1. Google Gemini for Home is rolling out in the US — here’s how to get early access
Google’s next-generation smart-home assistant, powered by its Gemini LLM, is set to replace Google Assistant on Nest devices, promising more natural, context-aware conversations—if you can navigate the early-access hoops. (theverge.com)
2. Our machines could become self-aware without our knowing it. We need a better way to define and test for consciousness
George Musser probes the unsettling possibility that AI might already harbor hidden minds, and argues for an “all-purpose consciousness detector” grounded in first principles rather than human prejudice. (aeon.co)
3. Generative agents will change our society in weird, wonderful and worrying ways. Can philosophy help us get a grip on them?
Seth Lazar examines how LLM-powered agents, which can plan, tool-use, and even “moralize,” will sit uneasily between familiar tech-lash critiques and apocalyptic fantasies—calling for a philosophical framework to navigate their mid-term social impacts. (aeon.co)
4. In an era of 20th-century suburban sprawl, the great designer Russell Page infused soulful philosophy into his gardens
Caleb Smith uncovers how mid-century landscape maestro Russell Page wove Gurdjieff-inspired mysticism and a cosmopolitan study of ancient gardens into formal, therapeutic sanctuaries that quietly resisted industrial sameness. (aeon.co)
5. Throughout decades of writing, Harold Rosenberg exhorted artists to resist cliché and conformity and instead take action
Blake Smith revisits the mid-century critic’s fiery calls for art as living revolt—an antidote to political and cultural stagnation that still resonates amid today’s creative and ideological echo chambers. (aeon.co)