AJ Four Ways: Text Only (by date) | headlines only
DANCE
IDEAS
- Billionaires, blue books, and blacklists
Good Morning,
AI showed up everywhere today — and not as a feature. A Stanford senior describes a campus where ChatGPT has become the medium of student life, from history papers to dating (The New York Times). Another professor watches students photograph exams mid-test, feed them to an LLM, then copy machine-written answers into the blue book (The New Critic). Meanwhile, the world’s first AI museum is opening in LA, marketing “phantasmagorical” generated wonder as the new immersive (The Conversation).
The counterweight: humanities enrollments are climbing as tech jobs evaporate (Irish Times). The students who were told AI made them obsolete are now being told their human-ness is the asset.
Two more: Peter Gelb — $1.2M salary, who manages 3,000 employees, 15 unions, and a 144-member board — says he won’t retire because he can’t imagine life without work (The New York Times). And the head of French TV’s Canal+ vows to blacklist 600 movie artists who signed a petition against the company’s right-wing billionaire owner (The Guardian). Not all pressure on culture comes from algorithms. All of our stories below.
See you tomorrow.
Doug
- Peter Gelb No Longer Considering Retiring From The Met
“I should leave when I cannot do the job properly or when the board doesn’t want me to be here. I’m a workaholic, I’ve always worked. I don’t enjoy free time. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about work. I need work. My life would be empty without work.” – OperaWire
- How AI Has Taken Over College Education
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
- France’s Top TV Production House Says It Will Blacklist Artists Who Protest Billionaire
The head of France’s biggest film producer, Canal+, has said the group will no longer work with hundreds of cinema figures who signed a petition voicing concern over the growing influence of the rightwing billionaire owner Vincent Bolloré. – The Guardian
- How AI Has Taken Over My College Education At Stanford
Stanford has always been a haven for aspiring techies, but recent events have taken the school into uncharted territory. A.I. is everything. We talk about it at the dining halls and in history classes, on dates and while smoking with friends, at the gym and in communal dorm bathrooms. – The New York Times
ISSUES
- The Artists Using San Francisco As A Canvas For Laser Shows
The San Francisco sky was lit Friday night with dozens of colored lasers beaming from the Transamerica Pyramid toward Coit Tower and One Sansome Street. – ABC7
- And Now… The World’s First AI Museum
The “living museum” will present a continuously evolving immersive, audiovisual experience based on millions of images, sounds and scents from nature. As an indication of what it will be like, Dataland’s website presents phantasmagorical images of ecological wonder and awe.
- Turns Out Mark Rothko’s Paintings Are Perfect For The Age Of Social Media
“Across TikTok and Instagram, videos centred on Rothko’s work are accumulating hundreds of thousands of views. One creator has begun styling outfits inspired by individual Rothko canvases; another assigns Rothko works to personality archetypes.” – The Guardian (UK)
- Spain Has A Ton Of Crumbling Castles
What should it do with them, and all of the material therein? – El País English
- A Skateboarder’s Lament For San Francisco’s Vaillancourt Fountain
“A spark from one of the torch-cutters likely ignited debris that had accumulated in one of the fountain’s tubes during the last year of its dormancy, sending flames and smoke shooting into the air over a structure that once pumped 30,000 gallons of water.” – The Guardian (UK)
MEDIA
- France’s Top TV Production House Says It Will Blacklist Artists Who Protest Billionaire
The head of France’s biggest film producer, Canal+, has said the group will no longer work with hundreds of cinema figures who signed a petition voicing concern over the growing influence of the rightwing billionaire owner Vincent Bolloré. – The Guardian
- How AI Has Taken Over My College Education At Stanford
Stanford has always been a haven for aspiring techies, but recent events have taken the school into uncharted territory. A.I. is everything. We talk about it at the dining halls and in history classes, on dates and while smoking with friends, at the gym and in communal dorm bathrooms. – The New York Times
- Humanities Make A Comeback As AI Gobbles Up Tech Jobs
As it turns out, tech jobs may be drying up after years of students rushing to computer science. Who needs to code? AI does that for you. What AI can’t do – yet – is the stuff that makes us human: empathy, emotion, psychology, critical thinking. – Irish Times
- The Smithsonian Adds That Impeachment Language Back To The Portrait Of The Current President
“In the new wall text accompanying a portrait of Mr. Trump, the impeachments are mentioned in a list of important events from the president’s first term.” – The New York Times
- Our Feeds Are Products Of Stealth Marketing — And Thus, Mostly Fake
The head of one viral marketing firm says 90 percent of what we see online is advertising. And of course, “the point of this kind of marketing is that nobody is supposed to notice it. But lately, the machinery has started to show.” – Vulture
MUSIC
- The Story Of The Community College Prof Who Suddenly Found Out Her Novel Was A Pulitzer Finalist
Stacey Levine’s Mice 1961, published by a very small press in Oregon, is “a deeply weird book, a kind-of coming-of-age comedy with no easy takeaway, full of twangy dialogue that reads like an alien in a human suit going ‘hello fellow Earthlings.’” – LitHub
- The Egyptian Mummy Buried With The Iliad
Was Greek literature a “cheat code” to the afterlife for Egyptian royals of Roman-era Egypt? – The New York Times
- A Forgotten Medieval Book In Rome Was Hiding A Copy Of The World’s First Poem In English
“Prior to the discovery of the Rome manuscript, the earliest one was from the early 12th century. So this is three centuries earlier than that. And so it attests to the importance that was already being attached to the English in the early 9th century.” – Seattle Times (AP)
- Lost Your Ability To Enjoy Reading?
