There’s an important caveat that my colleagues and I have recently begun to explore in our research: Positive views of creative work often shift once people learn that AI was involved. - The Conversation
A group called Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian has taken photos of every wall text in the Institution’s museums before they were changed. Other organizations are scouring websites, signage, datasets and documents, treating them with the care of conservators as they resist the Trump administration’s efforts to recast the past. - The Washington Post (Yahoo!)
There’s soft coercion, where they are providing an incentive structure where they will not fund projects unless they have a social-justice angle. - Chronicle of Higher Education
The suit accuses the Trump administration of “a sustained campaign to erase history and undermine science,” so that the parks no longer do what is required by the law that established them.” - ARTnews
Arts Alliance Illinois, the statewide arts advocacy organization, is calling on the General Assembly to increase the arts budget by 20%, which it says would restore state funding levels to where they were 20 years ago. Since then, fiscal support for the arts has dipped on the state level. - WBEZ
Or, how self-published Kirk/Spock erotica in the late 1960s led to Heated Rivalry (with Japanese comics and Thai soap operas along the way). - New York Magazine
‘Unfortunately the funding precarity is having very real impacts on employment of artists and arts workers. The stress and uncertainty are impacting the health and wellbeing of people in the sector.' - Artshub
As we enter the AI era, human collective thought patterns, ideological structures, and the very essence of individual existence and dignity are undeniably under threat. - ARTnews
An unidentified person poured a substance, likely some combination of motor oil and antifreeze, on a temporary ice rink built outside the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, damaging the surface and forcing a Friday performance by the Montreal-based Le Patin Libre to be canceled. - Washington Post
Hyperspecialization has dominated the academy over the past decades. More and more, professors and outside observers note that academics silo research into increasingly minute areas. The consequences of this practice are deleterious. - Harvard Crimson
“You get out your Fascism for Dummies book for the 15 things you do, and we tried to include as many of them as we could in the most artful way possible.” Then things in real life started to reflect, eerily, many things that happened on Andor. - Hollywood Reporter
“A spokesperson for the BBC attributed the language outbursts to an attendee with Tourette syndrome,” but the BBC apologized to viewers. Social media outrage is strong. - NBC
Susan Rice, former United Nations Ambassador, said on a podcast this week that “corporations, media companies, law firms and universities that ‘take a knee’ to Trump should not expect Democrats to ‘forgive and forget.’” The current president did not appreciate that. - The Hill
Hackers discovered the Peter Thiel-backed verification software, Persona, "bundled in an interface that pairs facial recognition with financial reporting – and a parallel implementation that appears designed to serve federal agencies.” Discord swiftly decided to kick Persona to the curb. - The Rage
“The Berlinale has gained a reputation as the most overtly political of the major festivals, not only for its programming choices, but for its history of engaging with global crises. ... Critics say that despite being vocal on other issues, the Berlinale has not spoken out about Gaza.” - NPR
