Matthew Hutson

A neuroscientist covers the science of mental health, from probiotics to psychedelics. My review of “The Balanced Brain,” by Camilla Nord, for The Wall Street Journal:

‘The Balanced Brain’ Review: It’s All in Your Head We’ve come a long way to understanding how our mind works and how to keep it healthy. That doesn’t make things any less confusing.

My first Talk of the Town piece, in this week’s The New Yorker! “The Truth Is Out There, on an App.” Thanks Enigma Labs, Nick Pope, Josh McFarland.

The Truth Is Out There, on an App A NASA report recommended crowdsourcing possible U.F.O. sightings. The founder of Enigma Labs explains how they’re already sorting and rating them according to plausibility.

People are using AI, chatbots, and deepfakes to bring loved ones back to “life.” My story for Popular Mechanics (sorry for the paywall).

Thanks, Hossein Rahnama, James Vlahos, HereAfter AI, Eugenia Kuyda, Replika, Stephen D Smith, StoryFile, Justin Harrison, You, Only Virtual - YOV, Mary-Frances O'Connor, Nina Strohminger.

The Tech Breakthrough That Is Bringing Us Closer to Immortality We can live forever, but it's nothing like what we imagined

A Global Perspective on AI in Education. My summary for Psychology Today of a panel I moderated at Qatar Foundation's , with HE Buthaina bint Ali al-Jabr al-Nuaimi, HE Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, Jörg Dräger, Lihui Zhang, and Diab:

A Global Perspective on AI in Education How will artificial intelligence disrupt teaching and learning?

Artificial intelligence may benefit from talking to itself.

My latest for Science News from Science on research by Shengran HU and Jeff Clune.

Artificial intelligence may benefit from talking to itself An inner monologue can help a machine learn to perform complex tasks more reliably

Will superintelligent AI sneak up on us? New study offers reassurance. My latest for Nature.

Will superintelligent AI sneak up on us? New study offers reassurance Improvements in the performance of large language models such as ChatGPT are more predictable than they seem.

“The Personal, Political Art of Board-Game Design: What can board games say that other art forms can’t?” My latest for The New Yorker.

The Personal, Political Art of Board-Game Design What can board games say that other art forms can’t?

“Curveballs,” “snowballs,” and “boomerangs”: examples of how terrible we are at nonlinear thinking. My review of “How to Expect the Unexpected,” by Kit Yates, for The Wall Street Journal:

‘How to Expect the Unexpected’ Review: Stop Thinking Straight ‘Curveballs,’ ‘snowballs’ and ‘boomerangs.’ These are all examples of how people are generally terrible at nonlinear thinking.

“The Man Who Invented Fifteen Hundred Necktie Knots”: My latest for The New Yorker, on fashion, art, mathematics, and a doorman.

The Man Who Invented Fifteen Hundred Necktie Knots For tie aficionados, knots are an art form—and a surprisingly difficult math problem.

“They went to the bar at noon”: What this virtual AI village is teaching researchers. My Q&A with Joon Par for Nature:

‘They went to the bar at noon’: what this virtual AI village is teaching researchers Researcher Joon Park talks about making a small town of AI-powered agents open-source.

My New Yorker essay on Burning Man 2023, a year of personal and collective adaptation. And p*e jugs.

Will the Rains Extinguish Burning Man? The desert festival thrives on unpredictability, but a changing climate may be a bridge too far.

An ambitious plan to sequence the genomes of every species of plant, animal, and fungus (that’s millions). My latest feature for The New Yorker, on the Earth Biogenome Project:

The Race to Save the World’s DNA A scientific rescue mission aims to analyze every plant, animal, and fungus before it’s too late.

“Searching for a Fortress Built by People Who Escaped Slavery,” my latest for The New Yorker. This one was very new territory for me.

Searching for a Fortress Built by People Who Escaped Slavery Its ruins are somewhere in the swamps of Georgia. What will it take to find them?

