Clive Thompson (journalist)
Thomas Clive Thompson III is a Canadian freelance journalist, blogger, and science and technology writer.
Early life and education
Thompson grew up in the 1970s and '80s in Toronto, Canada. He spent his childhood working with early models of computers. He tried to understand programs for games and for artificial intelligence as a child but did not succeed, so he chose not to study science. He graduated in 1992 from the University of Toronto with majors in political science and English.Professional work
Thompson's first journalism jobs were with Canada's Report on Business magazine, This Magazine, and Shift magazine. He then became a freelance contributor to The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, Lingua Franca, Wired, Smithsonian, Entertainment Weekly and several other publications. His journalistic beat was digital technologies and their social and cultural impact. He reported on contests between machines and humans, such as the Deep Blue chess computer playing against the world chess champion, and the IBM Watson research team's effort to develop an AI program which could successfully compete on Jeopardy!.In a manner similar to Nicholas Carr, Thompson has suggested that the advanced technology tools we use are affecting how we think. But Thompson regards this trend with a more sanguine outlook than Carr and other technologists do. In a review of Thompson's 2013 book, Smarter Than You Think, Walter Isaacson writes about the author: Thompson describes the "global self-expression" afforded to humanity by new forms of media. He introduced the concept of "ambient awareness", or the connections humans develop with each other through quick status updates throughout the day that ultimately end up being deep, intellectual and still social. He acknowledges that ambient contact has caused the world to become overly focused on the present. For him, the Internet is text that can be used to talk, argue, insult and compliment others. In a New Yorker interview, he compared the Internet to cities: He added that he did not believe humanity will be overwhelmed by technology. In his view, humans have always faced, and overcome, new challenges brought on by technology.
Thompson's blog about culture and technology, which he called "Collision Detection", started in 2002 and at its peak attracted over 10,000 readers a day. He retired the blog in 2016 and incorporated it into his website.