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Month: September 2026

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Philosophy Cannot Be Read Quickly

Google recently announced a new feature for Google Scholar, the part of their search engine that searches through academic articles and books. Now you can open a “Quick Read” pane for select papers that includes an AI-generated summary, along with information about the approach or methods used in those papers, as well as “considerations” in the form of “caveats to keep in mind as you analyze the results.” The purpose of a “quick read” is ostensibly to speed up research: instead of reading entire long and technical papers, you can get answers to your research questions much faster by skimming AI summaries.

“Quick reads” are available not only for scientific papers, but also for works of philosophy. Curious, I decided to put them to the test with the works of philosophy I know best: those that I have written. In a test both of the accuracy of Google’s AI and the limits of my own narcissism, I performed some Google Scholar searches on questions or topics I figured had a good chance of bringing up my own papers to see how useful these “quick reads” really were.

Overall, the high-level overviews the AI provided were a decent summary of what the papers were generally about. After that, the results were discouraging. Specific philosophical arguments I made, or those I summarized from other authors, were often mischaracterized. The argumentative structures of the papers were absent, and any subtlety or nuance in points I had made was missing entirely. Perhaps worst of all were the “considerations,” which either simply reiterated limits I had presented in laying out the scope of the paper (and so not really a “consideration,” per se), or outright non-sequiturs (in one instance, warning the reader that I had not provided my full contact information, and so apparently was not to be trusted).

Aside from the inaccuracies and considerations that aren’t really considerations, what feels truly offensive about a “quick read” when it comes to works of philosophy is that philosophy is not meant to be read quickly. Indeed, in a world where AI tools are encouraging speed above all else, philosophy reminds us that meaningful engagement requires us to slow down.

Lots has been said about the detriments of living in a world of constant distractions. Attempting to fill all our own downtime may adversely affect our ability to consolidate memories. So-called “digital overload” – the constant stream of messages, alerts, and notifications we receive from digital devices – impairs our ability to focus, manage tasks, and remember what we’re doing. AI risks making these problems worse: while ostensibly meant to take mundane tasks off your plate so that you can focus on what’s important, some researchers are concerned that reliance on AI tools can erode introspection, create an over-reliance on feedback from AI, and induce anxiety due to worrying about not optimizing your work enough. At the same time, there are also concerns that the relentless pace of the digital world has fried people’s attention spans to the point that we aren’t reading books anymore, a problem especially emphasized by teachers.

These are all complex problems with no one-size-fits-all solution. But perhaps engaging with philosophy can help. Works of philosophy (be they your classics, modern journal articles, or works of public philosophy like you’re reading right now) demand a particular kind of attention. Since they present structured arguments in support of conclusions, philosophical works cannot be engaged with passively: reading philosophy requires you to examine your own beliefs, challenge assumptions you may have taken for granted, and, if you find yourself disagreeing with the author, reflect on why that might be. If an AI-infused digital world reduces our opportunities for sustained attention and introspection by offering quick, easily-digestible answers, then philosophy can help keep our intellectual muscles from atrophying.

For these reasons, among others, efficiency should not be the goal of engaging with philosophy. But let’s say you want to dig into a philosophical issue, but don’t want to spend time reading a bunch of different books or papers, running the risk of wasting your time reading something that isn’t what you’re looking for. It is the age of AI, after all; isn’t it about time someone automated the tedious aspects of research?

Here, we might again worry about inaccuracies contained in AI summaries. In my own tests (with admittedly a very small sample size), I found numerous errors, both small and large. When it comes to Google’s AI summaries in general, estimates are that they get things right 9 times out of 10, although these numbers are hard to verify. Depending on our tolerance for error, we might think this is either too high a rate of error, or within an acceptable range.

But accuracy rate is mostly beside the point. Sure, an accurate AI summary is better than an inaccurate one, but if you want to engage with philosophy through AI summaries, then you’ve already made a foundational mistake. This is not to accuse those reading AI summaries of “cheating”: philosophizing via AI isn’t taking a shortcut; it’s missing the point of philosophy altogether.

In his 1877 article titled “The Ethics of Belief,” philosopher W. K. Clifford argued that there are strict epistemic and moral requirements for forming beliefs, such that “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe on insufficient evidence.” Recognizing that he is being demanding, Clifford considers a discussion with a hypothetical interlocutor who doesn’t want to put in the work of ensuring that their beliefs are well-grounded in evidence:

“But,” says one, “I am a busy man; I have no time for the long course of study which would be necessary to make me in any degree a competent judge of certain questions, or even able to understand the nature of the arguments.”

Clifford’s response: “Then he should have no time to believe.” 150 years later, we can imagine a similar complaint coming from someone who, empowered with new tools and digital distractions to attend to, claims that they don’t have the time to put in the time or effort to engage with philosophical works, and that they wouldn’t know what to think about them if they did. Perhaps then they would turn to AI to summarize papers, analyze arguments, and generate “considerations” on their behalf. But while Clifford was arguably being overly critical, it doesn’t seem nearly as harsh to say that if you don’t have time to do philosophy slowly, then you should have no time to do it at all.

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AI and the Ethics of Miserable Workplaces

AI is changing the workplace, and not always for the better. In September, European Uber drivers launched a class action suit against the company regarding an allegedly invasive AI pay-setting system. Data labeling, where humans perform actions such as flagging objects in pictures or annotating text to facilitate AI learning, has emerged as a prominent field of work and is often repetitive and poorly paid. A German study recently found that as digitalization (including AI) comes for the workplace, health risks actually increase among workers primarily performing physical tasks. Even among white-collar digital workers, it was found they now spend an average of 6.4 hours per week “botsitting,” or making AI work usable. How AI overall affects worker satisfaction and well-being is not yet clear, but it may be that the concerning effect of AI is not so much unemployment as tedium, misery, and loss of agency.

