Hear from GHS Junior
Hear from GHS Junior
Lily Tym about this week of class!
Lily Tym about this week of class!
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About Lily
About Lily
I'm Lily Tym, and I'm currently a junior enrolled in Geneva High School's Artificial Intelligence course and AP Literature class, of which I have recently become a TA. I'm involved in both Geneva's Literary Society and Green Club, along with the varsity Girl's Tennis Team during the fall. When I'm not focused on my rigorous course schedule, I enjoy drawing, reading, hiking and spending time with my friends. In the future, I hope to broaden my horizon of academic pursuit in college, though I’m undecided as to what or where I’ll be studying yet.
Throughout the past week in our AI class, we have continued to bridge the gap between the growth of AI and its effects on society at large. During lectures, we continue to study the way in which it has shaped the current political climate of not only the United States, but of other countries as well. When considering the possible future that our world is headed towards, some of these drastic changes are worth examining carefully. These shifts and outcomes may not seem concerning at first thought, but the possibility of long-term and irreversible consequences that may stem from them perhaps are.
We began this week by talking about the “Shadow Docket,” which refers to a particular set of Supreme Court orders issued outside of the normal, highly publicized process. Since it is a faster paced procedure, it is sometimes helpful in situations of emergency when an immediate decision is required, but it lacks the full oral arguments or detailed written opinions explaining the Court’s reasoning. Ultimately, the rising use of this political practice directly reflects the rapid moving nature of Artificial Intelligence. Additionally, the controversy over whether or not these “shadow docket” decisions have the ability to set precedents that have real effects on society continues to grow, highlighting the current internal tensions present in the U.S. Supreme Court.
The lack of transparency—and sometimes even reasoning—behind the decisions made by the Supreme Court through the use of the Shadow Docket continues to widen the gap between what some Americans believe to be the reality versus the truth of the situation. More specifically, this flawed system is in many ways contributing to the collapse of a shared reality, something we have been referring to as a “vibocracy.” For those unfamiliar with the term, it is essentially a socio-political theory that is characterized by a public sphere in which the notion of what is true is no longer something accepted purely based on empirical evidence, but rather what feels to be the truth.
Not only does this add to the political polarization occurring in our world, but also challenges what our country was fundamentally built on—that being rational thinking. With the increased reliance on our algorithms to personalize news in ways that appear most relatable to us, it is becoming increasingly easier to convince people into believing things that aren’t necessarily the truth. The dangers that this poses for society at large are undeniable, especially with the rising possibility that, for some, Artificial Intelligence may someday serve as a primary source for information or even “truth” itself.
Ultimately, this has the potential to affect not only the societal system of America, but it also has had drastic effects on the way in which media is presented to us. The truth is no longer the top priority for politicians, journalists, or even anyone trying to get attention through the press. Instead, the easiest way to accomplish this is through neo-orality—communication that is rapid, emotional, and possibly fragmented—which contributes greatly to a growing systematic issue that is the lack of a shared truth.
Artificial Intelligence has shifted our values as a society drastically, and it can even be argued that the notion of a shared reality is now meaningless to a large portion of society. If we cannot agree on what is real, what does that mean for the future of our country? As AI continues to grow in usage and as a societal influence, it is important to keep the question in mind when addressing internal issues, but global ones as well.
Want to Keep Up to Date with Our Reading List?
Want to Keep Up to Date with Our Reading List?
See below for each week's readings and join the conversation!
See below for each week's readings and join the conversation!
Week 35 - This Week
Week 35 - This Week
Jacqueline Fendy, “Vibocracy and the Collapse of Shared Reality”
Jodi Kantor, “The Inside Story of Five Days That Remade the Supreme Court”
Tony Rehagen, “Welcome to Post-Truth America”
Maxi Heitmayer, “The Second Wave of Attention Economics. Attention as a Universal Symbolic Currency on Social Media and beyond”
Week 34
Week 34
Wiki, Utopia
Thomas More, Utopia selections
Jamie Dimon, “Letter to Shareholders 2026”
US Govt, “National Security Strategy November 2025 Policy Document” (from last week’s readings!)
Alex Karp, The Technological Republic in Brief (from X)
Talmon Smith, “The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History Is Here, With Familiar (Rich) Winners”
Week 33
Week 33
Alexis Madrigal, “The Energy in Things”
Eve Warburton, “Nationalist enclaves: Industrialising the critical mineral boom in Indonesia”
Nisha Talagala, “Data as The New Oil Is Not Enough: Four Principles For Avoiding Data Fires”
Juana Summers, “Dirty nickel: The health costs of mining in Indonesia”
Lawrence Wright, “Lithium Dreams”
Greg Rosalsky, “Why the AI world is suddenly obsessed with a 160-year-old economics paradox”
Camilla Domonoske, “Their batteries hurt the environment, but EVs still beat gas cars. Here's why.”
Rithwik Kalale, “Lithium mining for EVs: how sustainable is it?”
