Fifty years of Saturday Night Live will do that to a person. "Writers don’t just conceive and pen sketches—they also produce and direct them, getting a huge say in everything from set decoration to costumes.” - Fast Company
We must recognise that the natural and the mental order of things go hand in hand. Neither can be fully understood without the other. And neither can be traced back to the other. - Aeon
It can be easy to take our maps, images and story of the Moon for granted. But over the past six decades, our cultural and scientific relationship with the Moon has been radically altered. - Aeon
“The data shows a shift in cognitive effort as knowledge workers increasingly move from task execution to oversight when using GenAI,” the researchers wrote. “Surprisingly, while AI can improve efficiency, it may also reduce critical engagement, particularly in routine or lower-stakes tasks in which users simply rely on AI." - 404 Media
Someone who knows more, is more successful, or who seems to be smarter than you is often seen as a threat, and so in order to prevent them from standing out too much (or surpassing too many others), we glorify ignorance as the de facto normal position. - Big Think
Let’s just say it: Algorithms are officially uncool. Remember when they were the ‘it’ thing – those mysterious forces that seemed to know what we wanted before we did? We would open our favourite app and boom – content that felt crafted just for us. Well, that golden age is over. - Aurora Dawn
Studies show that humans tend to perceive AI-generated paintings as human-made more often than actual human-created paintings. Similarly, AI-generated humor is found to be as funny as jokes written by humans. Another study found that people perceive AI-generated faces as real human faces at a higher rate than actual photos of human faces. - Psypost
“Regardless of what the one percent are slathering on toast points in their backseats, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years writing about food, it’s that Americans are loyal to brands, especially when it comes to condiments.” - Slate
“All of our feeds are at their core tremendously banal: They’re just windows into what people do with themselves all day, repeated over and over again. And we watch, because, for some reason, we love watching humans be humans.” - The New York Times
The so-called “ink knights” were deeply into the spy game. “What’s stronger than the sword? Apparently a humble aspect, a high tolerance for cocktail party talk, and a library card.” - LitHub
David Hajdu strives to refute the ages-old criticism that art made with machines is cold, soulless and artificial. In fact, he argues, machines have enabled radical new art forms, empowered marginalized communities and served as instruments of cultural change. - Washington Post
Some do suggest that the Internet and digital technologies impair or otherwise alter performance on specific learning and memory tasks: people who use GPS devices to navigate seem worse at recalling routes, for instance. - Nature
High culture became the only thing standing in the way of the free market, and now that too has been taken care of. Art can co-exist with Schlock, but it cannot indefinitely survive the onslaught of Kitsch — the only kind of culture the free market can really tolerate. - Unherd