This invites a broader ethical discussion: What should we think about the character of the workplace? Should we even care?

For the most egregious workplace practices, such as unsafe working conditions, physical punishment, or extreme surveillance, a government’s general mandate to protect its populace may suffice. Strong worker’s rights may also help workers secure better working conditions. But what about work that is not so much straightforwardly abusive, as unpleasant? Is there an ethical interest here? Granted, not everyone finds the same things odious, but assuredly some workplace characteristics, such as repetitive activities, micromanagement, lack of agency, and dealing with human excrement are found unpleasant by almost everyone.

On one vision of work, it is merely something done for compensation. As the saying goes, “If it were fun, they wouldn’t call it work.”

Adam Smith, that founding thinker in economics, is likely the most important in this lineage. He saw work as something unpleasant, requiring the sacrifice of leisure and liberty. Generally, the more unpleasant the labor the more it should be rewarded. This does not mean that the most unpleasant work should be the most highly paid work in an absolute sense — considerations such as skill and bargaining power still apply. But if two jobs are otherwise similar, the more unpleasant should be expected to offer greater compensation to attract employees.

While Smith did actually have concerns about the character of work and how it impacted workers, his thinking leads naturally to an economic approach where there is no special concern about what work is like. Expected misery or satisfaction are simply features of a job to be weighed, and employees can take it or leave it at a given level of pay.

Unsurprisingly, there is complexity here. First, such an economic approach assumes that humans can crunch the numbers about how much they value pay versus working conditions. But this is easier said than done. You have to accept a job before you experience what it is like. Second, work can change such that what was once satisfying no longer is. Third, even decidedly miserable work can be hard to leave, whether because of competing obligations, lack of alternatives, or job market dysfunction.

But these are more concerns about market function, bargaining power, and labor market friction than conditions of work as such.

However, even within a market-based system workplace satisfaction is not an unimportant question. The ostensible appeal of such a system is based on its ability to satisfy wants through producing goods and providing the means for workers to pay for those goods (it is a tricky question how well the economic satisfaction of wants maps onto something like happiness or well-being). But this gain must be balanced against the satisfaction stemming from work itself. If work becomes sufficiently miserable, the ethical justification for the system goes under.

On another analysis, work is somehow special. This does not imply that work should necessarily be fun, but rather that there is a general ethical interest in ensuring work is meaningful or dignified.

The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel valued work for allowing us to see ourselves in the world, especially through craft. It is critical to an awareness of our ability to shape the world and the effort that may require. Karl Marx built on Hegel’s ideas, but argued that under capitalism in which we are working for a wage, rather than see ourselves in our work, workers become alienated from the products of their labor, their labor itself, and ultimately the human capacity to meaningfully shape the world. Even philosophers who do not follow Marx in his specific critique of wage labor, such as Andrea Veltman, contend that work can be an important source of purpose, discipline, esteem, and other positive values. And indeed, psychological findings generally support the claim work is important beyond compensation – though as always it is hard to say how much these results depend on current cultural attitudes towards work as opposed to something deep about humans.

Across these analyses work is not merely something we do in exchange for compensation. The character of work matters greatly and it becomes a major political and ethical question how to organize society to secure it. This can involve much more than minor improvement to the workplace. It might even require the revolution Marx foretold.

One problem that emerges concerns work that almost no one wants to do, but that must be done. Whatever one’s philosophy of work, sewers still need to be unclogged. Scholars such as Jan Kandiyali have proposed a sharing system, where such work would be distributed or rotated to prevent it from falling on specific people. AI and robotics are also potential solutions to such work. The tongue-in-cheek description “Fully Automated Luxury Communism” is used to describe a society where technology and automation is used to reduce scut work and facilitate leisure.

Another motivating reason for caring about the quality of the workplace, is that work does not necessarily stay in the workplace. Even Adam Smith worried about how the psychological effects of work could bleed into who we are, especially repetitive work which did not involve creativity, reflection, or judgment and resulted in workers becoming “as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.” Rather than stripping thought from the workplace by performing highly structured tasks, AI instead “thinks” for people, but the effect may be the same. 60% of workers worry about AI eroding their skills according to a recent IBM Institute of Business Value survey.

To be clear, AI does not need to have a specific effect on labor. It is an implementation question. In 2023, with the launch of Microsoft Co-pilot, CEO Satya Nadella claimed, “This new generation of AI will remove the drudgery of work and unleash creativity.” This may very well be true, at least for some people in some contexts. In any event, there remains a practical question here. The current incentive for owners is to increase efficiency with improving the character of the workplace at most a side benefit. Either regulation or labor power may be needed to push AI integration in a direction that supports workers. But there is also a philosophical question: What should work do? And how should the ideal workspace be constructed?

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Choice, Coerced: Examining Consent in Russia’s War Efforts

Recently, the BBC has reported that nearly 500,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the war between Russia and Ukraine. To replenish their ranks, Russia has increased their recruitment efforts massively. Russian ambassador to the UK Audrey Klein claimed that, as of June 2025, Russia was recruiting close to 50,000-60,000 new soldiers every month. While high recruitment numbers is not in and of itself interesting, the way in which Russia goes about their recruitment is. In order to keep up high levels of recruitment, Russia has been forced to increase financial incentives given to soldiers joining. In some instances this may just be high wages relative to the rest of the population, but it also might come in the form of debt relief, or sign-on bonuses of more than $20,000 USD.

