Researchers discovered that when equipped with specific “persona” prompts, advanced models like GPT-4.5 were judged to be human 73% of the time, significantly outperforming actual human participants and fundamentally altering our understanding of machine intelligence. - Neuroscience News

“Neuroaesthetics is a search to give a value, a quantity, to beauty—to locate it, perhaps, in the brain and in the heart.” - Smithsonian

The next time you conduct a delicate bit of office diplomacy or share a romantic or financial secret with a friend over drinks, a sensor built into someone’s glasses, necklace, or lapel pin might be watching you and listening. - The Atlantic

In 1962, a programmer at Librascope, a California-based defense contractor, announced that “a computer can be programmed to write meaningful and relevant sentences in proper English.” - The New Yorker

During the exam, students were pulling out phones and taking photographs of the test to submit to LLMs before copying down machine-written responses into their blue books. - The New Critic

Prodigy is among a bevy of gamified tools that have gained a foothold in classrooms across the country by promising to make learning fun. (As Prodigy’s website puts it: “Kids no longer have to choose between homework and playtime.”) - The Atlantic

Thursday’s vote by the Commission of Fine Arts, whose job is to vet the design of monuments and other major projects in the capital, represents a key approval as the White House seeks to begin construction. - Washington Post

Among those selected are two sites that have drawn the ire of the Trump administration, the Stonewall National Monument in New York, often considered the birthplace of the gay right’s movement, and the President’s House Site in Philadelphia, which served as the presidential home prior to the capital’s relocation to Washington. - ARTnews

“Traditionally, museum wall text has been no more controversial than signs pointing visitors to the restrooms, and the Smithsonian still has descriptions placed near objects in most of its galleries. But there have been changes at exhibitions in some museums where the subject could be potentially contentious.” - The New York Times

“Former Pitchfork and Spin editor-in-chief Puja Patel is launching Totei, a publication dedicated to ‘craft and craftsmanship.’ The online magazine will publish content weekly, including profiles of artists and musicians, photo essays, reported features, and interviews. Crucially, Totei aims to spotlight rarely seen materials showing how art is created.” - Semafor

A prominent Israeli legal organization is threatening legal action against the Canadian Museum for Human Rights over an upcoming exhibit on the Palestinian Nakba, alleging the Winnipeg museum is promoting a politically one-sided narrative that could fuel antisemitism and violate federal law. - Winnipeg Sun

The Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture more than doubled its operating budget and staff, and the city earmarked $26.2 million from the American Rescue Plan Act to bolster Boston’s creative sector. All that is set to change, as federal pandemic funds run out and the city cuts grant programs to balance the budget....

Joshua Kosman: “In appointing Elim Chan as its next music director, the San Francisco Symphony has tapped the most inexperienced, unproven new artistic leader the organization has had in more than 40 years. The choice could not have been wiser or more opportune.” - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)

The new tool will launch as a paid add-on for Spotify Premium users, the companies said on Thursday (May 21), creating what they described as an additional revenue stream for artists and songwriters on top of existing Spotify royalties. - MusicBusinessWorldwide

The appointment is a historic one. Chan will be the first woman to lead one of the so-called “Big 7” symphony orchestras in the United States, encompassing New York, Boston, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia. - KQED

Until the new conductors settle in, we won’t fully know how transformative their impact will be, but early signs suggest they could accelerate changes already reshaping the field since Covid—in programming, outreach, diversity, education, and institutional purpose. - Strings Magazine

The 55-year-old London native has long been active as a guest conductor, and not only of his own music. He has now been appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester, starting this September. - Moto Perpetuo

To co-music director and conductor Gary Clark, GPGSO’s rapid growth makes sense in a city known for niche, DIY music scenes. It hasn’t exactly been a shock to the orchestra’s other organizers either. - Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

“The Trump administration does not plan to seek approval from Congress for President Donald Trump’s planned 250-foot arch, arguing that they do not need it because lawmakers a century ago authorized a somewhat similar project that was never built.” - The Washington Post

The whistleblower complaint made numerous detailed allegations. Among them are claims that the museum improperly reclassified funds in its endowment to meet cash crunches. - ARTnews

