ALT The Hunger for Human Connection. What happens when we make everything in life easier, except being human? By Eric Markowitz

ALT In the promised vision of agentic AI, humans will no longer have to do, well, anything. Today, if you call your pharmacy, you will not get a pharmacist but a chatbot. Want to check a bag at the airport? Head to the touchscreen kiosk. Flight canceled? Speak to the AI.

ALT "Ninety percent of my meals that I'm eating on a daily basis, weekly basis, are AI-directed. I'm not choosing what to eat. AI is telling me what to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner most days." Marc Lore, founder of "tech-enabled" kitchen brand Wonder

ALT At the center of billionaire Marc Lore's quest for epicurean domination is a robot he calls the "infinite bowl machine." It assembles 500 flawless salads and grain bowls per hour on a magnetized spinning platform, and it exists to solve what Lore identifies as a restaurant's biggest weakness: humans.

ALT Big Think's print magazine open to the "Prompting Reality" opening spread by Conor Feehly, with artwork by Ana Kova of two figures sitting on a glowing, impossible cube.

ALT Why we’re better than our ancestors. Everyone matters. If you believe that, it's a good sign. By Jonny Thomson

ALT According to the philosopher John Gray, technology and science accumulate over millennia. But ethics? Well, we’re no less brutal than we ever were. Francis Fukuyama disagrees. He argues that we are making progress as a society and, to see it, you only have to look at stories from the past.

ALT In 1675, Madame de Sévigné wrote a letter to her daughter about a musician “broken on the wheel.” This meant being strapped to a cross, where an executioner would systematically break the victim’s bones, leaving him to die slowly from blood loss or dehydration. And then, within a few lines, she’s talking about her neighbor enjoying the woods in enchanting weather.

ALT In the stories of Madame de Sévigné, the Southwark hanging, and Thomas Thistlewood, we see societies that are either callously cold or flat-out cruel. These are societies that have normalized violence and desensitized themselves to witnessing or inflicting torture on others.

ALT Cover: 3 social skills you should never outsource to AI, by Amy Morin

ALT “I worked with [a] client who thought AI would help her choose better romantic partners. She said, ‘I put a whole week’s worth of text conversations into AI and asked it to tell me if there were any signs my partner had attachment issues, and it said he may be avoidant.’” Amy Morin, psychotherapist and author

ALT Everyday conversations. There’s a good chance you’re better at knowing what to say to your friend or how to ask for help from a colleague than AI is. You’ve been doing it your whole life, and your willingness to keep doing it every single day is what will keep your social skills from atrophying.

ALT Difficult conversations. There’s no single right way to tell your partner you’re feeling insecure or to tell your mother-in-law you’d appreciate a call before she shows up. AI doesn’t know your emotions, your personalities, your history with the other person, or the circumstances you’re both in — no matter how much you think you’ve explained.