Why Isn’t AI Taking Our Jobs?
The leaders of AI companies often compare their technology to industrial automation: just as machines eliminated jobs that depended on human brawn, AI will eliminate ... Read more
Study Hacks - Decoding Patterns of Success - Cal Newport
Computer Scientist & Bestselling Author
The Pope vs. Silicon Valley
Last fall, the Notre Dame philosopher, Meghan Sullivan, participated in a closed-door meeting at the Vatican. She was there to discuss AI ethics with a ... Read more
On God and LLMs
The second chapter of Genesis poetically describes the beginning of the human story. “The Lord formed Adam from the dust of the earth,” it reads. ... Read more
The Dark Side of the Jevons Paradox
If you’ve been following technology news recently, you’ve probably noticed a sudden increase in references to a 19th-century economics theory called the Jevons Paradox, which ... Read more
Easy is Overrated
“Something is up in academic research,” write the members of an AI Task Force convened by the journal Organization Science. As they go on to ... Read more
On Bottlenecks and Productivity
David Epstein, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Sports Gene and Range, has a new book out called Inside the Box. As ... Read more
Who Asked For This?
Last week, Elizabeth Lopatto published an insightful article in The Verge. It boasted an intriguing title: “Silicon Valley has forgotten what normal people want.” “Within ... Read more
Brandon Sanderson vs. AI Art
Late last year, the fantasy novelist Brandon Sanderson gave a talk at Dragonsteel Nexus, an annual conference organized by his media company. It was titled, ... Read more
Is Claude Mythos “Terrifying” or Just Hype?
Last week, millions of New York Times readers were subjected to an alarming column by Thomas Friedman. “Normally right now I would be writing about ... Read more
In Defense of Thinking
Ten years ago, I published Deep Work. It was my second mainstream hardcover idea book. The previous title, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, hadn’t ... Read more
Avoiding Digital Productivity Traps
Last week in this newsletter, I summarized some interesting results from a study that analyzed the behavior of 164,000 knowledge workers. It found that introducing ... Read more
Why Hasn’t AI Made Work Easier?
I’ve been studying the intersection of digital technology and office work for quite some time. (I find it hard to believe that my book, Deep ... Read more
The Original Attention Crisis
I recently heard from a historian of science at All Souls College, Oxford. He forwarded me an essay he wrote about Nicolaus Steno, a seventeenth-century ... Read more
What Do Social Media Companies Fear? Time Management.
I recently came across an interesting academic article in the journal Frontiers in Psychology. It was titled, “The relationships between social media use, time management, ... Read more
Film Students Can No Longer Sit Through Films
Last month, The Atlantic published an article with an alarming headline: “The Film Students Who Can No Longer Sit Through Films.” The author of the ... Read more
What I Learned from MasterClass
Last fall, I filmed a course for MasterClass. It’s mainly based on my book Slow Productivity, but there’s some Deep Work in there too. It’s ... Read more
Why is the Internet Becoming TV?
The recent announcement that Netflix formalized a deal to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s television and film studios, as well as the HBO Max streaming service, ... Read more
Australia Just Kicked Kids Off Social Media. (Is the U.S. Next?)
As of last week, children under the age of 16 in Australia are now banned from using a long list of popular social media platforms, ... Read more
Be Wary of Digital Deskilling
Last week, Boris Cherny, the creator and head of Anthropic’s popular Claude Code programming agent, posted a thread on X about how he personally used ... Read more
What’s Worrying Jonathan Haidt Now?
In 2018, the NYU social scientist Jonathan Haidt co-authored a book titled The Coddling of the American Mind. It argued that the alarming rise in ... Read more