Literacy

An AI visionary looks forward to the best of all possible worlds

20 July 2024 9:00 am

Technology unquestionably improves lives, says Ray Kurzwei, and soon we’ll be living to 150. As for 3D-printed guns invisible to scanners – there’ll be a solution to those too

Is writing now changing the world for the worse?

3 February 2024 9:00 am

Humanity’s great civilising accomplishment may have slipped the leash. Computer programs and surveillance also involve ‘writing’, potentially making us decreasingly human

‘Isfandiyar Slays Arjasp and Takes the Brazen Hold’. From Shah Tahmasp’s Shahnama (Tabriz, 1520s-1530s)

The art of the arabesque

2 September 2017 9:00 am

The title of this book, By the Pen and What They Write, is a quotation from the Qur’an and comes…

Joy to the world

14 December 2013 9:00 am

Pessimism sells. It shifts books and newspapers, sends ratings soaring. It fills lecture halls, wins research grants, makes political careers.…