Russia has also increased recruitment by allowing foreigners, most notably those from Kenya, to join the Russian military with similar high salary and sign-on bonus incentives. At home, Russia has also used marketing tactics to incentivize those on the fence to enlist, such as referral bonuses or “last minute deals.” These incentives, as one could guess, are targeted towards and most attractive to those lower on the socioeconomic ladder. But can these men give genuine consent to become Russian soldiers when the incentives are too good to pass up?

To take a closer look at this question, we need to get a clear grasp on what we mean when we talk about consent. Onora O’Neill offers a treatment of the term in her article “Between Consenting Adults.” The first conception of consent that O’Neill considers is what she calls “actual consent.” Actual consent is exactly what it sounds like: someone has given consent only if they have actually consented, and it is morally objectionable to treat someone in a way in which they have not expressly approved. Two immediate problems arise with this conception of consent. First, actual consent can be coerced, like in cases of physical threats. Second, actual consent can be the product of deception, such that one could think they are consenting to x, but have been deceived as to what x entails.

In its place, we might consider hypothetical consent, that is, what  a hypoethically fully and ideally rational being in their place might do. But an immediate problem arises: we will often find ourselves overriding individuals’ actual dissent in favor of the hypothetical consent an ideally rational being would give. This conception is also strained as it would require non-ideally rational agents to determine what an ideally rational agent would consent to. We can imagine any scenario in which someone is saying “No!,” but we respond along the lines of, “Well, if you were ideally rational you would say yes.” It seems as though something has gone wrong here.

O’Neill’s final suggestion she terms “possible consent.” In order for genuine consent to occur, one must genuinely have the possibility to reject what is proposed. This is clearly differentiated from both actual and hypothetical consent, where consent might be “given” without considering the specifics of one’s situation. If one is held at gunpoint and gives consent, for instance, there was never a real possibility of their dissenting.

If we take this conception of possible consent and apply it to the case of Russian soldiers, we are faced with the main question of interest in this article: to what extent does a Russian soldier enlisting under the pressure of financial incentives have a possibility of dissent?

O’Neill considers, for example, whether or not workers can genuinely consent to work, as it may be impossible to dissent on pain of the coercion of starvation. Since we must work to eat, we cannot genuinely consent to work – there is no possibility of us dissenting. In the case of the Russian soldiers, the financial incentives are targeted towards those who are most likely to enlist because of them, namely those residing in the poorest regions of Russia. Moreover, the Russian government is, at least in part, responsible for the poor socioeconomic status of these men and their families. They then prey on this status to, insofar as we accept O’Neill’s framework, coerce men into joining the Russian military via financial incentives that are too good to refuse.

Whether or not we use O’Neill’s version of the term, it is a fact that deception and coercion necessarily undermine consent. While men may not be the victims of deceptive plot to garner enlistments, it seems fair to say that many soldiers that enlist into the Russian military under the guise of financial incentives are, in a sense, being coerced to sign on the dotted line. We should not compare these soldiers to those who are physically forced to enlist in their government’s military, which is alleged to occur in Ukraine as the war rages on. Rather, we should understand what’s happening with Russian enlistment as a kind of financial coercion. Simply put: many of the poor men enlisting into the Russian military to reap the financial benefits do not seem able to genuinely consent to their enlistment, irrespective of their “actual consent.”

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Finding Truth and Tranquility in the Midst of Institutional Failure

While we have countless beliefs about the world, relatively few of them are from first-hand experience. Many, perhaps even most, of our beliefs we learn from other people — friends, family, books, the news, experts. I trust maps when calculating how many miles Brussels is from Beijing, a scientist who describes the layers of earth’s atmosphere, my friend when they tell me about their vacation, and my mechanic when I am told that my car is safe to drive. I believe the national weather service when it reports a hurricane despite having little ability to determine the facts for myself. In most cases, we tend to trust the people and institutions around us to provide reasonably reliable information. When this trust is shaken, knowing who or what to believe becomes more complicated.

This uncertainty can be felt today in the endless news cycles and social media feeds of sometimes conflicting information. Let’s take the United States’ war on Iran. The White House and Iran’s government often contradict one another. In March, the US declared they were in peace talks, which Iran denied. Later, the American government announced that the US had control the Strait of Hormuz. But this again contradicts Iranian statements and data shows that given the amount of oil going through the Strait of Hormuz at the moment, it is not likely under US control. Additionally, UN investigations have made a strong case that the US lied about bombing a school.

Conflicting accounts like this might cause us to become suspicious about reports given by the US government (a New York Times editorial explicitly accused them of hiding the truth). But the Iranian government has historically not been a very reliable source of information, whether lying to UN weapons inspectors, their handling of an Iranian missile shooting down a Ukrainian passenger plane, or denying involvement in supporting Russia’s war on Ukraine. If so many of our beliefs are based on trusting other people or institutions, who are we to believe? What do we believe when faced with a crisis of knowledge like this one? It is easy to feel overwhelmed, perhaps unsettled and paralyzed.

Perhaps we can use more of being skeptical, in the classical sense. While we tend to associate skepticism with simply doubting, for ancient Pyrrhonian skeptics, like Sextus Empiricus, doubting was only a means to an end: personal tranquility. They would say if we were honest with ourselves, we would realize our beliefs are always subject to the possibility of error. Our reason and senses are prone to mistakes and even the smartest people disagree about their most foundational beliefs. Faced with so much uncertainty, constantly seeking the truth troubles our mind. We perpetually second-guess ourselves. Rather than living in a state of disturbance, these skeptics say don’t fight it. Instead, accept the limits of our intellectual capacities and suspend our judgment on all matters. This unwillingness to believe something is true or false isn’t apathy, but the virtue of withholding judgment and actively refusing to take a side.

