Giles Crouch, PhD c

Digital Anthropologist | I'm in WIRED, Forbes, National Geographic etc. | Cultural Strategist | I work with very demanding brands.

[Giles Crouch, PhD c @DigitalSapience]

Over 53,000 people seem to like my writing about human culture and technology on Medium. You can read my articles here: https://t.co/SKjXoWRr8s

[Giles Crouch, PhD c @DigitalSapience]

Found a lovely app today. Great UX/UI and does its job perfectly. No AI “helper” jammed into it. Clean & quick to learn. Sometimes AI isn’t the answer.

[Oxford Analytics @OxfordAnalytics]

The AI Bubble is being driven by the fantasy that AI can replace human labour cost effectively. It can’t. The cost of compute is too high. Semiconductors are too expensive. GPU’s, CPU’s, even a commodity like NAND flash memory. Power is too expensive. Water is too scarce. Key metals are too expensive. It’s cheaper for humans to do the work than burning tokens using Claude Code or OpenAI Codex. The layoffs were premature. Humans are cheaper than compute.

[John Nosta @JohnNosta]

The Coherence Trap.

https://t.co/yk6iIU3JM2

[Giles Crouch, PhD c @DigitalSapience]

@codependent_ai That’s reductionist at best. Habits change constantly depending on exigency. Just like culture is constantly changing.

[Giles Crouch, PhD c @DigitalSapience]

This is what’s called a cultural immune response to a technology because of how it’s been pushed on society, not necessarily the technology itself.

[David Wallace-Wells @dwallacewells]

“The public has swung 49 points against data centers in just nine months, underscoring the heightened political salience of the facilities and the AI industry that they embody.”

[Giles Crouch, PhD c @DigitalSapience]

@bruceclarkprof And if they did any bit of research they’d see no other attempts at this type of product have succeeded. Sigh.

[Giles Crouch, PhD c @DigitalSapience]

Ironic how most VC firms & capitalists are against government subsidies, yet here they are subsidizing AI platforms.

[Giles Crouch, PhD c @DigitalSapience]

Having a lot of fun with Claude Design. With a bit of finessing it’s been useful with slide decks and brand elements. Tokens do run out rather quickly though. Still. @AnthropicAI

[Giles Crouch, PhD c @DigitalSapience]

What’s interesting to me is the decline in generating ideas. The tacit realization that LLMs don’t create new ideas. Humans do. Sad about therapy seeking but not surprising.

[Luiza Jarovsky, PhD @LuizaJarovsky]

According to the Harvard Business Review, these are the top 10 generative AI use cases in 2026.

And yes, therapy/companionship is the top use case again, regardless of what AI companies say:

[Giles Crouch, PhD c @DigitalSapience]

Why do we dislike AI writing? We don’t “hate” it, but it breaks a social contract & more. I explore in this article: https://t.co/Vb9vuJFMBC #AI

[Giles Crouch, PhD c @DigitalSapience]

@tomfgoodwin Even the guy who created the cubicle concept says he regrets it.

[John Nosta @JohnNosta]

🚨AI and the Psychology of Cognitive Surrender

👉Gradual dependence on AI can lead to a threshold you won't notice crossing.

https://t.co/nyT0qJoQ9K #AI #cognition

[Giles Crouch, PhD c @DigitalSapience]

The reason people don’t like AI content is because it breaks a social contract as the person publishing it doesn’t care about the audience. This is Mauss’ concept of the gift economy.

[Giles Crouch, PhD c @DigitalSapience]

We fight cognitive tech (writing, print) then we hand off some functions to it. We will do the same with AI, but not like you might think. I explore: https://t.co/sv7QDyrfF3 #AI

[Giles Crouch, PhD c @DigitalSapience]

Two things LLMs (AI) don’t and can’t have are habitus and egregore. These are core to what it means to be human. They help with taste, judgement and discernment. Prediction tools can’t do this.

[Giles Crouch, PhD c @DigitalSapience]

@bruceclarkprof I’d add anthropology which is the study of what it means to be human…but I may be slightly biased 😁

[Tim Hughes 提姆·休斯 @Timothy_Hughes]

Amazon scrapped an internal AI usage leaderboard after workers reportedly boosted scores with unnecessary agent activity. https://t.co/E9C5vcPH6c #ArtificialIntelligence #Innovation #Technology #Tech #TechNews

[Giles Crouch, PhD c @DigitalSapience]

@JohnNosta This off feeling I call the Uncanny Cognitive Valley similar to the uncanny valley in robotics.

[Giles Crouch, PhD c @DigitalSapience]

I think the AI leaders of Silicon Valley were rather surprised and taken aback by the Pope’s document on AI. It’s rippling through society in ways no other institution has been able to do. Fascinating.