The NYT fired a freelancer for using AI to write a review. The Conversation frames the real question: not whether critics should hide or disclose their AI use, but whether using it at all is defensible. Separately, The Baffler runs a symposium declaring that being a writer is no longer a profession — freelance rates have been flat for a decade, and inflation is doing its quiet work. UK teachers tell The Guardian that two-thirds of them have watched students lose basic cognitive skills, with voice-to-text making spelling feel optional. Then there’s the story of Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who have simply built an AI production company called Deep Voodoo and are apparently doing fine (Hollywood Reporter).
A Tennessee library director was fired for refusing to remove more than 100 books on gender identity from the children’s section (The New York Times). Wallace Shawn is reviving “The Fever” — his 1990 monologue about wealth and guilt — and tells Slate it hits differently now: before, he was attacking implicit assumptions. Now he’s attacking open declarations.
Jeremy O. Harris spent three weeks in a Japanese prison, read 23 books, finished a studio outline, and concluded that rich people would pay for this experience. He’s not wrong (The Cut).
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