Try returning to some things you cared about as a kid. – The Atlantic
- What Kinds Of Non-Fiction Reporting Wins Pulitzers
If you do look closely at the history, biography, memoir, and general-nonfiction honors, a noticeable pattern emerges. The picks typically share a particular quality. – The Atlantic
PEOPLE
- Billionaires, blue books, and blacklists
Good Morning,
AI showed up everywhere today — and not as a feature. A Stanford senior describes a campus where ChatGPT has become the medium of student life, from history papers to dating (The New York Times). Another professor watches students photograph exams mid-test, feed them to an LLM, then copy machine-written answers into the blue book (The New Critic). Meanwhile, the world’s first AI museum is opening in LA, marketing “phantasmagorical” generated wonder as the new immersive (The Conversation).
The counterweight: humanities enrollments are climbing as tech jobs evaporate (Irish Times). The students who were told AI made them obsolete are now being told their human-ness is the asset.
Two more: Peter Gelb — $1.2M salary, who manages 3,000 employees, 15 unions, and a 144-member board — says he won’t retire because he can’t imagine life without work (The New York Times). And the head of French TV’s Canal+ vows to blacklist 600 movie artists who signed a petition against the company’s right-wing billionaire owner (The Guardian). Not all pressure on culture comes from algorithms. All of our stories below.
See you tomorrow.
Doug
- Peter Gelb No Longer Considering Retiring From The Met
“I should leave when I cannot do the job properly or when the board doesn’t want me to be here. I’m a workaholic, I’ve always worked. I don’t enjoy free time. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about work. I need work. My life would be empty without work.” – OperaWire
- How AI Has Taken Over College Education
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
- France’s Top TV Production House Says It Will Blacklist Artists Who Protest Billionaire
The head of France’s biggest film producer, Canal+, has said the group will no longer work with hundreds of cinema figures who signed a petition voicing concern over the growing influence of the rightwing billionaire owner Vincent Bolloré. – The Guardian
- How AI Has Taken Over My College Education At Stanford
Stanford has always been a haven for aspiring techies, but recent events have taken the school into uncharted territory. A.I. is everything. We talk about it at the dining halls and in history classes, on dates and while smoking with friends, at the gym and in communal dorm bathrooms. – The New York Times
PEOPLE
- Billionaires, blue books, and blacklists
Good Morning,
AI showed up everywhere today — and not as a feature. A Stanford senior describes a campus where ChatGPT has become the medium of student life, from history papers to dating (The New York Times). Another professor watches students photograph exams mid-test, feed them to an LLM, then copy machine-written answers into the blue book (The New Critic). Meanwhile, the world’s first AI museum is opening in LA, marketing “phantasmagorical” generated wonder as the new immersive (The Conversation).
The counterweight: humanities enrollments are climbing as tech jobs evaporate (Irish Times). The students who were told AI made them obsolete are now being told their human-ness is the asset.
Two more: Peter Gelb — $1.2M salary, who manages 3,000 employees, 15 unions, and a 144-member board — says he won’t retire because he can’t imagine life without work (The New York Times). And the head of French TV’s Canal+ vows to blacklist 600 movie artists who signed a petition against the company’s right-wing billionaire owner (The Guardian). Not all pressure on culture comes from algorithms. All of our stories below.
See you tomorrow.
Doug
- Peter Gelb No Longer Considering Retiring From The Met
“I should leave when I cannot do the job properly or when the board doesn’t want me to be here. I’m a workaholic, I’ve always worked. I don’t enjoy free time. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about work. I need work. My life would be empty without work.” – OperaWire
- How AI Has Taken Over College Education
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
- France’s Top TV Production House Says It Will Blacklist Artists Who Protest Billionaire
The head of France’s biggest film producer, Canal+, has said the group will no longer work with hundreds of cinema figures who signed a petition voicing concern over the growing influence of the rightwing billionaire owner Vincent Bolloré. – The Guardian
- How AI Has Taken Over My College Education At Stanford
Stanford has always been a haven for aspiring techies, but recent events have taken the school into uncharted territory. A.I. is everything. We talk about it at the dining halls and in history classes, on dates and while smoking with friends, at the gym and in communal dorm bathrooms. – The New York Times
THEATRE
VISUAL
- How AI Has Taken Over College Education
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
- The Gamification Of Homework
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
- What Both Old And New Amadeus Teach Us
Every great artist needs a nemesis – fictional or not! – in order to stand out. – Salon
- Artists, Writers, And Musicians Experiencing Despair As Generative AI Collides With Art
“Musicians, artists and writers generally possess something AI does not, which is the lived human experience out of which they create. That experience includes the accidents, serendipities and epiphanies that shape our arts.” – KC Studio
- The AI Revolution Is Meant To Overwhelm You
I’ve written previously that one of AI’s enduring cultural impacts is to make people feel like they’re losing their mind. But lately, I believe, it’s the accelerated nature of the AI boom that’s driving people everywhere mad. – The Atlantic
