If a computer system has no intelligence, creativity, or understanding but can mimic these qualities, when does it become a distinction without a difference? ChatGPT still falls short, but ChatGPT 2031 may be a different story. What is our place in such a world? - 3 Quarks Daily
The word “information” predates Gutenberg. But once printing took off and books proliferated, new kinds of books had to be invented to track, organize and summarize the relentless flood of data they generated: encyclopedias, bibliographies, dictionaries, multilingual bibles, summaries, herbals. - The Wall Street Journal
For the 2022 edition, we examined representation in U.S. museums and the art market for work by Black American artists, female-identifying artists, and Black American female-identifying artists, by tracing museum acquisitions (a total of almost 350,000 objects) and exhibitions (nearly 6,000). - Artnet
The Avatar sequel comes at a time of great debate in the VFX world about the working environment and treatment of VFX artists in the blockbuster movie space. - BBC
Despite a highly misleading headline, Ivan Hewitt uses a West End show called "Handel's Messiah: The Live Experience" to consider the various things that get added (frequently high-tech and sometimes thoughtful) and taken away (religious content) to attract younger adults to classical music. - MSN (The Telegraph, UK)
Accidents in "The Nutcracker" are so common there are injuries named after the ballet. A nutcracker fracture is a foot fracture of the cuboid bone. - Salon
In Yippee Ki Yay, running through this week in London and then touring Britain, poet/playwright Richard Marsh uses just a few props and 75 minutes' worth of verse to recreate Hollywood's greatest big-budget fighting-terrorists-at-Christmastime movie. - The New York Times
On the high end, it’s a 22% jump from what Comscore is expecting 2022 to final at, that being $7.4B. This year’s domestic box office also reps a 72% surge over 2021’s $4.3 billion. - Deadline
"The triggering effect of the pandemic, and its impact on artists' livelihoods and careers, resulted in what had been previously been unimaginable: an almost doubling of the Arts Council budget from €75 million before COVID to €130 million for 2021, a level retained for the coming year." - The Irish Times
"This past year has marked seventy-five years of Partition, a process of fracturing that continues in the imagination and in memory. Each generation has posed new questions, searching for places where the stories can be found — in statistics, in stubborn reticence, in a pair of gold bangles." - The New Yorker
The story of the year was undoubtedly HBO Max; Warner Brothers Discovery CEO David Zaslav made radical changes to the streaming structure and axed many in development, renewed, in production, and completed projects. - Collider
"On TV, 2022 has been the year of the American dream — with a catch. For many of the hustlers, entrepreneurs and strugglers onscreen, that aspiration still exists. But ... it can cost you an important part of yourself." - The New York Times
"The idea is for the show to be a relaxed, shush-free, shame-free environment. ... House lights will be kept on (and) guests will also be free to move, talk, or dance as they please throughout the show. ... Potentially startling moments during the full-length show will be removed or modified." - CBS San Francisco