In cases like the Iran War, weeding through the overload of conflicting reports can be overwhelming. The skeptic would say don’t dwell on it. Admitting we don’t know will free us to keep living our lives, detached from all those troubles. Accepting our uncertainty itself can be a form of solace. Even so, when people are suffering, should we really let “ignorance be bliss”? Should our tranquility come at the expense of taking sides?

The 17th century French philosopher Descartes was well attuned to this Pyrrhonian skepticism. Like earlier skeptics, he was concerned with how easily we draw false conclusions from mistaken observations, bad data, or rushing to conclusions. He too saw ignorance as a path to tranquility, but not its endpoint; his skepticism is provisional. It’s intended to be temporary until we have the resources to correctly and consistently arrive at true beliefs.

To illustrate this, Descartes uses a construction metaphor. If we are worried about our house’s structural integrity (our knowledge), we must temporarily live in another structure (skepticism) while the house is torn down and rebuilt. As we live in this structure, like the ancient skeptics, we can live a life guided by the norms and customs we have always lived. However, this is only a temporary structure. It offers a place to reside while we sort out who and what to believe, so we can build a new house with more structural integrity. Skepticism in the hands of Descartes is ultimately a tool to acquire knowledge. The goal is always to sort out the facts but, until we do, it’s better to withhold believing something than rushing to judgment. In the meanwhile, there is nothing wrong with finding tranquility by firmly sticking to the principles we already hold: improve ourselves, and be a good friend, neighbor, or community member. We can do that even if we do not know what to believe or who to trust.

Not knowing what to believe isn’t a flaw. Not knowing is better than knowing wrongly! Descartes tells us to doubt to ensure that only the truth remains within us. We can embrace uncertainty while also gathering more information. We can suspend our judgment — say I don’t know what or who to believe — while also looking for empirical data (“How much oil is passing through the Strait of Hormuz?”) or seeking information from non-partisan organizations. While this can’t solve the problem of  institutional trust once and for all, the skeptic does offer us protection from the bombardment of uncertainty while we continue our search for answers.

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The War on Iran Is Bigger than Gas Prices

As documented by the latest polls, the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is the most unpopular military action the U.S. government has ever initiated. With net support at negative 32%, there is more opposition to the war on Iran than the Vietnam War, which is remembered as one of the most colossal foreign policy misadventures of America, causing long-term economic pain and enormous civilian harm.

Every war has its advocates who are tasked with rationalizing it to dubious constituents. Corporate media commentators and pro-war pundits invoke the checkered history of Iran-U.S. relations, the Iranian government’s deplorable human rights record, and its controversial nuclear program as having necessitated the conflict. Others, such as the late Senator Lindsey Graham, may even summon religious arguments to make the case for a glorified war.

But the best barometer for measuring the efficiency of the wars fought in modern times, especially in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, when the U.S. government committed itself to an open-ended military footprint across the Muslim world, are these expeditions’ outcomes: refugee crises, the rise of the far-right in the Western Hemisphere, hardening of authoritarianism in the Middle East, and emerging forms of extremism, especially on the internet.

Going to war is perhaps the most substantial decision that any government can make, and the resources that conflicts consume are unmatched by any other expenditure at times of peace. The effects of war endure for generations, and people’s experiences are fundamentally shaped by their exposure to conflict and the traumas it spawns.

The war on Iran, which is still raging with the administration of President Donald Trump using a combination of economic warfare, naval blockade, and periodic airstrikes across Iran’s territory, has created repercussions that have been, at best, catastrophic. Shockwaves have been sent through the energy markets, consumer prices have surged globally, and unspeakable civilian suffering in Iran has made life a daily struggle.

The war has also affected American people more acutely because the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf has prompted a rare spiral of gasoline and grocery prices worldwide that the architects of the war in Washington and Tel Aviv didn’t anticipate or perhaps didn’t take into account when conceiving their intervention plans. The economic turmoil caused by the war is one of the primary reasons it is so unpopular.

On an almost daily basis since the conflict began, cable TV networks and major publications have been keeping a tab on the price of oil and gas, questioning the administration officials at different press briefings about the measures that are being taken to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. In street interviews aired by local broadcasters, American citizens are asked about how the surge in prices due to the war has affected them.

“Pain at the pump” appears to be a narrow scope for understanding this rare historical juncture and its repercussions. This war, and the way it has been prosecuted, should be alarming for other reasons not commonly part of the discourse these days.

In legal terms, the hostilities that were commenced against Iran on February 28 constitute a war of aggression. On December 14, 1974, the United Nations General Assembly adopted by consensus resolution 3314 to provide a binding definition of aggression, which encompasses a broad range of actions taken by states when those acts do not have authorization from the UN Security Council.

Article 1 of the resolution defines aggression as “the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State,” and the subsequent articles exemplify it more concretely. Acts such as military attacks against the territory of another state, blockade of the ports of another sovereign nation, and the deployment of armed bands and mercenaries against another state have all been listed as qualifying as instances of aggression.

The resolution also dictates that “no consideration of whatever nature, whether political, economic, military or otherwise, may serve as a justification for aggression.” Legal scholars have expanded on these definitions and made the case that absent a credible self-defense justification or retaliatory nature, unilateral military action amounts to a war of aggression, which the Nuremberg Tribunal described as the “supreme international crime” in the 1940s.

Beyond the loss of human life, the extensive destruction of Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including UNESCO World Heritage Sites, archaeological landmarks, universities, pharmaceutical companies, media institutions, houses of worship, and transportation bridges, often accompanying an unapologetic rhetoric of schadenfreude, has laid bare the callous nature of the war. Such disregard for the civilian suffering that’s being inflicted on another nation invites a reckoning over values that are being eroded piecemeal, and which the United States has traditionally volunteered to champion.

