Birding is not the only hobby with an app problem. So many leisure pursuits now have their own gamified digital platforms: Untappd for beer enthusiasts. Strava for runners. Ravelry for knitters. Fishbrain for fishermen. Beli for foodies. Goodreads and Letterboxd for bookworms and movie buffs. The list goes on. - The Atlantic
The basic income for the arts (BIA) initial pilot ran from 2022 to 2025 and helped 2,000 artists. The results of an independent study found that it had a noticeable positive impact on the lives of those who received it. - The Conversation
“Today, more and more critics pay their own bills, build their own followings, and invent their own rules. ... For better and for worse, the adage “Everyone’s a critic” no longer seems like an exaggeration.” - The Atlantic (MSN)
“If you deliberately and regularly go without checking your phone, or indeed exposing yourself to any other source of electronic stimulation, you’ll build ‘the skill of boredom,’ which will enable you not only to confront life’s grand questions, but also to be less bored with ordinary life.” - Open Culture
How do we assess whether AI is “reasoning” like humans do? Is it “truly intelligent”—but what does that mean? Even if we don’t understand its inner workings, could we still accurately predict its impact before unleashing it on the world? - The Point
If philosophy formalized reasoning, literature explored its consequences. Stories about artificial beings reveal the hopes and terrors of living with intelligent doubles. Western traditions gave us the myth of Pygmalion, who fell in love with his statue, and Ovid’s tales of moving statues and enchanted beings. - 3 Quarks Daily
Philosophers and political theorists say it promotes selfish individualism and discourages collective action around issues that affect us all. And sociologists add that societies that prize choice too much tend to blame those with only poor or limited options for their own misfortunes. So much for choice as consistently synonymous with freedom. - Aeon
These systems may appear neutral, but they are far from it. The most popular models privilege dominant epistemologies (typically Western and institutional) while marginalising alternative ways of knowing, especially those encoded in oral traditions, embodied practice and the languages considered ‘low-resource’ in the computing world. - Aeon
In the past (autism became a diagnostic category only in 1943), the ‘idiot savant’ was a paradox, who confounded categorisation because there was no unified way of comprehending how such exceptional musical and numerical skills might co-exist alongside their polar opposite: profound disability. - Aeon
The idea of a permanent underclass has recently been embraced in part as an online joke and in part out of a sincere fear about how A.I. automation will upend the labor market and create a new norm of inequality. - The New Yorker
The thing is, “music classes require ukuleles, recorders, and sheet music for every student. Visual arts classes require painting supplies –– easels, paper, paint brushes, paint. Dance classes require mirrors and bars.” How’s the $35 arts tax doing? - Oregon ArtsWatch
At least, at the University of Minnesota: “Students come to our courses not only for practical career training but to fulfill their love of reading, passion for writing, and hunger to reflect on essential questions about who we are as individuals and communities.” - Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Eliza was worth a lot more than her quick summing up in two minutes at the end of a 165-minute musical. "Eliza’s widowed years a kind of breakout,” actually, and the U.S. (and Washington, D.C.) would have looked quite different without her. - The Atlantic
Researchers found “that those with ADHD may experience more frequent episodes of mind-wandering, and that that, in turn, could lead to greater creative thinking abilities.” - Fast Company
