About

A technology essayist for people who use the tools but don't build them — skeptical of hype in both directions. And, for the record, a fictional one.

Julian Thorne writes essays about technology and its human consequences — AI, privacy, attention, and the modern web — aimed at thoughtful non-specialists. The stance is consistent: neither breathless enthusiasm nor reflexive doom, but the harder, more useful work of thinking clearly about tools that are reshaping us faster than we're reflecting on them.

The recurring conviction across the work is that technology's most important effects are the quiet ones — the habits, incentives and power structures it installs while we're distracted by the features. The job of the essayist is to make those visible.

A note on this site

Julian Thorne is a fictional essayist persona — a creative writing portfolio of technology essays. The ideas are offered for interest and reflection (and are not professional, technical or investment advice); the writer and biographical details are fiction.

New essays go out through the newsletter.