These values have not been weakened only because of the war on Iran. Over the past two years, the dominant narrative about immigrants, religious minorities, women, people with disabilities, and many other groups has been tinted with a rare dose of belligerence. The same applies to discourse about other countries, foreign leaders, and even domestic political opponents.

Government officials liberally use expletives and obscenities in their public statements while giving passionate statements about the importance of religion. ICE violence has resulted in an unprecedented number of deaths and other injustices, wrongfully removing people from America who hadn’t violated the law. These are symptoms of the degradation of ethics in a society where honesty and integrity have always been taught as virtues.

It has now come to light that, for the first time in 50 years, 15 of the 30 indicators of democratic governance, as measured by the Sweden-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), have declined in the United States, and the country is no longer considered to be founding its alliances on democratic principles.

For decades, the United States has been exporting state-of-the-art technology, life-saving medical research, envied products of arts and culture, and educational innovations to the world. If this steady progress has been punctuated by an unaccountable administration that wishes to turn militarism into America’s new brand, institutions that are tasked with educating the public must fulfill their responsibility and communicate the facts of war and how it’s felt worldwide.

The White House riding roughshod over other nations is not what a majority of Americans would endorse, especially if they learn that the war in Iran was not even based on sound intelligence assessments. The illegal war has not only killed 120 children attending school in one instance but also turned pain into the routine experience of millions of Iranians as they contend with a fresh wave of onerous sanctions.

A wedding ceremony turning into a funeral, a sports hall being reduced to rubble, a music academy vanishing under drone attacks, and a young man losing his wife and 11 other family members in aerial bombardments, are the effects of this conflict. Whether or not these events are covered in the news, they have changed countless people’s lives in almost irreversible ways. A lack of coverage cannot undo the fait accompli.

To ensure the continuity of the ideas that have elevated America as a destination for people who have fled persecution and injustice across the world in search of a sanctuary valuing humanity, it’s crucial that the media, colleges, research institutions, museums, and other stakeholders in the democratic public square engage in a more audacious conversation about the civilian impacts of the war being fought in the name of American people.

When Americans are transparently briefed about how a military campaign that was neither congressionally approved nor politically warranted is widening the gaps between them and people in one of the world’s oldest civilizations, they will refuse to accept its perpetuation with their tax dollars. At that point, they will be opposing it for reasons other than mere pain at the pump.

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The Problem with Trading Experiences for Efficiency

Years ago, I adored visiting toy stores. Those magical places where – as French Poet Charles Baudelaire put it – “all of life found [can be found] in miniature, and much more vivid in colour, cleaner and shinier than real life.” I speak in the past tense not because my interest in toys has waned (it hasn’t). Rather, it’s because – at least here in the US – toy stores have more-or-less vanished. Small, family-owned operations were put out of business by big-box retailers like Toys “R” Us and KB Toys. Then those very same chains went out of existence.

When I was a child, a world without toy stores was unfathomable. But I also didn’t think there could be a world without video stores, or music stores, or fabric stores. Indeed, the “reatailpocalypse” that followed the global financial crisis and continued through the COVID-19 pandemic has seen as many as 12,000 brick-and-mortar stores go out of business in a single year – including many long-standing chains like Sears and Kmart.

In one of my classes, we discuss an excellent article by Britta Clark. In it, she discusses how one of the great injustices of the climate crisis is that we are – through our actions– causing certain experiences to go out of existence. It’s likely, for example, that African elephants will be gone from the wild in our lifetime. The same might be true of Joshua Trees in Joshua Tree National Park, or more nebulous experiences like a summer sufficiently temperate to enjoy things like camping, hiking, and picnicking. As this happens, we are permanently depriving future generations of these experiences, and – as Clark argues – the ability of those people to live lives of their own design.

When we discuss Clark’s paper, I (somewhat facetiously) raise the example of renting a movie from a video store on a Friday night – something that hasn’t been a possibility for nearly a decade. I ask my students whether it’s unjust that they’ve been permanently deprived of this magical experience. My intention is to demonstrate the potential limits of Clark’s argument – since, as I understood it, there’s no obvious injustice in this case.

But more recently, I’ve started to change my mind.

The digital age – culminating in the genesis of AI – has seen an inexorable push towards convenience and efficiency: of having access to as much as possible with as little effort as possible. Online retail, at-home streaming, and a proliferation of food delivery services have provided us with the ability to have everything we want with minimal fuss. But I can’t help feeling like something has been lost along the way: namely, the experience.

In my home country of New Zealand, we pride ourselves on our café culture. This isn’t because we’re coffee snobs (though, admittedly, many of us certainly are). Rather, it’s because there’s something ingrained into our national psyche: a recognition of the importance of taking time; of enjoying the experience. Whether it’s catching up with friends, holding a study group, or even interviewing for a job – these interactions almost always center around the café experience: Taking the time to luxuriate in a flat white and a savory pastry, and – after much hemming and hawing – deciding to order just one more treat from the window cabinet.

Upon arriving in the US, it was somewhat jarring to discover that café culture was (outside of certain cosmopolitan oases) mostly non-existent. Here, coffee is less an experience, and more a commodity; something to be efficiently obtained via a drive-thru, placed in a to-go cup, and quaffed while completing other more “important” tasks. This trend has reached its most pure synthesis with 7 Brew – a “coffee shop” that boasts 20,000 drink combinations served exclusively via a drive-thru window. As a Kiwi, this entire concept is anathema. (At least Starbucks, for all of its faults, gives you somewhere to sit.) Yet 7 Brew is currently the fastest growing brand in America. And last week, I read with disgust of how the chain – with its latest promotion – was boasting hours-long wait lines around the country.

