It COULD get fixed, but it probably won’t. Why? Engagement. “As the AI improves, it will be able to more precisely predict who is interested in this content; thus, it’s also less likely to recommend such content to those who aren’t. At that stage, problems with the algorithm become exponentially harder to notice, as content is unlikely to be flagged or reported.” – Wired
Blog
The Life Cycle Of A Beach Read
Ouch, why did you have to zing all of us who have ever been on vacation, NYT? – The New York Times
Evaluating Iris Murdoch At 100
Her work, much of which is being reissued, is still incredibly relevant. “A crucial idea in Murdoch’s fiction is the reality of others, a material fact that we are confronted with daily but, in our innermost selves, seem hardly able to grasp. We glimpse them in continually evolving contexts inflected with our own agendas, which may also remain mysterious to us.” – The Guardian (UK)
Scarlett Johansson Says She Should Be Allowed To Play Anything, Including ‘A Tree,’ Because That’s Her Job
Oh boy. This is going to end well. “‘As an actor I should be allowed to play any person, or any tree, or any animal because that is my job and the requirements of my job,’ Johansson explained. ‘I feel like it’s a trend in my business and it needs to happen for various social reasons, yet there are times it does get uncomfortable when it affects the art because I feel art should be free of restrictions.'” – Vulture
When Will Theatre Awards Catch Up With Nonbinary Actors?
Howard Sherman says the time has come to figure this out: “So long as there are categories for best actor and actress (or best male and female actor), those who identify outside of the binary will be left out, misidentified and othered. This will come home to roost the first time someone with non-binary identity is nominated for an award, and then we will see awards-giving organisations doing hurried acrobatics to come up with a solution. The better option is to understand where the thinking is heading, and thoughtfully make the appropriate changes now.” – The Stage (UK)
So, What Exactly Is L.A.’s Urban Plan For The New LACMA District?
Um … indeed. “The big question is whether Los Angeles can pull it together to approach its public urban spaces in ways that are more cohesive and more mindful of human scale — and perhaps (just perhaps!) correct some of the errors of the past.” – Los Angeles Times
How A Large, Decentralized Social Network Is Dealing With A N*zi Problem
Mastodon was meant to be a kinder, gentler, no-fascist Twitter. Then a right-wing social network moved to Mastodon. “It’s a hard problem, playing off the deepest limitations of decentralized projects like Mastodon. Mastodon arose from the idealistic open-source software movement, designed to let anybody run their own social media site. But it was never intended to support something like Gab.” – The Verge
Someone (A Lot Of People, To Be Honest) Has To Mow The Lawn At The Largest Sculpture Park In The U.S.
Storm King is big. Really, really big: “The art here is nestled amid 500 acres of verdant hills, exposed to the ever-shifting and unrelenting climate of New York’s Hudson Valley.” – The New York Times
Will Grassroots European Presenters Stop Booking UK Artists Post-Brexit?
“Across Europe, voluntary promoters, programmers and enthusiasts employ UK artists. They don’t get paid, they don’t receive funding and they often lose money from their own pockets to keep the show on the road. They do it because they love it, because they want to share the art they love in the communities where they live – and they love British artists. They create vital grassroots ecosystems that are all but invisible to UK policy-makers, whose narrow view of culture is constrained to the assemblage of creaking institutions to which they are bound.” – Arts Professional
Dancing With Artificial Intelligence
Wayne McGregor teamed up with Google engineers and creative technologists to train the algorithm, called “Living Archive,” using thousands of hours of video from the choreographer’s previous works over 25 years. It was a way of “activating the archives” and “hijacking its past,” McGregor said. – Los Angeles Times