Communication

A run of recent Amazon delivery failures has made me rethink how much I can rely on a service I’ve trusted for 25 years. Silent drop-offs, inaccurate status alerts, and disappearing delivery photos point to a deeper issue: when communication slips, trust goes with it.

What began with a post about the em dash became a conversation about much more – how we think about voice, authenticity and the human mind in an AI-shaped world. The comments revealed concerns about something deeper - not about punctuation, but about identity and how we choose to sound.

ChatGPT now promises to stop using em dashes when instructed, ending a surprisingly noisy debate over a tiny punctuation mark. But the real story is how AI picked up the em dash from us in the first place – and what that says about voice, trust and the way we write today.

The Internet Archive has survived years of copyright battles, but at great cost. Half a million books are gone – erased by law. What does that mean for our shared digital memory, and what can we learn from the burning of books in the ancient Library of Alexandria?

Recent stories about Pope Leo XIV – from a supposed “leaked letter” to his rejection of an AI-generated avatar pope – reveal how easily spectacle overtakes substance. In an age of distortion, discernment and the wisdom of the heart matter more than ever.

A Stanford study shows that one in four corporate press releases and many UN statements are now AI-assisted. Generative tools are reshaping how organisations write and communicate – raising new questions about authenticity, intent, and trust.

Communication hijacking is more than brand parody – it’s the hostile takeover of campaigns and narratives, when your words are seized and twisted, all designed to erode trust and legitimacy. Here’s why it matters, and what to do about it.

What happens when podcasts stop being conversations and start becoming factory output? As AI voices step up to the mic, the medium faces a defining question: can podcasting keep its human soul in an era of synthetic hosts and mass-produced shows?