“A Paris judge has rejected a request to halt the removal of six 19th-century stained-glass windows by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc from Notre-Dame Cathedral, which are to be replaced by government-commissioned contemporary works (by artist Claire Tabouret).” - ARTnews

“The planned Museum of Digital Art (MODA) … is part of Dubai’s monumental $27 billion transformation of its financial center into a tech hub, announced earlier this year, and will platform various art forms that rely on emerging technologies, including immersive and interactive experiences. No budget or completion date has yet been announced.” - Artnet

The major exhibition featuring collections from both institutions will be staged first in Paris at the Centre Pompidou, after its five-year renovation, around 2029 or 2030, before being hosted at the M+ with a focus on visual culture in France and China. - South China Morning Post

“If my art isn’t in your budget right now, I’ll accept the following as payment…” the viral posts on Instagram and TikTok read. The caption includes a list of items or services that the artist will trade the work for, ranging from handmade clothes, jewellery and tattoos to accommodation, meals and beauty services.  -...

My fellow nonfiction writers: AI can be a helpful tool. If you rely on it for factual accuracy you are putting your reputation, your career, your very livelihood in peril. - The AI Humanist

“’The Serpent in the Grove’ was named as the winning entry for the Commonwealth Prize from the Caribbean on Saturday and published in Granta magazine. … Shortly (afterward), internet sleuths — and a few literary critics — seized upon the work and its author, Jamir Nazir, reportedly a 61-year-old from Trinidad with few publications to his name.” -...

“While piracy has long been an issue for the book business, the rapid rise of unauthorized audiobooks” — typically with vocally flat narration and unrelated visuals — “on YouTube, which publishers and authors believe are eroding sales for their books, poses a new challenge for the industry.” - The New York Times

The author of a nonfiction book about the effects of artificial intelligence on truth acknowledged on Monday that he had included numerous made-up or misattributed quotes concocted by A.I. - The New York Times

Taiwan Travelogue, written by Yáng Shuāng-zi and translated by Lin King, takes the form of a travel memoir by a (fictional) Japanese novelist on a culinary tour of occupied Taiwan in the 1930s, charting her complex relationship with her local interpreter. The novel won a U.S. National Book Award in 2024. - AP

“Ross Barkan, who is a contract writer for the magazine, … has been accused of plagiarism after publishing at least three stories with striking similarities to other published work.” - NPR

WEIU, licensed to and based at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, has halted over-the-air broadcasting and become an online-streaming-only station. Now-discontinued federal grants had made up 80% of its budget. - Jacksonville (Illinois) Journal-Courier

Currently S&P Global has a “BB+” issuer credit rating on Paramount. On Wednesday, the firm said it will “lower the issuer credit rating on PSKY to ‘BB’ when its acquisition of WBD closes, assuming no material changes to the structure or terms of the transaction. - Variety

“Data from the first quarter of 2026 shows signs that the United States is halting the exodus of film and television productions to other countries. But it is doing so as greenlights on high-budget productions continue to decrease worldwide, leaving dozens of production hubs fighting for slices of a smaller pie.” - TheWrap (Yahoo!)

Rupert Murdoch’s younger, more liberal-leaning son has purchased, for a reported-but-unconfirmed $300 million, roughly half of the current Vox Media: New York magazine and its verticals (among them Vulture, The Cut, and Curbed), the Vox.com website, and the Vox Media Podcast Network. - AP

A digital mirage masquerading as local news, the South Florida Standard underscores just how easy it has become to corrupt one of the country’s core institutions: independent journalism. - Florida Tribune

Byron Allen, a former stand-up comedian whose Allen Media Group owns 13 local TV stations, The Weather Channel and other outlets, announced a $120 million deal to acquire a 52% controlling stake in BuzzFeed. And he’s leasing from CBS Colbert’s former Late Show time slot for his comedy show Comics Unleashed. - Variety

“I choreograph because it is the only language in which I feel completely uninhibited. … Words remain fragile. They can be misinterpreted or fail to capture the depth of what we truly mean. Movement, however, transcends the invisible barriers that divide us — culture, borders, language, religion — and speaks directly to something instinctive.”...

