Skim or scan this. No need to deep-read.

Throughout history, the ability to tell increasingly believable stories has become available to more people. Kevin Ashton says that’s a blessing and a curse.

Joel Miller, the author of “The Idea Machine,” joins us to explore why books are history’s most successful information technology.

Wales shares with Big Think his thoughts about the future of media, the promise of AI, and our need to build a culture on trust.

If the people controlling AI are biased, the output will also be. Free speech scholar Jacob Mchangama makes the case for completely open-source AI.

"What’s happening now has, in fact, been happening since the very invention of language and writing."

In a world overwhelmed by confident yet often misleading claims, research professor Alex Edmans emphasizes the importance of critical thinking and informed decision-making to combat misinformation and enhance our freedom.

This class, featuring insights from experts like Steven Pinker and Gary Marcus, equips learners with critical thinking tools to navigate biases, understand scientific research, and make informed decisions in a media-saturated world, emphasizing the importance of questioning assumptions and grounding perceptions in data.

"These days, no national news network is trusted by more than half of American adults. And that's a problem."

"The evolution of digital media makes stricter regulation of online behavior not only feasible but inevitable," writes media ecologist Andrey Mir.

“Why is it that the quality of our information did not improve over thousands of years? Why is it that very sophisticated societies have been as susceptible as stone age tribes to mass delusion and the rise of destructive ideologies?”

In "Not Born Yesterday," author and cognitive scientist Hugo Mercier makes the case that misinformation is overrated — and other human foibles are underrated.

Although social paranoia is more common than clinical paranoia, studies suggests that American society isn’t any more conspiratorial than it has been in the past.

Once students master the basics of math, they are allowed to use calculators. The same should be true of writing and ChatGPT.

You are much more likely to die in a car crash than from terrorism. Yet, philosopher Eran Fish says fearing terrorism more is justified.

Philosopher Lee McIntyre discusses the dangers of disinformation, how such falsehoods spread, and what we can do about it.

We can no longer approach the news as passive consumers.

Skepticism is appropriate when gazing into the futurist's crystal ball.

By exposing people to small doses of misinformation and encouraging them to develop resistance strategies, "prebunking" can fight fake news.

The "attention economy" corrupts science.

Scientific journals, which are supposed to be the sacred scriptures of academia, are often full of shoddy research and misinformation.

Media provocateurs and conspiracy theorists insist that they're "just asking questions." No, they aren’t.

Is the news too good to be true?

Social media distorts the reality of the public sphere.

In "Off the Edge", journalist Kelly Weill dives down the strange rabbit hole of the flat-Earther community.

The problems that Americans face are often too complex for fact-checking alone.

“To be ignorant of causes is to be frustrated in action.” So wrote Francis Bacon, counsel to Queen Elizabeth I of England and key architect of the scientific method. In […]

But there are resources, tips, and telltale signs to keep you from being duped. “Some people think that the truth can be hidden with a little cover-up and decoration. But as […]

Using incomplete facts to spin a false narrative and mislead the public is the modus operandi of a political liar. “I’m not a natural leader. I’m too intellectual; I’m too […]