10 free resources on this topic. Everything here is free and hand-picked. You can also search within this topic.
All About Circuits profile of William Shockley, the Nobel-winning co-inventor of the transistor whose company helped start Silicon Valley, and whose later promotion of eugenics damaged his reputation. The site blocked an automated check, so this description is based on the title and page address.
A free digital archive preserving LGBTQ history — photographs, documents, oral histories and exhibits — open to researchers, educators and the public.
TechCrunch reports on frontier AI models breaking surviving World War II Enigma messages, continuing codebreaking work of the kind Alan Turing did at Bletchley Park. Results described are as reported by the people who ran them.
Frode Weierud's long-running research site on the history of cryptography and cipher machines, including Enigma, with original documents, machine simulations and codebreaking material.
An interactive case study walking through a two-day investigation that recovered the machine settings for MVUEH, an 82-letter German Army Enigma message from July 10, 1941, with source comparisons, experiments and checks readers can reproduce. Published by an individual on a ChatGPT-hosted site; its claims have not been independently reviewed.
An Internet Archive copy of Eliezer Yudkowsky's autobiographical page from his sysopmind.com site, describing himself as of August 2000, when he had become a research fellow at the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence (now MIRI). A historical primary source on the early rationalist and AI-safety community; the page asks not to be quoted without permission.
A 39-page history by SJ Beard (University of Cambridge) and Émile P. Torres of how existential risk became an academic field, tracing three successive waves: an explicitly transhumanist and techno-utopian first wave, a second built on longtermism and closely tied to Effective Altruism, and a third formed where the field met disaster studies, environmental science and public policy. Posted to SSRN January 2021, revised March 2021.
Why I recommend it: Free — the full PDF downloads without an account. This is the piece to read before anyone quotes an extinction probability at you, because it shows the field's assumptions were inherited from a particular movement rather than discovered. It is a working paper posted by the authors, not journal peer-reviewed, and the authors are participants in the debate they are describing, so it is a history written from inside.
Site of the historian behind Sapiens and Nexus, with essays and talks on information technology, power and what automation does to societies.
From the site: Prof. Yuval Noah Harari is a historian, philosopher and best-selling author of 'Sapiens' and 'Homo Deus'. Discover his ideas, writing and lectures.
Why I recommend it: He writes about technology as a historian, not an engineer, which is exactly why he is worth reading next to the engineers.
Jordyn Abrams on how environmental and anti-establishment thinking in extremist movements suggests anti-tech violence will grow.
From the site: The combination of environmental and anti-establishment thinking in extremist movements suggest anti-tech violence will grow, writes Jordyn Abrams.
Why I recommend it: A sobering historical read about backlash to technology; important context for anyone building or regulating AI.
Harvard historian and New Yorker writer placing today's technology fights in a much longer story.
In plain terms: This website collects the books, essays, and interviews of historian and writer Jill Lepore. You can read her work to explore historical perspectives on law, politics, and modern technology.
Why I recommend it: History gives you perspective that keeps you steady in a hype cycle.
