The results after doing so were eye-opening even to them: among a totally random population, levels of creativity for the people watching the experimental films were immediately higher compared to those watching YouTube videos, which didn’t move much at all. So was openness to seeing the world in new ways. - The Hollywood Reporter
Emotions are the AI industry’s new fixation. Not only are growing numbers of start-ups such as Amotions AI promising tools that interpret feelings; the major AI companies are developing chatbots that apparently aren’t just smarter—they get you. - The Atlantic
All of a sudden, chefs, lawyers, podcasters, critics – all people with jobs once associated with an off-camera existence – are turning the lens on themselves. Even film director Werner Herzog, a once proud non-social media user, is now sizzling steaks and doing unboxing videos to camera. - The Guardian
Not only will AI agents compete away the revenue streams of the giant digital platforms, but they will also render irrelevant the data on which the platforms built their competitive advantage. - Harvard Business Review
Capitalism—and then late capitalism, and then late, late capitalism—has been identified as the culprit for culture’s flattening for at least a century. David Marx borrows heavily from Fredric Jameson’s account of postmodernism. - LA Review of Books
The few jobs today that are tangibly useful—say, social workers and science teachers—pay far less than the mass of uninspiring administrative and middle-management roles that prop them up. As a result, many opt for the paycheck, even if that means resigning oneself to working a job that doesn’t really need to be done. - The Point
If ‘language is one of the keys to individual autonomy’, the central challenge in a linguistic landscape being flattened and standardized by AI is to ‘continue to believe in language learning as a tool of emancipation and liberation’. - Eurozine
A Texas novelist discovers the hard way that authorial intent is no match for America's hunger for mythology. Sometimes the culture writes the ending, whether you like it or not. — The American Scholar
A Danish writer discovers what Instagram influencers fear most: that maybe there's no authentic self to brand after all. Thank goodness for Austrian modernists who made existential fragmentation fashionable. — Aeon
Largely ignored by academic philosophers, the “Dark Enlightenment” movement and Yarvin have curried favor and influence with tech executives in recent years. A software engineer by training, Yarvin has become a kind of official philosopher for tech leaders like PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel and Mosaic founder Marc Andreessen. — Time
Some of these online influencers are pretty easy to spot, but others are good enough that they’re duping people. And in some cases, it seems almost impossible to know for certain whether a specific influencer is real or not. - The Atlantic
Need to take an online math quiz? Write a biology-lab report? Create a PowerPoint presentation for history class? AI can do all of this and more. One high schooler recently told me that he struggles to think of a single assignment that AI wouldn’t be able to do for him. - The Atlantic
Entertainment and tech companies have gotten smarter about putting consumers into bastardized flow states that leaves people feeling drained and sad rather than challenged and enlarged as selves. - Derek Thompson
It’s a phenomenon that has long puzzled psychologists and philosophers alike. Given that we usually dread sadness and strive to avoid it because it feels so bad – from painful conversations to the grief of loss – why do we actively seek it in art? - Psyche
