In Formation is a very different kind of tech publication.

It’s not the place to read about the business of tech, or how to get the most out of that new product, or how to optimize your LinkedIn profile. 

It’s about what tech is doing to us.

In Formation is written, designed, and edited by people who work in tech — people who’ve played a role in shaping what tech has become. We’re complicit, some of us more than others. We’ve made products that you just might have used, and we’ve become addicted to them ourselves. Yet we’re also skeptics, doubters, disbelievers — not because we hate tech, but because we understand it. We’re not anti-progress. We’re pro-human. 

This isn’t a new publication. We published our previous issue 25 years ago, during the dot-com boom. The internet was just emerging from its academic cocoon and beginning to sink its teeth into society. The hype and absurdity were off the charts, and we mocked it all relentlessly. But where the era’s promoters hoped to take us was no laughing matter; we saw the warning signs and took a wild swing at what their utopia could mean for all of us. 

And here we are, a quarter century later. 

We regret to inform you that we were right. The first wave of internet transformation did what it promised, or threatened, to do — and more. We live in a world irrevocably changed by a coalition of geeks and laptop-class douchebags from Silicon Valley, where douchebaggery and laptops are both state of the art. 

What we’ve come to call “screen time” now consumes the waking, and walking, hours of billions of people. Relationships, work, fun, and everyday communications have been reformatted. The revolutionaries have become the establishment; the rebels the emperors; the charming little upstarts have calcified into monopolies. And speculation that sounded paranoid 25 years ago now sounds like a quaint relic of an innocent age. 

In Formation is back, baby. 

Why? Because we’re at another inflection point. It’s not about “the internet” this time. This tsunami is shaping up to be more radical, deeper, yet served up in a familiar way: bland promises of even more tech awesomeness, promoted with the same old self-congratulatory Silicon Valley patter, while insidiously threatening to alter the most fundamental elements of human life. 

AI is at the silicon-hearted core of this new onslaught, with trillions of dollars being invested in a technology that may yet fall flat — or may come to supersede humanity. But it’s not just AI; it’s information technology applied to every possible domain, from the commercial to the psychological to the biological. All things connected, monitored, optimized, designed.

Maybe we are in fact headed for a world of infinite abundance, creativity, convenience, and eternal life. No, really, it’s possible! Or maybe we’re headed for a world in which billions of people are warehoused in virtual reality coffins, being influenced by no one but influencers and trolled by trolls who don’t exist, subsisting by renting out 50% of their neural capacity for AI processing. 

We’re at a moment where previously philosophical questions have become entirely practical: What is real? What is human? Are we transitioning from individual beings to being cells of a single global organism? 

It sounds crazy, mostly because it is crazy. But dismiss “crazy” at your own peril; recent history shows how quickly it becomes the new normal.

It’s not all bad. It’s often funny, and often depressing — hey, why not both? — starting with the Silicon Valley culture that begat the revolution. And who knew that AI, when it finally emerged, would be available to everyone, for free, and even a source of silliness? It’s all funny until everyone loses their jobs. And even less funny when Skynet becomes self-aware. But we’re far from that. For now. 

Yes, you’ll find us here at informationmagazine.com. We’ve shared a few articles here from our new issue, and will be adding more over time. But the way to experience In Formation is in print. Because print just smells better. And weighs more. 

It’s time for something different. Before AI reduces your attention span to microseconds, put your phone down, set it on DND, and touch paper. 

You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll reach for your (virtual) dictionary. And your sledgehammer. And your gummies. 

Please enjoy. 

– David Temkin and Alex Lash