Soumya Karlamangla, “The California Lake Billed as the ‘Saudi Arabia of Lithium’”
Image, “This is a silicon wafer”
Week 32
Week 32
Wiki, “Mother Nature”
Ken Silverstein, “America’s AI Boom Is Running Into An Unplanned Water Problem”
Elizabeth Kolbert, “The E.P.A. vs. the Environment”
Adam Zewe, “Explained: Generative AI’s environmental impact”
Shaolei Ren, “The Uneven Distribution of AI’s Environmental Impacts”
Carmen Gonzalez, “Environmental Justice, Human Rights, and the Global South Environmental Justice, Human Rights, and the Global South”
Megan Mastrola, “How AI Can Help Combat Climate Change”
Week 31
Week 31
Nathan Heller, “Is the Gig Economy Working?”
Matt Shumer, “Something Big is Happening”
Kashmir Hill, “Chatbots Can Go Into a Delusional Spiral. Here’s How It Happens.”
Jennifer Devries, “How Bad Are A.I. Delusions? We Asked People Treating Them.”
Rhitu Chatterjee, “Their teenage sons died by suicide. Now, they are sounding an alarm about AI chatbots”
Stuart Heritage, “‘I felt pure, unconditional love’: the people who marry their AI chatbots
Shannon Bond, “AI chatbots upended their lives. Now they're finding support from each other”
Johanna Costigan, “China's AI Boyfriend Business is Taking On a Life of Its Own”
Miles Klee, “This Spiral-Obsessed AI ‘Cult’ Spreads Mystical Delusions Through Chatbots”
Optional:
Andrew Clark, “The Ability of AI Therapy Bots to Set Limits With Distressed Adolescents: Simulation-Based Comparison Study”
Juliet Schor, “Dependence and precarity in the platform economy”
Week 30
Week 30
Wiki, “Satoshi Nakamoto”
John Carreyrou, “My Quest to Solve Bitcoin’s Great Mystery”
Satoshi Nakamoto, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”
TechScope, “Meme Coin Mania and Mayhem: Navigating the Blind Spots”
CoinMemeCap, “Top Memes Tokens by Market Capitalization”
Florida State, “Ponzi Schemes”
Ganesh Sitaraman, “We Must Prepare for an AI Bubble Now”
Michał Klincewicz et al., “Slopaganda: The interaction between propaganda and generative AI”
Kyle Chayka, “The Team Behind a Pro-Iran, Lego-Themed Viral-Video Campaign”
Week 29
Week 29
Week 28
Week 28
Independent Reading Selections (second half)
Week 27
Week 27
Independent Reading Selections (first half)
Weeks 25/26
Weeks 25/26
Does AI Have a Soul? Ethical AI, Palantir, Anthropic, and the US Government
Does AI Have a Soul? Ethical AI, Palantir, Anthropic, and the US Government
Berber Jin, “Meet the One Woman Anthropic Trusts to Teach AI Morals”
Image, “Should I Walk to the Car Wash?”
Matteo Wong, “Drink Whole Milk, Eat Red Meat, and Use ChatGPT”
Amrith Ramkumar, “Pentagon Used Anthropic’s Claude in Maduro Venezuela Raid”
Claude, “Claude’s Constitution”
Socrates, from Phaedrus on the soul
Various, Palantir Readings
Mona Khalil, “Palantir, Seemingly Everywhere All at Once”
Steven Hubbard, “ICE to Use ImmigrationOS by Palantir, a New AI System, to Track Immigrants’ Movements”
Alex Karp, “Letter to Shareholders February 2026”
Gideon Lewis-Kraus, “The Palantir Guide to Saving America’s Soul”
Week 23
Week 23
How Does it Work? The Basics of AI Functionality
How Does it Work? The Basics of AI Functionality
Janelle Shane, You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How AI Works and Why It’s Making the World a Weirder Place chapters 1-4
Ex Machina (2014) - in class
Week 22
Week 22
General Introduction to the Field’s Ethical Questions
General Introduction to the Field’s Ethical Questions
Sarah Roberts, “Your AI is a Human”
Michael Schrage, “Philosophy Eats AI”
Molly Smith, “Can Generative AI Chatbots Emulate Human Connection? A Relationship Science Perspective”
Meghan O’Gieblyn, “Do We Have Minds of Our Own?”
Kyle Chayka, “That New Hit Song on Spotify? It Was Made by A.I.”
John Cassidy, “The Dangerous Paradox of A.I. Abundance”
Harvard, “How Close Are You to the Way ChatGPT Thinks?”
Robert Capps, “AI Might Take Your Job. Here are 22 New Ones It Could Give You”
Sam Kriss, “Why Does A.I. Write Like … That?”
Bill Wasik, “A.I. Is Poised to Rewrite History. Literally.”
Cindy Shan, “Does new 'Cognify' tech allow prisoners to complete years of social rehabilitation in minutes?”
Optional:
Ajay Agrawal, “Genius on Demand”
Olivia Guest et al., “Towards Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacies”
Independent Reading Project Selections
Independent Reading Project Selections
Karen Hao, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI
Yuval Noah Harari, Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
Kashmir Hill, Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It
Ethan Mollick, Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI
Michael Pollan, A World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness
Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism
Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
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