Against the “Value Alignment” of Future Artificial Intelligence

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What we should want, probably, is not that superintelligent AI align with our mixed-up, messy, and sometimes crappy values but instead that superintelligent AI have ethically good values. It's good that our children rebel. We wouldn't…

A Philosopher’s Toast to Getting Drunk

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Drunk is filled to the brim with references to the workplace. According to author Edward Slingerland, appreciating alcohol’s ancient roots can help us think more clearly about what role drinking should play in our professional lives.  As…

Combatting Bullshit in the Workplace

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Listen to "#31 - Combatting Bullshit in the Workplace" on Spreaker. In this episode of the Breaking the Fever podcast, we speak with Ian McCarthy about the many faces of bullshit—how it’s different from lies, the harmless and harmful…

The Double-Edged Nature of Cooperation

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Cooperation is our species’ superpower. The pandemic has been a stark reminder of just how much we rely on one another. Like plagues of the past, the novel coronavirus has exploited our social nature. But our sociality is also our…

Elizabeth Holmes Is a Scapegoat—Even If She’s Guilty

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Reprinted with permission from Luke Burgis' Substack, Anti-Mimetic. Our desire for quick justice can make us pounce on the most visible actors. The criminal trial of Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of the blood-testing startup Theranos,…

The Challenge of Working Remotely That’s Gone Most Unappreciated

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To see so many businesses finally catch up to the technological reality—that many jobs can be remote—can feel like a wonderful side effect of the pandemic lockdown. The option to work remotely is wonderful and worth fighting for. It’s…

How to Have Better Conversations About Ethics in Business

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The first step is to make conversations about ethics in business safe, interesting, and normal. It is often difficult, many people would agree, to talk about ethics in business. But why? It’s not because people don’t know what ethics…

Robert Bilott, Author of “Exposure,” Reflects on His Fight Against Corporate Arrogance

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In October 1998, a Parkersburg, West Virginia, cattle farmer named Earl Tennant noticed that his livestock was dying from a strange illness. Half of his cows and their calves had mysteriously died, and the rest had been born deformed and dead.…

An MIT Researcher Watched a Hospital Experiment with Shared Leadership

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Workers with little power are often at the mercy of more senior employees who benefit from newly introduced tech and pay little mind to how it affects others.  The social psychologist Debra Mashek, a self-styled “collaboration maven,”…

The Science of Collaborating Effectively: A Conversation with Debra Mashek

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Listen to "#28 - The Science of Collaborating Effectively: A Conversation with Dr Debra Mashek" on Spreaker. In this episode of the Breaking the Fever podcast, we speak with Debra Mashek about how true collaboration emerges within and between…