The future rarely begins at the centre.

It takes shape in the margins—in overlooked ideas, unfinished questions and changes not yet fully understood. Examined Present explores technology, work, books and the examined life.

A sepia-toned sketch and charcoal illustration of four scholars working at a long wooden table in a classical study, with a thin red line weaving through the scene and extending into a geometric network of nodes near a window, framed by a torn-paper edge.

Notes from the Margins

Small observations, linguistic detours and the occasional rebellion of an everyday object.

AI Is Not the WeatherWhen AI leaders speak of tsunamis, singularities and approaching foothills, they do more than describe technological progress. They turn decisions made by companies and institutions into forces of nature—and make a contested future sound inevitable.
The Madeleine We CarryA taste, scent or sound can return us to a life we thought had disappeared. Proust’s madeleine reveals how memory quietly preserves the places—and selves—we once called home.
The Cognitive Work of ReadingReading looks still from the outside, but inside the mind it is an active process of attention, inference, memory, and imagination.
The Family Car Was Already Quiet Before AI ArrivedSam Altman’s suggestion of an AI-generated podcast for the school run was criticised as another attempt to automate human interaction.
Code Is Poetry—Except When It Refuses to CompilePoets work within rules of syntax and form, even when their intention is to break them. Programmers face a similar constraint: the machine needs to understand what has been written.

Notes from the Margins

The Family Car Was Already Quiet Before AI Arrived

Sam Altman recently shared what he described as an interesting use of ChatGPT: connect the family calendars, explain the children's interests and ask the system to create a personalised podcast for the morning drive to school. It might mention one child's football match, another's upcoming birthday and a few items from the news. The suggestion was criticised as another attempt to automate human interaction — the school run, that small unscripted hour of family life, quietly handed to a machine.

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