Culture
Unravelling Bitcoin and the Crypto Puzzle
Article by Ethan Gray
Accompanying the headlines of Bitcoin's surging price are stories highlighting the network's substantial energy use. The network was consuming 137 TWh of electricity at the end of March 2021. That is up 3,526% since early 2017. For perspective, that amount of electricity can power the country of Ukraine. Bitcoin's algorithm prevents it from scaling efficiently, a rather important factor for a global system. Bitcoin catalyzed a revolution in decentralized networks, but should it be adopted in the coming decades?
Does Alexa Reflect or Reject Patriarchal Values?
Article by Emily Daly
While many of us first heard a feminised AI voice in Spike Jonze’s award-winning film, Her, in which a lonely male character falls in love with a disembodied female machine, today this voice has seeped into different facets of our lives such as voice assistants, sat-navs, at supermarket checkouts and public service announcements. However, it has been widely recognised that feminised AI voices are mainly employed in assistive roles, which raises questions around gender: do female AI reinforce gender roles and affect our attitudes towards women in actuality?
TikTok is Accelerating the Falsification of the Music Industry
Article by Maddy Black
These transparent and even desperate appeals to the younger generation against the backdrop of his immense California mansion beg the question: how much do these celebrities need Tiktok? They’re regarded as trendsetters, the obsessions of tabloid magazines that desperately try and decode their elusive lifestyles. In the Tiktok sphere, they are not setting trends - they’re following them.