As I write this, I feel like the proverbial man yelling at a cloud. I worry that I’m a mere breath away from uttering my very first “back in my day.” But at the same time, I don’t think I’m alone in mourning the experience. The last few years have seen a renewed hunger for analogue pastimes. Take music, for example. While digital streaming saw a 4.7% increase in revenue in the first half of 2026, vinyl sales instead increased by 17.7%, while CD sales grew by a whopping 58.6%. At the same time, previously defunct retailers (including Toys “R” Us) are re-emerging as nostalgic pop-ups. To me, these demonstrate a renewed focus not just on the commodities we desire, but also the experience of how we obtain them.

Is it always wrong for us to skip the experience, and go straight for the commodity? Of course not. There are many circumstances in which efficiency is a necessity. But we also need to pay careful attention to what we’re rushing for. It’s one thing if we’re using our newly-found free time to pursue what we’re passionate about – to further ourselves and the relationships we have with others. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. We’re less likely to engage in social interactions (and spend less time doing so) than we did a decade ago. At the same time, we’ve become the most overworked developed nation in the world. Labor productivity is at an all-time high. The benefits, it seems, are largely going to corporations. Of course, many of us need to work – and given the current financial climate, many of us need to work a lot more. But at the same time, the average American spends 7 hours and 18 minutes of their day looking at a screen for non-work related purposes. And for much of that time, we’re merely being exposed to the ministrations of (and being convinced to buy the products of) those very same corporations.

I’m not sure what the moral implications of all of this are. Or if there even are any. But I do know this: every dollar we spend is a vote for how we want our world to be. And every vote for efficiency is a vote for fewer experiences. At the very least, that realization has forced me to be more mindful of how I’m using my vote.

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No Contest: Republicanism and Data Centers

In divisive times, issues where most Americans agree are rare. However, we appear to be coalescing on one: opposition to data centers in our backyards. A new Politico poll found that 41% of respondents would oppose a data center constructed within 3 miles of their residence, while 24% would support it. These results may not appear striking, but the shift is noteworthy; a poll with the same question, conducted in January, found that 37% of respondents said they would support a data center near their home while 28% expressed disapproval. What’s striking here is not the absolute result, but the swing. A shift of +9% to -17% approval in months. Even so, these polls appear to be low outliers. Reuters, in contrast, saw a majority express disapproval of data center construction within their communities and concern that AI will raise the price of electricity, while rejecting the idea that rapid data center construction is a good thing. A University of Pennsylvania poll found that most respondents, regardless of political affiliation, oppose the construction of data centers in their area. A Gallup poll showed that 71% of respondents opposed local data center construction, with 48% strongly opposing.

Why the opposition to data centers? Opponents think they offer a losing trade-off; data centers create burdens on local communities, and their detractors think the benefits are not worth these sacrifices. Data centers are the physical structures supporting much of the internet – any cloud-based or streaming service requires the use of data stored somewhere physically – however, the current data center rollout has been driven by AI firms. CEOs across industry have warned for years that AI will take your job. Industry insiders are warning that AI could kill us all soon. Data centers serve as a physical manifestation of such threats, prompting immediate disdain from many.

Proponents, meanwhile, argue that data centers create new jobs and raise tax revenue. However, most of these jobs are temporary construction work (and even these workers who benefit from the construction may have reasons to care about the long-term impacts of data centers on labor, as Evan Arnet recently explored). Data centers create far fewer permanent jobs, and these jobs may cost up to $2 million per job in terms of tax incentives given to data centers. Data centers in general were responsible for 4.4% of all energy consumption in the U.S. in 2024, and a single hyperscale data center can consume as much electricity as 50,000 households. In regions located near significant data center activity, electricity costs have increased by as much as 267% since 2020. And the noise and air pollution produced by data centers may threaten the health of nearby residents.

The temperature on this issue is rising, however, because residents are losing opportunities to voice their concerns about the construction of data centers. Public officials that negotiate deals permitting the construction of data centers have signed NDAs in some cases, preventing information about the projects from reaching the public. Data centers have avoided public commentary periods by exploiting zoning laws. The EPA has recently moved to eliminate the public comment period before issuing air pollution permits to new data centers, with the White House directing agencies to accelerate data center construction in general. When members of the public do have the opportunity to express disapproval of data centers, they often face reprisal. Citizens have been removed from, and arrested at, local council meetings for infractions such as going over their allotted time, threatening board members with recall elections, and clapping.

My goal in this column is to do some diagnostic work. The hope is that, if we can properly diagnose the problem, we can better understand what’s necessary to resolve it. Specifically, I argue that we can best understand the current issues surrounding data center construction through the lens of republican political theory, namely, the requirement of contestation. If this diagnosis is correct, then it seems that the solution ought to be focused on altering the distribution of power among the parties to this debate. As things currently stand, it appears to me that the tech companies behind the data center rollout are wielding domineering power to the extent that data centers are constructed without careful consideration of the public’s objections.

I have previously discussed the idea of republicanism in the context of LLMs and the wages of tipped workers. Nonetheless, a brief restatement is pertinent here. In Republicanism (1999), Philip Pettit presents a view of liberty grounded in freedom against domination. When one dominates you, they have the power to arbitrarily interfere with you. By this, Pettit means that the dominator is capable of interfering with you without considering your interests. Notice that the emphasis is on ability. Even if one does not actually interfere with you, when one could interfere with you in this way, they dominate you.