“After 18 years as artistic director and two years in dual roles as chief executive and artistic director, Debbie Blunden-Diggs, daughter of DCDC founder Jeraldyne Blunden, has passed the artistic director baton to Qarrianne Blayr, … (who) has served as associate artistic director for five years.” - Dayton Daily News

Adam Sklute, who came to Salt Lake City in 2007, will depart at the end of next season. His tenure, the longest in Ballet West history, saw the company stabilize its finances, increase its subscriber base, triple its budget, and sextuple its school's enrollment. - KSL (Salt Lake City)

“Ballet can be a pretty conservative artform, with many companies trundling out Swan Lakes, Nutcrackers, and Cinderellas year after year. Every now and again, though, someone like Rojo comes along and truly shakes things up – even if that has meant ruffling tutus in the process.” - NPR

“For nearly three decades Cuba’s Danza Voluminosa regularly filled prestigious venues like the 2,000-seat National Theater. Directed by Juan Miguel Mas, the troupe pioneered a new movement by working exclusively with larger-bodied dancers. ... (Now) Mas’s daily life has been upended by persistent blackouts, water outages, soaring costs and a lack of transportation.” -...

LubDub is the fourth and final piece of Barton’s three years as Hubbard Street’s resident choreographer. “Asked to discuss the movement vocabulary she employs here, Barton demurred. But when the descriptor 'unruly' was suggested, she was quick to embrace it. …  (And) there are plenty of quirky, unexpected sights in the piece.” - WBEZ...

“A decision to go ahead with a sale of ATG Entertainment, previously known as Ambassador Theatre Group, … could value the business at more than £4 billion ($5.38 billion). … ATG Entertainment ​owns and ⁠operates more than 70 venues across the UK, the United States, Germany and Spain.” - Reuters (MSN)

American Players Theatre, located in Spring Green, Wisconsin — a town 40 miles west of Madison, home to roughly 1,500 people and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin — presents nine productions each year in its 1,075-seat amphitheater and 200-seat indoor space. APT’s repertory focuses on “timeless, challenging, poetic texts," particularly Shakespeare. - Wisconsin Public Radio

“In the West End, average ticket prices rose by a nominal 0.92 per cent over the last year. When measured against the annual UK inflation rate of 3.4 per cent, this represents a real-terms price drop of 2.5% for consumers. Compared to 2019, this real-term drop extends to 8.9%.” - WhatsOnStage (UK)

That’s the allegation in a lawsuit filed by the production company (called Iceberg Ahead LLC) in Virginia against former general manager Carl Flanigan. In March the company won a $4.3 million default judgment against Flanigan, who never responded to the suit. - Broadway Journal

Death of a Salesman, which received nine Tony nominations, hit $1.7 million, its highest gross yet, last week playing to 100 percent capacity at the Winter Garden Theatre. Ragtime has similarly been drawing increased interest since the Tony nominations, bringing in $1.2 million last week. - The Hollywood Reporter

The show began previews at the Majestic Theatre March 27, ahead of an April 22 opening date, but has failed to catch on with audiences and with critics, who delivered mixed to negative reviews.  - The Hollywood Reporter

“The founding artistic director of the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse in southwest suburban (Chicagoland), (he was) widely regarded as the founder of dinner theater in America.” - Chicago Tribune (Yahoo!)

Bruel, 67, who has had a string of top-selling albums and appeared in more than 40 films, is under investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s office for at least four complaints of sexual assault in France and by Belgian authorities for an additional alleged attack in Brussels. - The Guardian

This was the third time the disgraced producer was prosecuted in Manhattan for his alleged assault of Jessica Mann in 2013. (The initial verdict, a conviction, was overturned on appeal.) This time, the jury deadlocked, with 9 of the 12 jurors reportedly leaning toward acquittal. - AP

The much-loved singer, admired equally for opera and concerts, passed away two days after she publicly revealed her terminal cancer diagnosis. - The Guardian

“Lindstrom, until the end of his life, was committed to portraying stories of trauma overcome. Though he possessed an exceptional grasp of cinema’s tools from cinematography to editing, Lindstrom’s greatest artistic gift was his blend of empathy and curiosity.” - Oregon ArtsWatch

The Twomblys’ granddaughter, Maia, discovered the negatives - and she has a new appreciation of the photographer: “I remember her now not as an 80-year-old woman, but as a 30-year-old. It’s like she is no longer my grandmother but my friend.” - The New York Times