# Essays

> Why machines cite what they cite, and notes from the editor's chair.

https://isaacmarcuson.com/blog/

![A low pile of loose blank plates seen from slightly above, the far end dissolving into wash and the leading edge of the topmost sheet drawn in wine. The record accumulates, newest sheet on top.](https://isaacmarcuson.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/blog-stack.webp)

Why machines cite what they cite, and notes from the editor's chair.

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- ![Ambroise Paré's artificial hand, a woodcut from 1564, its ratchet drawn in wine across the knuckles to lock the fingers in their grip. The fingertips and the wrist fade into bare page, so the hand belongs to no one.](https://isaacmarcuson.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/ai-literacy-humanities-featured.png) [The editor's chair](https://isaacmarcuson.com/blog/category/editors-chair/) ## [The Prosthetic Curriculum](https://isaacmarcuson.com/blog/ai-literacy-humanities/) October 18, 2026 Colleges now sell AI literacy to students raised on screens. They arrive diminished, and AI supplies what is missing. Call it a prosthetic curriculum.

- --- ![A lit AI chat window at the surface, with strata of language descending into darkness below it, drawn in ink and wine.](https://isaacmarcuson.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/how-to-learn-ai-below-the-window.webp) [The editor's chair](https://isaacmarcuson.com/blog/category/editors-chair/) ## [The Machine Is Made of Language](https://isaacmarcuson.com/blog/how-to-learn-ai/) August 23, 2026 A framework for learning AI that is a thousand years old: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The documented failures of AI adoption sort into missing arts.
- --- ![A hand grips a sword by the pommel; the blade runs out of frame in wine red. The arm dissolves away, so who is holding it is withheld.](https://isaacmarcuson.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/if-you-hate-ai-learn-it-og.png) [The editor's chair](https://isaacmarcuson.com/blog/category/editors-chair/) ## [If You Hate AI, Learn It](https://isaacmarcuson.com/blog/if-you-hate-ai-learn-it/) August 15, 2026 You already live inside deployed AI. Refusing the tools only decides who holds them.
- --- ![Blake's Adam in ink duotone, the beasts he is naming dissolving into fog beside him, and a tilted halo in wine hovering above where he cannot place it himself.](https://isaacmarcuson.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/entity-authority-og.png) [Machine citation](https://isaacmarcuson.com/blog/category/machine-citation/) ## [Named Entities: Nothing Gets to Name Itself](https://isaacmarcuson.com/blog/entity-authority/) July 19, 2026 You can call yourself anything; you cannot set your own weight. A law about authority, traced from Delphi through Google's patents: nothing enters the graph, or the world, on its own declaration. Things get named.