Getting ahead requires being someone’s fool some of the time. My review of “Nobody’s Fool: Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do About It,” by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris, for The Wall Street Journal:

‘Nobody’s Fool’ Review: Against All Frauds We tend to believe by default what we see and hear. But even if we can’t be nobody’s fool, we may become a bit less foolish.

Here’s how we could begin decoding an alien message using math. My story for Science News:

Here’s how we could begin decoding an alien message using math A new mathematical approach looks for order in strings of bits – without relying on human assumptions.

My latest for Nature: DeepMind AI creates algorithms that sort data faster than those built by people.

DeepMind AI creates algorithms that sort data faster than those built by people The technology developed by DeepMind that plays Go and chess can also help to write code.

Are you hallucinating? My review of “The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality,” by Andy Clark, for The Wall Street Journal:

‘The Experience Machine’ Review: What the Brain Sees Our sensory organs provide the inputs—but memory and other forces shape what we ultimately perceive.

My latest feature for The New Yorker:

Can We Stop Runaway A.I.? Technologists warn about the dangers of the so-called singularity. But can anything actually be done to prevent it?

Detection Stays One Step Ahead of Deepfakes—for Now. My latest for IEEE Spectrum:

Detection Stays One Step Ahead of Deepfakes—For Now The spread of AI-generated content is keeping the tech designed to spot it on its toes

A guidebook like “Outsmart Your Brain” should be required reading for any college student and for many professionals. My review of Daniel Willingham’s book for The Wall Street Journal:

‘Outsmart Your Brain’ Review: You Too Can Be an ‘A’ Student Memory retrieval feels hard at first, like failing to do a pushup. But that’s precisely why it works. You must build new muscle.

The Artist Who Collaborates with Ants. My latest for The New Yorker, on work by Catherine Chalmers

The Artist Who Collaborates with Ants By working with insects, Catherine Chalmers reveals how much we have in common with them.

“AI Gets Creative”: I covered a runner-up for Science Magazine’s 2022 Breakthrough of the Year:

Science’s 2022 Breakthrough of the Year: A telescope’s golden eye sees the universe anew JWST makes a spectacular debut, AI gets creative, giant bacteria surprise, and the year’s other big advances in science

My latest for The New Yorker:

Eight Times Science Exceeded Expectations in 2022 From asteroids to A.I., this was a year of scientific superlatives.

We misjudge ourselves and others, but reality is often brighter than assumed. My review of “How Do We Know Ourselves?” in today's Wall Street Journal:

‘How Do We Know Ourselves?’ Review: A Humbling Look Inside The human brain may be a marvel of perception and analysis, but its ability to evaluate itself leaves a lot to be desired.

How a Marine Biologist Remixed Whalesong. My latest piece for The New Yorker:

How a Marine Biologist Remixed Whalesong Sara Niksic, a lover of whales and electronic music, has merged her passions.

AI learns the art of Diplomacy. My story in this week’s News from Science, on new work by Meta:

AI learns the art of Diplomacy Meta’s algorithm tackles both language and strategy in a classic board game that involves negotiation

AI for drug design? “Maximizing quality-adjusted life years, that’s the only commandment of my longevity religion.” —Alex Zhavoronkov Insilico Medicine in my profile of him for NEO.LIFE:

Alex Zhavoronkov: Live Long and Prosper - NEO.LIFE The maniacally focused founder of Insilico Medicine is going all in on AI to discover new medicines and extend lifespan.

Could AI help you to write your next paper? My piece in this week’s Nature:

Could AI help you to write your next paper? Large language models can draft abstracts or suggest research directions, but these artificial-intelligence tools are a work in progress.

‘Visual Thinking’ Review: Do You See What I’m Saying? Not everybody thinks verbally. Spatial thinkers think in abstract patterns, while object visualizers see photorealistic images.

My review of “Visual Thinking” by Temple Grandin, for The Wall Street Journal. Grandin has written an indictment of America for its witting or unwitting dismissal of many people’s hidden gifts.

‘Visual Thinking’ Review: Do You See What I’m Saying? Not everybody thinks verbally. Spatial thinkers think in abstract patterns, while object visualizers see photorealistic images.