If you've been alive between Christmas and New Years, you've probably read a Best of the Year list. Last year, according to The New York Times, Víkingur Ólafsson's recording of Bach's "Goldberg Variations," the actor Bella Ramsey, and a sushi-and-scuba video game called Dave the Diver were worthy of your time and attention. These annual rundowns arrive during a period of reflection, when a full year's worth of human art and industry is about to recede into history. A new take on this list has now emerged: the Best So Far list. What does it mean to offer an account of the best culture of … the first five months of 2024?

Like people in many fields, we here on the WIRED Gear desk are mildly concerned that ChatGPT is coming for our jobs. But we feel relatively safe because it's our job to test things, and AI can't really do that. A large language model can't pedal an ebike. A chatbot can't see the curves of a Dynamic Island. A cloud service can't tell you whether a grill cooked a burger evenly.