Fracking Time: The Difference Between Machine Time and Human Time, and Why We Should Be Concerned
Machines process data at speeds far exceeding human brain capacity, but speed doesn’t convey the meaning of causes and effects in time. This third installment in our “human fracking” series explores the differences between machine time and human time, asking what happens to our attention, memory, and independent reasoning when algorithms set the pace of our lives.
Reverse Transcriptase: The Viral Enzyme Helping Scientists Rewrite DNA
Reverse transcriptase, an enzyme originally discovered in viruses, has become an essential tool in biotechnology, with new research revealing unexpected functions and potential applications including gene editing, anti-aging, and Alzheimer’s disease treatment. Scientists are finding ways to both exploit and inhibit the enzyme’s activity, opening new possibilities for medicine and biological engineering. Yet these advances highlight an ethical dilemma: how to balance the promise of potentially life-changing technologies against their uncertain long-term consequences.
Successes in Green Chemistry Advance Environmentally Sustainable Technologies
Discoveries in green chemistry ae enabling more sustainable materials and manufacturing. From plant-based plastic alternatives to emerging methods for reducing fossil fuel use in chemical production, discover how researchers are working to increase efficiency, reduce pollution, and address the environmental toll of products like ammonium for fertilizer that are key to modern living.
New Entanglement Methods Boost Prospect of Full-Scale Quantum Computing by 2029. Is 3 Years Enough Time to Re-Encrypt the World’s Data?
New approaches using sunlight and microwave fields for entanglement advance prospects for creating stable quantum computing circuits. They also heighten the urgency for protecting the world’s sensitive data from decryption by quantum algorithms, as major developers race to deliver fully-functioning machines by 2029.
In Focus
Is the Link Between Prediction Markets and Social Media Algorithms Another Form of Human Fracking?
Prediction markets and social media algorithms turn forecasts about human behavior into profit, creating incentives to influence the outcomes they anticipate. From insider trading and the concentration of wealth in betting platforms to algorithms that shape political attitudes, these systems reveal how prediction can become a means of manipulation and economic exploitation, concentrating power among those who control information and technology.
Engineered for Overconsumption: The Health Risks and Regulatory Battle Over Ultra-Processed Foods
Ultra-processed foods are often cheaper, widely available, and engineered to encourage overconsumption. Growing scientific evidence links them to serious health risks, including cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. As researchers uncover more about their effects on the body and develop new tools to identify them, governments are introducing measures to protect public health. Powerful food companies, however, continue to challenge these regulations.
Bold Theory Proposes Gravity, Spacetime, Dark Energy, and Dark Matter Emerging from Quantum Information Transactions
Entropic gravity theory argues that the fabric of spacetime isn’t an original feature of the universe but is instead a product of quantum interactions called “transactions.” Challenging assumptions about the order of time, the theory explains how quantum transactions cause gravity, dark matter, and dark energy, and how spacetime emerges as a record of these events.
Editorial Perspectives
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Blog
Attention Capitalism: Consumers Deserve Better Legal Protection for Data Taken by Big Tech
Capturing human attention drives massive profits for companies like Google, and Meta that don't compensate us for data they take under lengthy, often incomprehensible, and seldom-read user agreements. We suggest legal changes – including summaries of key contractual terms, recognition that payment in data is equivalent to payment in cash, and funding of independent legal advice for consumers – to add fairness and balance to our data-providing relationship with giant tech companies.
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Blog
2026: When a Free Bit of Philosophy Can be Worth More Than Trillion$ in Fleeting Tech Value
With trillions of dollars at stake in the public offerings of SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI, investors face serious risk to the future value of their shareholdings. Increasingly rapid technological developments and the historically-predictable rise of disruptive technologies pose the real potential of obsolescence and investment losses. Knowing the historical approach of a company's leadership, and the application of philosophy's cost-free processes of dialogue and thought, could yield far greater rewards in the future than the now dominant trading algorithms that drive market prices and timing could possibly predict. Caveat emptor.
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Blog
Why Understanding History is Crucial for Responsible Artificial Intelligence Development
Palantir is a controversial company developing systems for U.S. government use in mass deportations. We examine the historical perspectives of Palantir's CEO, Alex Karp, in his 2025 book that promotes the use of "hard power" to preserve a particular form of democracy, and question whether history's lessons have been considered. We suggest that tech leaders tread very cautiously on the historical record when they produce AI applications as powerful as Palantir's.
The Quantum Feedback Loop Podcast
Dr. Joanna Santos on Software Vulnerabilities and Security Testing
Dr. Catherine Knibbs on the Causes and Effects of Cybertrauma
How the Asteroid Institute Defends Earth from Asteroids with the THOR algorithm
The Quantum Record is a non-profit journal of philosophy, science, technology, and time.
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Latest Quantum Computing
New Entanglement Methods Boost Prospect of Full-Scale Quantum Computing by 2029. Is 3 Years Enough Time to Re-Encrypt the World’s Data?
New approaches using sunlight and microwave fields for entanglement advance prospects for creating stable quantum computing circuits. They also heighten the urgency for protecting the world’s sensitive data from decryption by quantum algorithms, as major developers race to deliver fully-functioning machines by 2029.
