Many more now have signed deals with the AI companies which commonly include the use of their content as reference points for user queries in tools like ChatGPT (with citation back to their websites currently promised) as well as giving them the use of the tech to build their own products. - Press Gazette
For example, between April and July, The New Yorker published over a dozen such pieces: essays about generative AI and the dangers it poses to literacy, education, and human cognition. Each had a searching, plaintive headline; each asks what AI-generated writing can or can’t do and how human writers can or can’t respond. - N+1
The researchers’ model allows for the generation of synthetic data to accurately model key degradation processes and overcome the scarcity of information contained in the cultural object. It also yields better results than traditional models, based on multispectral images, while enabling research with conventional digital images. - El Pais
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this whole snafu—which alas seems likelier to be the beginning of a trend, rather than the end of one—is how a matrix of concerned readers, workers, fellow indies, and union reps can apply constructive pressure to a large organization and so keep them accountable to community values. - LitHub
Sometimes called “the Devil’s Bible,” it’s 3-feet-by-1⅔-feet and 165 pounds and contains the complete Bible, writings by historian Flavius Josephus and theologian Isidore of Seville, Cosmas of Prague’s history of Bohemia, a medical textbook, and lists of incantations and spells. And there are lots of freaky stories told about it. - Artnet
Six of the greatest works of modern literature were repeatedly and humiliatingly rejected by publishers and their distinguished advisors, who were blind to their merits. - The Critic
“An ‘express’ library has opened in a new metro station in Warsaw, aiming to provide an appealing cultural space to encourage residents and commuters to forgo smartphones in favour of books. … About 16,000 books are on offer … and can be borrowed through an ‘express’ checkout machine using contactless chips.” - The Guardian
“On Friday, authors Grady Hendrix and Jennifer Roberson filed a lawsuit in Northern California targeting Apple's ‘OpenELM’ large language models, alleging the company ‘copied protected works without consent and without credit or compensation.’” - Publishers Weekly
Writers aren’t getting this settlement because their work was fed to an AI — this is just a costly slap on the wrist for Anthropic, a company that just raised another $13 billion, because it illegally downloaded books instead of buying them. - TechCrunch
At the Jewish Theological Seminary in Budapest, Hungary, "about 20,000 books and many valuable manuscripts have been missing since the end of World War II.” But some books have, with great effort and care, made their way back. - The New York Times
“We don’t judge Elizabeth harshly for going against polite strictures, because she’s often revealing some hypocrisy or injustice. ... Lizzy generally punches up, directing her barbs at and refusing the marching orders given by those more powerful than she is.” - LitHub
Roy: “‘What have we done to democracy? What happens when it’s been used up and emptied of meaning, and every institution has been turned against you? But … you have the most incredible people fighting back too.”- Irish Times (Archive Today)
The reverse of the probable portrait of the Earl of Southampton, a representation of a playing card heart, is defaced with a spade, or a spear. And that brings “thoughts of Shakespeare, whose coat of arms, drawn up c1602, incorporated a spear as a pun.” - The Guardian (UK)
Truly, says another indie bookstore in town, what were they thinking?! And on the venerable store's Instagram sort-of apology, the comments are, hm, not super favorable. - KATU (Portland)
For instance, before the Rosetta Stone, scholars had assumed the symbols were ideographs or pictographs. Were they, in fact, phonetic symbols? Turned out that they can be both. And in which direction were they read? (Well, that depends.) And what about that quasi-cursive called hieratic script? - Artnet
