Sam Altman, OpenAI’s leader, had proclaimed it “the most powerful imagination engine ever built.” The truth is that using it made me want to run, screaming, into the ocean. - The New York Times
Birding is not the only hobby with an app problem. So many leisure pursuits now have their own gamified digital platforms: Untappd for beer enthusiasts. Strava for runners. Ravelry for knitters. Fishbrain for fishermen. Beli for foodies. Goodreads and Letterboxd for bookworms and movie buffs. The list goes on. - The Atlantic
The basic income for the arts (BIA) initial pilot ran from 2022 to 2025 and helped 2,000 artists. The results of an independent study found that it had a noticeable positive impact on the lives of those who received it. - The Conversation
“Today, more and more critics pay their own bills, build their own followings, and invent their own rules. ... For better and for worse, the adage “Everyone’s a critic” no longer seems like an exaggeration.” - The Atlantic (MSN)
“If you deliberately and regularly go without checking your phone, or indeed exposing yourself to any other source of electronic stimulation, you’ll build ‘the skill of boredom,’ which will enable you not only to confront life’s grand questions, but also to be less bored with ordinary life.” - Open Culture
How do we assess whether AI is “reasoning” like humans do? Is it “truly intelligent”—but what does that mean? Even if we don’t understand its inner workings, could we still accurately predict its impact before unleashing it on the world? - The Point
If philosophy formalized reasoning, literature explored its consequences. Stories about artificial beings reveal the hopes and terrors of living with intelligent doubles. Western traditions gave us the myth of Pygmalion, who fell in love with his statue, and Ovid’s tales of moving statues and enchanted beings. - 3 Quarks Daily
Philosophers and political theorists say it promotes selfish individualism and discourages collective action around issues that affect us all. And sociologists add that societies that prize choice too much tend to blame those with only poor or limited options for their own misfortunes. So much for choice as consistently synonymous with freedom. - Aeon
These systems may appear neutral, but they are far from it. The most popular models privilege dominant epistemologies (typically Western and institutional) while marginalising alternative ways of knowing, especially those encoded in oral traditions, embodied practice and the languages considered ‘low-resource’ in the computing world. - Aeon
In the past (autism became a diagnostic category only in 1943), the ‘idiot savant’ was a paradox, who confounded categorisation because there was no unified way of comprehending how such exceptional musical and numerical skills might co-exist alongside their polar opposite: profound disability. - Aeon
