dkSez : : : : : : Don Kahle's blog

Can Google’s chatbot fool a human into believing it’s a real person? Put another way, can it earn trust? Put yet one more way, can it express and elicit love?

Christianity shaped every large decision I made after that — my college, my career, my marriage, my family, my daily habits.

Smart phones were first a luxury and then a convenience. Now they’re becoming a requirement. Airlines and airports now assume you have a phone and you can use it.

Buckley established that money is speech. Oregon tried to say that in real estate transactions, only money is speech.

Not everything will go according to plan. That’s the plan. Put yourself in that sort of bind regularly.

I love libraries. I’d hate to see one of the most egalitarian enterprises in the free world collapse under the weight of its own good intentions. The Eugene Public library no longer levies late fees. Springfield has been edging in this direction for many years, as have library systems across the nation. I think that’s […]

On the far side of disagreement lies a land of empathy and compassion. Let’s explore it.

An early draft is often more revealing than a final version. What emerges from this version is hubris, urgency and anger.

Politicians of every stripe have used fake sincerity when campaigning, but it’s only recently become a governing principle.

I wonder if people living in the Dark Ages knew that’s what it was. Did they miss books and learning? Did they guess that their destruction wasn’t complete? Did they expect a new societal order to eventually emerge? Or did they just tend their plot of vegetables, hoping not to lose their harvest to marauding […]