragments of latin text. deepmind.google/discover/blog/…

People have always used tools to help them think. And they have always fretted about the consequences. open.substack.com/pub/robbrooks/…

Would you be jealous if your partner had a sex robot?, open.substack.com/pub/robbrooks/…

Artificial Intimacy News #10 -Can virtual friendship survive an upgrade? - Parallels between AI and Ozempic - Extended minds in the era of gen-AI - Virtual friends vs teen mental health (again) - Would you be jealous if your lover used a sex robot? open.substack.com/pub/robbrooks/…

Were any tweeps around in 1842 when Sydney became a city? Were people then already saying "Sydney nightlife isn't what it used to be?"

Did I miss the memo that LinkedIn profile pics are meant to look like you're a Capitol spectator at The Hunger Games?

Love Over Afterlife Some thoughts on why we grieve, and the problem of deciding which version of our beloved might live on open.substack.com/pub/robbrooks/…

Shadow AI thrives under punitive social evaluation - Fascinating study - HR context but relevant to student assessment and other professional contexts. "Results reveal a misalignment between well-intended transparency rules and user incentives" goo.gl/scholar/4qsSdR

Artificial Intimacy News #11 is out. - Paul Jankura gets some boundaries -for Claude’s welfare - Journalist road-tests those boundaries - Meta’s AI companion policy … falls short - Voice-based conversational AI seducing corporate America open.substack.com/pub/robbrooks/…