PAGES41
WORDS71,249
SOURCES365
READ TIME120 min
TYPEHUB
CHECKED25 AUG 26
The pages that are not about building anything. What AI does to work, to attention, to the open web, and to the parts of thinking worth protecting.
At work
What actually changes, and what does not.
COMPARISON · 15 MIN · 25 SOURCESFree vs Paid AI Chat: What Each Plan Actually Gets YouWhat ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Meta Muse and Grok give you free and on each paid plan in September 2026, and what paying does not change.EXPLAINER · 15 MIN · 24 SOURCESClaude’s Text Watermark: What It Is, What It Can Prove, and Why the EU Requires ItWhat Claude’s hidden text watermark is, which models carry it, who can check it, what editing removes, and why the EU AI Act requires it.EXPLAINER · 14 MIN · 22 SOURCESCommon AI Misconceptions, and What Is Actually TrueTwelve things people believe about AI chat tools, from “it looks things up” to “detectors can tell”, checked against vendor docs and research.GUIDE · 12 MIN · 26 SOURCESAI Chatbots and Kids: Ages, Parental Controls and What to SayWhat ChatGPT, Gemini, Meta AI, Character.AI and Claude say about children’s ages, what parental controls really do, and four things to talk about.EXPLAINER · 9 MIN · 18 SOURCESHow Misinformation Spreads, and What Slows It DownMisinformation, disinformation and malinformation defined; why false stories outran true ones on Twitter; what the evidence says slows them; what AI changes.GUIDE · 13 MIN · 23 SOURCESConfirmation bias, repetition and AI: six checks on yourselfWhy we favour evidence that agrees with us and trust claims we hear often, which famous findings were overstated, and six checks to run on yourself.GUIDE · 11 MIN · 22 SOURCESHow to Spot Fake Reviews, Including AI-Written OnesWhat US and UK law now bans, the one-minute checks that catch fake and AI-written reviews, and what the numbers platforms publish about removals really mean.GUIDE · 6 MIN · 5 SOURCESHow to Check a Citation an AI Gave YouAI tools can invent sources that look real. The one-minute check, what a court did when lawyers skipped it, and what a study of 636 citations found.GUIDE · 6 MIN · 10 SOURCESHow to Read a Number Before You Repeat ItSix questions to ask of any statistic — which year, who counted, which way it was rounded — each shown with a real mistake this site made and corrected.GUIDE · 5 MIN · 4 SOURCESHow to Check a Viral Screenshot Before You Share ItA screenshot is a claim with its source cut off. Five checks that settle most of them, and the two times a screenshot caught this site out.EXPLAINER · 4 MIN · 2 SOURCESWhat Is Meta Vibes? The AI Video Feed, and the Likeness QuestionVibes is Meta’s feed for making and remixing AI video. What the product page promises about your likeness, what it does not say, and why that matters.DATED · 6 MIN · 7 SOURCESAI AND WORKNot mass unemployment — the bottom rung. What changed, when, and what it actually means.THE RECORD · 1 MINUSING AI AT WORKWhat should never go into a prompt, what to disclose, and what you stay answerable for when the output is…EXPLAINER · 3 MINThe Work AI Cannot TakeWhen machine output becomes infinite and free, value moves to what stays scarce: verifiably human work - witness,…EXPLAINER · 3 MINWhat AI Cannot CoverMachine content clusters around the well-covered middle, leaving gaps exactly where humans win: experience, original…EXPLAINER · 5 MINWhat Stays Human: slow, imperfect, on purposeAs machines make perfect cheap and fast free, the scarce things flip: slowness, flaws,…
Judgement
The skill that gets more valuable as generation gets cheaper.
EXPLAINER · 3 MIN · 1 SOURCESCritical Thinking Is the Skill of the AgeWhen machines can generate anything, the scarce human act is deciding what to believe.THE RECORD · 4 MIN · 8 SOURCESHow AI Influences You BackEveryone writes about how prompts shape models. The other direction is measured, substantial and largely invisible: sycophancy, foTHE RECORD · 4 MINHOW TO ASK AI WELLNot prompt tricks that expire with the next release. Sourced, dated, and revised when the numbers move.EXPLAINER · 3 MIN · 6 SOURCESHow to Explain AI to Someone ElseFor anyone who has to justify an AI decision to a class, a team, a board or a parent: the four questions you will be asked, with sourced and dated answers.THE RECORD · 4 MINWHEN NOT TO USE AINine cases where reaching for AI makes the outcome worse, and how to tell in advance.
