Once firms get consumers used to being sorted, profiled, and priced differently, the practice starts to feel inevitable. But it is not. It is a choice about what kind of business practices we expect. Personalized algorithmic pricing pulls together affordability, privacy, competition, consumer protection, and data extraction all at once. - The Walrus
When Wittgenstein referred to the “beginning of the end of humanity,” he was not envisioning sci-fi cataclysms... He was referring to what he called the “form of life” we inhabit. That form of life is threatened by a way of thinking that lowers human life to the plane of science and technology. - Commonweal
Searches for the phrase job apocalypse are spiking. Polls show that voters are beginning to freak out. But there’s a better question for white-collar workers to ask themselves: Am I coal, or am I a horse? - The Atlantic
Insulating yourself from inconvenient facts is not an effective long-term life strategy, even for someone powerful enough to externalize the costs of most of their bad decisions onto others. - Artnet
There is understandable fear among artists that artificial intelligence will plunder their work and render already-difficult careers impossible. This sets up the question: Is there an ethical path forward for art and AI? - Hyperallergic
The AI industry is splitting away from the lives of everyday people. Exclusive polling conducted for the Guardian last year found that twice as many Americans believe their financial security is getting worse than better, hardly half as optimistic as Jensen Huang’s prediction. - The Guardian
An emerging scientific picture is that such “clock time” isn’t a standalone, physical phenomenon at all. It’s a mathematical tool or book-keeping device – useful for coordinating our interactions, but with no independent existence of its own. - The Guardian
“Plato decried the falsity of imitation of real life—called ‘mimesis’—specifically in the arts. ... What makes you ‘you’ or the world the ‘world’ if artists can just depict a facsimile and receive recognition from an audience?” - The Defector
"Put the Warners Bros. sale alongside the Oscars’ imminent move to YouTube, and the whole night carried with it a bittersweet fin de siècle air, as if it was being immortalized in retrospect even as it was happening.” - Vulture
“The Holly’s revival offers a case study in how a historic landmark can complement an existing arts ecosystem — strengthening downtown vitality while reconnecting a community to its past.” - Oregon ArtsWatch
The study of wisdom dates to antiquity, but only in the past 40 years have researchers begun to apply the scientific method to probe what wisdom is and how it develops. - Knowable
Where once there was a simple model that explained how dopamine works in the brain, now there are challenges that seek to amend the theory — or even to overturn it. - Nature
Understanding language as something defined by public use—rather than private intention—helps us grasp how simply scraping text from around the web and finding patterns in the way words fit together can form the basis for passably imitating a human. - Prospect
In the “humanities” – most scholars see AI as a unique threat, one that extends far beyond cheating on homework and casts doubt on the future of higher education itself in a fast-approaching machine-dominated future. - The Guardian
So what does “getting learning right” look like in the age of generative AI? It involves a lot of experimentation and leaning in with students as a co-learner when I don’t have all of the answers, while remaining staunchly committed to sharing my expertise in writing, critical thinking and learning. - The Conversation