Scaling Green Quantum Computing and the Search for Environmental Efficiency
According to the World Economic Forum, quantum computing could help reduce energy demands of AI and intensive computing, but its environmental advantage will depend on which quantum architectures are scaled and their operating efficiency. Research suggests a green outcome will involve more than eliminating the cost of supercooling, and a new study finds that operating near room temperature does not necessarily reduce overall energy use. Much can change, however, as developing quantum architectures mature.
There’s No Time Like the Present as High Schools Begin Preparing Youth for a Future in Quantum Computing
As major developers race to produce fully functioning quantum computers by 2029, high schools worldwide are beginning to introduce students to the the technology’s foundations. Supported by national quantum strategies in the U.S., Canada, the EU, and elsewhere, educators are beginning to prepare elementary and secondary school students for graduation into a quantum job market, although questions remain whether current efforts will meet future demand, and whether students in under-resourced regions will be left behind.
Featured Science News
Why Artificial Neural Networks Fail in Processing Emotions Essential for Human Memory—and How Failure Can Lead to Blackmail
Artificial neural networks behind ChatGPT, Claude, and other popular large language models fall short in processing emotions, which are essential to human memory and motivation. The fault lines that lead machines to sycophancy, blackmail, jailbreaking, and other serious output errors are rooted in machine learning and choices made by human trainers. We look at examples of algorithmic failures and the reasons why.
Latest Philosophy of Technology
Fracking Time: The Difference Between Machine Time and Human Time, and Why We Should Be Concerned
Machines process data at speeds far exceeding human brain capacity, but speed doesn’t convey the meaning of causes and effects in time. This third installment in our “human fracking” series explores the differences between machine time and human time, asking what happens to our attention, memory, and independent reasoning when algorithms set the pace of our lives.
The Fracking of Human Language: Are the Risks of Language-Simulators Like ChatGPT Worth the Sacrifices?
A UNESCO report warns that large language models like ChatGPT risk creating a “linguistic dictatorship” by standardizing speech and thought while amplifying stereotypes and the loss of many words. Convincing but deceptive and poor simulations of human emotions continue to damage mental health, and some propose that we stop attaching human terms like “intelligence,” “hallucination,” and “neural network” to the algorithms to make it clearer they’re not human.
‘Human Fracking’: How Tech Turns Our Attention Into a Commodity
Researchers use the concepts of “human fracking” and “attention capitalism” to describe how digital platforms capture and commercialize human attention. They examine how this system operates, laws that help to sustain it, and the forms of regulation and action that could limit its effects. Proposals include stronger antitrust and privacy protections, limits on manipulative platform features and advertising, changes to tax and contract law, public education, and the creation of attention sanctuaries.
Latest Technology Over Time
After Centuries of Exploring the Mysteries of the Great Pyramid Shafts, Will Robotics Help to Uncover Their Purpose?
Over 200 years have passed since French Emperor Napoleon’s night in the Great Pyramid puzzling over its purpose, and there remains no consensus but many theories on the question. The reason for the shafts in the King’s and Queen’s Chambers is particularly mystifying, and we explore many possibilities. Will robots, which have penetrated the shafts most deeply, help to unlock the secret that’s thousands of years old?
Decoding Ancient Technology Using Modern Technology
From the discovery of a 500-year-old ocean-going canoe in the Chatham Islands to the AI-powered decoding of ancient Roman scrolls buried in volcanic ash, modern technologies—like radiocarbon dating, CT scanning, and AI—are transforming the study of ancient artefacts. Mysteries endure, however, like the undeciphered Voynich Manuscript, and continue to challenge our understanding of the past.
The Fascinating History of the Computer, from ENIAC, Vacuum Tubes and Transistors, to Microchips
We trace computing history from ENIAC, the first computer in 1947, from vacuum tubes to transistors, to the development of microchips that put far greater computing power in our our phones than the giant ENIAC had. With the world at the brink of a quantum computing revolution, what lessons can we draw from our computing history to shape the best possible future with our next technological leap ?
Latest Science News
Reverse Transcriptase: The Viral Enzyme Helping Scientists Rewrite DNA
Reverse transcriptase, an enzyme originally discovered in viruses, has become an essential tool in biotechnology, with new research revealing unexpected functions and potential applications including gene editing, anti-aging, and Alzheimer’s disease treatment. Scientists are finding ways to both exploit and inhibit the enzyme’s activity, opening new possibilities for medicine and biological engineering. Yet these advances highlight an ethical dilemma: how to balance the promise of potentially life-changing technologies against their uncertain long-term consequences.
Successes in Green Chemistry Advance Environmentally Sustainable Technologies
Discoveries in green chemistry ae enabling more sustainable materials and manufacturing. From plant-based plastic alternatives to emerging methods for reducing fossil fuel use in chemical production, discover how researchers are working to increase efficiency, reduce pollution, and address the environmental toll of products like ammonium for fertilizer that are key to modern living.
Engineered for Overconsumption: The Health Risks and Regulatory Battle Over Ultra-Processed Foods
Ultra-processed foods are often cheaper, widely available, and engineered to encourage overconsumption. Growing scientific evidence links them to serious health risks, including cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. As researchers uncover more about their effects on the body and develop new tools to identify them, governments are introducing measures to protect public health. Powerful food companies, however, continue to challenge these regulations.