The state of the web
What happens when most of it is machine-made.
EXPLAINER · 5 MIN · 4 SOURCESWHAT THE INTERNET WASThe web was never golden and it did not die. The four structural changes that reshaped it, three of them before AI arrived, and what can still be recovered.EXPLAINER · 3 MIN · 1 SOURCESDead Internet Theory: what it claims, and what the evidence supportsThe dead internet theory makes three claims: the plot is unsupported, the idea that humans are gone is contradicted, and the shift to automated content is real.EXPLAINER · 5 MIN · 3 SOURCESPages Written For Machines, Read By No OnePages written to be crawled, shops with nothing behind them, audiences that are not there.DATED · 5 MIN · 6 SOURCESAI AND THE OPEN WEBPublisher traffic is down about a third — and small sites lost the most.THE RECORD · 6 MIN · 3 SOURCESHOW MUCH IS BOTSMore than half of web traffic is automated — 53% in 2025 per Imperva and Thales.THE RECORD · 6 MIN · 9 SOURCESState of the Automated InternetHow much of the internet is machines? A quarterly, fully sourced snapshot: bot traffic share, AI-generated content…THE RECORD · 4 MIN · 3 SOURCESHOW TO SEARCH NOWMost Google searches in the US now end without a click. Sourced, dated, and revised when the numbers move.
Site data: each card restates the page it links to, where the figure is sourced and quoted; cards checked against those pages 23 Sep 2026.
At home and at school
The conversations that come up.
DATED · 4 MIN · 5 SOURCESAI IN SCHOOLSSeven AI detectors averaged a 61.3% false-positive rate on essays by non-native English writers.THE RECORD · 4 MIN · 3 SOURCESTHE HOUSEHOLD GUIDEA printable one-page guide to protecting your household from voice-cloning and deepfake scams: a family code word, hang up and call back, and the warning signs.DATED · 1 MIN · 2 SOURCESAI COMPANIONSThey reduce loneliness in the short term. What changed, when, and what it actually means.EXPLAINER · 6 MIN · 1 SOURCESHow AI Got Into Your Tools Without AskingFree intelligence arrived like a gift at the gates. Explained plainly, with sources named and dated.
Site data: each card restates the page it links to, where the figure is sourced and quoted; cards checked against those pages 23 Sep 2026.
The vocabulary
Words used loosely, defined honestly.
EXPLAINER · 7 MINThe AI Glossary: sixty terms, honestly definedSixty AI terms defined in plain language as used in mid-2026: tokens, transformers, RAG, quantization, MoE, model…EXPLAINER · 4 MINAI Prompting Terms GlossaryEvery AI prompting term explained in plain language. CFG scale, denoising strength, LoRA, sampler, seed, steps, negative prompt, iEXPLAINER · 4 MINThe Automated-Internet Vocabulary: 25 termsFrom slop to model collapse to C2PA: twenty-five plain-language definitions for navigating the synthetic internet,…EXPLAINER · 3 MINContextual Prompting, Meaning: why "prompt engineering" quietly died — and what replaced itContextual prompting (context engineering) defined precisely: why reasoning models and AI agents ended prompt formulas,…EXPLAINER · 3 MINAGI, Meaning: what the term actually claims — and why nobody agreesAGI has four competing definitions — capability, economic, autonomy, and the levels gradient.
Where it goes next
Stated as forecast, not measurement.
EXPLAINER · 3 MINStill Optimistic — but everything is about to move faster, and we need to keep upA hopeful case for the AI future - and an honest worry: change now arrives in product cycles, not…EXPLAINER · 5 MIN · 2 SOURCESLocal or Cloud: Where Does AI Live Next?A no-sides study of local versus cloud AI in mid-2026: the roughly 3-6 month capability gap, the strongest honest case…EXPLAINER · 6 MIN · 1 SOURCESWhat AI Actually Runs On: sand, power, and heatDescend from silicon die to power grid: why GPUs, what memory bandwidth means, how a training run works, and the…THE RECORD · 1 MINFOLLOW THE RECORDThe record is revised four times a year. Sourced, dated, and revised when the numbers move.