Consider, for instance, the situation of the American colonists prior to the revolution. After Parliament passed the Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts, colonists who later went on to rebel felt these acts demonstrated the arbitrary power that Parliament had over them; the colonists had no formal representation in Parliament’s policy making process, and there were no procedural requirements for legislators to formally consider the interests of colonists. Some colonists went so far as to refer to themselves as slaves, living wholly at the whim of Parliament. Their view was not that these taxes themselves were unbearable, but rather that they demonstrated the power Parliament could wield against them in more extreme ways.

To eliminate the power of arbitrary interference, Pettit contends that there must be a mechanism by which those who are subject to the decisions of states and governments can contest them. Although we may develop procedures which force governing bodies to consider the interests of all affected by considered policies, there will inevitably be lapses or cases where some feel their interests were not adequately considered. Thus, affected groups must have the power and opportunity to challenge decisions as arbitrary if they are to have freedom from arbitrary interference. Forms of contestation that Pettit articulates include lawsuits and, pertinent to this case, public commentary periods for policies.

Why is this relevant to data centers? As noted earlier, the opportunities for residents to challenge their construction are being throttled. Large tech companies sign lawmakers to contracts which require withholding pertinent information from the public. They exploit legal loopholes to avoid commentary periods. The Federal government is pushing to wield its regulatory power to streamline this process even further. The measures designed to force regulators to consider the interests of the public, and to give the public the opportunity to contest decisions, are being eroded in the interests of tech firms. As a result, it is hard to see streamlined data center construction as anything but domination.

Of course, maybe the public’s concerns are misplaced. Perhaps there are serious national interests at stake in U.S. companies being at the cutting edge of AI, the downsides of data centers are overblown, and they do generate great windfalls for surrounding communities. But even if the public’s objections stem from ignorance or misinformation, this does not relieve public officials of responsibility for addressing these concerns. When considered in the context of large tech firms spending hundreds of millions a year lobbying Congress and backing candidates while building robust political influencing infrastructure, as their current/former owners are the richest people in the United States, it is hard to view this as anything but the scales being tipped to give their interests greater weight in decision-making than the interests of general citizenry.

The foundational ideal behind a republic is the notion that all citizens are equals, without hierarchy. The state, in recognition of citizens’ equality, is obligated to take seriously the interests and views of citizens in its process of developing policy. To the extent that the objections of citizens are set aside without consideration, even if it does promote the national good, a state fails to be a republic. Many rebuff critiques of undemocratic institutions such as the Electoral College and Supreme Court by noting that the U.S. is a republic rather than a democracy. But if the nation is not democratic, and it fails to meet the foundational standard of republicanism, then what exactly is it?

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The Voice Tim Curry Chose

In the second piece I ever wrote for the Prindle Post, I talked about the celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain. More specifically, I talked about the use of AI in the documentary film Roadrunner.

In the film, and prominently in its trailer, AI was used to recreate Bourdain’s voice. That synthetic voice was then used to bring to life emails that Bourdain had written. The filmmakers could not, of course, ask Bourdain to read the emails himself. On June 8th, 2018, three years before the film’s release, Bourdain died by suicide while in France filming his travel and food program Parts Unknown.

The problem, as I argued at the time, was that the use of AI was not disclosed to the audience. Indeed, the only reason we know about it is that the director revealed it during an interview. This opened an entire can of worms concerning whether we can trust what we see and hear on screen, even when what we are watching is a documentary and therefore, one assumes, the genuine article. You can read the piece here.

That was five years ago. Unsurprisingly, as AI has grown more powerful and pervasive, an ever-increasing number of ethical issues have emerged. Yet the problem of using AI to mimic a person, perhaps eventually with perfect fidelity, remains. Deepfakes are no longer curiosities. They have become tools that can be deployed at scale, whether for entertainment, marketing, fraud, or political manipulation.

This topic sits outside my usual intellectual haunts of medical ethics and law. Nevertheless, it is one I keep finding myself returning to. And it was the death of another counterculture icon that brought me back to it once again: Tim Curry.

Curry had a long, illustrious, and yet I think understated acting career. He played Nigel Thornberry in The Wild Thornberrys. He played the menacing clown Pennywise in the 1990 IT mini-series. He was Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island, a performance so beloved that he was eventually awarded the incredibly rare distinction of honorary Muppet. And while there are many other roles with which he is associated, for me, he will always be the mad scientist Frank-N-Furter from the Rocky Horror Show, and the subsequent film, the Rocky Horror Picture Show (in my opinion, the greatest film ever made – although not for the faint of heart).

In 2012, Curry suffered a severe stroke that left him paralyzed. In the immediate aftermath, he was unable to speak and underwent extensive therapy to regain his voice. He largely succeeded, but his speech changed. As Curry himself acknowledged, the paralysis affecting one side of his face meant he no longer sounded quite the same as he once had.

It was his death, then, that prompted me to listen to the audiobook of his memoir, Vagabond, which he recorded in 2025. Being the fool that I am, however, when I hit play, I was surprised, just for a moment, that Curry’s voice wasn’t that of Frank-N-Furter. And, obviously, it wouldn’t be. Not only because Curry played that role, in the film, in 1975, 50 years before recording the audiobook, but also because that was a role, and along with the costume and persona came the iconic voice. Even though that is what he sounds like, as a default, in my head because that’s the role I associate with him, that wasn’t who he was or what he sounded like (obviously when you write it down).

Yet the experience got me thinking. My momentary disappointment was irrational, but it revealed something interesting: I wanted Curry to sound less like himself and more like the version of him that existed in my memory. I wondered whether someone, somewhere, would eventually take Curry’s memoir and feed it through AI.

While this might sound like an odd thought experiment dreamt up during a walk in the park, which it was, the underlying idea is not new.

Earlier this year, NBC reported that actor Michael Caine licensed his voice so that the AI company ElevenLabs could create a synthetic version of it. The result was an audiobook of the Odyssey, narrated not by the older Michael Caine of today, but by a recreation of the younger Caine that many listeners remember from film.

This may seem harmless enough. After all, if Caine consents, which he did, and listeners enjoy the experience, where is the problem?

Well, I think there is a problem. In fact, I see two clear issues.

The first concerns posthumous consent.

Curry had died. Unlike Caine, he would therefore not be in a position to agree to the creation of a synthetic version of his voice. Nor could he specify how that voice should be used, which periods of his life might be reproduced, or which of his characters might be permitted to narrate his story. We would be recreating the likeness of someone who had died without knowing whether they would have approved.

Having celebrities feature in productions after their deaths is, of course, nothing new.

Peter Cushing appeared digitally in Rogue One. Harold Ramis appeared seven years after his death in Ghostbusters: Afterlife. A digital Audrey Hepburn appeared in a Galaxy chocolate advert way back in 2012. Heck, The Simpsons even made a joke about this way back in 1998, when Homer talks about celebrities being owned by the public and that, after their death, they’ll all star in commercials dancing with vacuum cleaners. Indeed, the basic idea of using technology to place dead celebrities on screen is well worn.

Despite how frequently posthumous recreations now occur, there remains something disrespectful about placing the image, voice, or persona of a deceased person into a context they never chose. That concern becomes more acute when the recreation is not merely being used to perform another fictional role.

A synthetic Curry narrating Vagabond would be used to tell Curry’s own story.

That compounds the problem. A digitally recreated actor appearing in a fictional film raises questions about consent, ownership, and commercialization. A digitally recreated actor narrating his own autobiography raises questions about authenticity itself. The technology would not merely be appropriating Curry’s voice. It would be appropriating his authority to speak about his own life.

The second problem concerns disability, ageing, and the symbolic meaning of replacing Curry’s actual performance.

We already possess a version of Vagabond narrated by Curry himself. It exists. The appeal of creating a synthetic alternative would rest largely on the belief that some listeners might prefer an earlier version of his voice or the stylized voice of one of his characters.

Yet that preference carries normative weight. Curry’s altered speech was a consequence of his life. His voice bore the marks of ageing, illness, survival, and extensive rehabilitation. Those marks were part of the person telling the story.

Replacing that performance with a reconstruction of the voice Curry once had would therefore not be a neutral act. It would suggest that the older Curry was somehow less authentic, less capable, or less worthy of being heard than the person many of us remember from our younger years.

The technology would not simply preserve a voice. It would select one version of a person over another and, in doing so, implicitly judge which version was worth hearing.

Now, you could argue that I’m coming on too strong here. That perhaps listeners who chose the synthetic version would not be making a judgment about Curry’s capacity to recount his own life. They might simply enjoy the voice of Frank-N-Furter and want to hear more of it. Their choice might be motivated by nostalgia rather than disrespect.

And yeah, sure. That might be true. Nevertheless, our actions express unintended meanings. Choosing the synthetic performance over Curry’s own narration would still involve turning away from the voice with which he chose to tell his story. Whatever an individual listener intended, the existence and commercial promotion of the alternative would communicate that the genuine article was subpar.

Perhaps the reproduction would sound smoother. Perhaps it would sound more familiar. Perhaps it would sound more like the Tim Curry that audiences wanted to remember.

But it would not be Tim Curry narrating his life.

If we can set the ethicists aside for a moment and adopt a business, dare I say capitalist, mindset, it is easy to see the commercial argument. Where actors or public figures possess iconic voices, audiences might reasonably want to hear autobiographies narrated in those voices. A company able to offer that experience would almost certainly find willing customers.

Suppose, for example, that an autobiography by James Earl Jones could be narrated in the voice of Darth Vader or Mufasa. Listeners could choose between the actor’s natural voice and the characters by whom they remember him. The appeal is obvious.

The model could be taken even further for performers associated with numerous voices. Consider Dan Castellaneta, who has voiced many characters in The Simpsons, including Homer Simpson, Krusty the Clown, Barney Gumble, Mayor Quimby, and others. An audiobook of his life could be sold with a selection screen allowing listeners to choose which character would narrate it. One person might want Homer. Another might prefer Krusty. A particularly adventurous listener could assign different characters to different chapters. Again, I can see the appeal.

There is, admittedly, a difference between this scenario and using AI to replace Curry’s narration of Vagabond. Castellaneta might consent to such a project, participate in its design, and receive payment for the use of his performances. If so, the ethical objections concerning posthumous consent are less forceful.

The examples, however, sit in the same sphere. Both alter the relationship between performers, characters, and audiences. Both invite us to treat a voice as something detachable from the person who produced it. Both suggest that a performance can be extracted, preserved, and made anew indefinitely.

Now, maybe my concerns will eventually be swept aside by consumer demand. Perhaps audiences will embrace the ability to hear autobiographies narrated by characters rather than people, choosing Homer Simpson over Dan Castellaneta, Darth Vader over James Earl Jones, or Frank-N-Furter over Tim Curry. If so, the technology may prove enormously profitable.

There remains, however, at least from where I sit, something unsettling about the prospect. Fictional characters can become important to us. They may shape our identities, provide comfort, or become entwined with significant moments in our lives. But the affection we feel for those characters should not cause us to overlook the people who brought them into existence.

Voices change. Bodies change. We age, become ill, and acquire histories that leave their mark. Those changes are not flaws to be corrected. They are part of what makes a life a life. And in using AI to erase those imperfections, we may gain a more familiar version of a celebrity. What we lose is the person.