It’s not just the news that’s fake anymore but all sorts of media and consumer goods can now be knocked off thanks to AI. From audio tracks and video clips to financial transactions and counterfeit products — even your own handwriting can be mimicked with startling levels of accuracy. But what if we could leverage the same computer systems that created these fakes to reveal them just as easily?
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The Impacts Of Artificial Intelligence Are Accelerating Exponentially
“The truth about AI, according to experts such as Ray Kurzweil, is that there’s no part of our lives that won’t be directly affected by it. As individuals we probably won’t notice the changes in real-time, but our dependence on machine learning will increase at exponential rates. The law of accelerating returns is behind the artificial intelligence revolution — and Ray Kurzweil’s predictions.”
Buffalo’s Knight-Albright Museum Reconsiders Its Controversial Expansion Plans
“The museum and its development team will re-examine an expansion option on the north and northwest side of the campus connected to the 1905 Building to determine whether this could meet the museum’s needs, while also minimizing impacts on the Albright-Knox’s historic buildings,” according to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, in a statement Friday afternoon.
Martin Amis In America: “I’ve Mellowed Somewhat”
If America is, for Amis, an easier place in which to grow old – fewer critics, for a start – he retains an expectation that he and his wife will move home one day. “I miss the English,” he says. “I miss Londoners. I miss the wit. Americans, they’re very, well, de Tocqueville saw this coming in about 1850 – he said, it’s a marvellous thing, American democracy, but don’t they know how it’s going to end up? It’s going to be so mushy that no one will dare say anything for fear of offending someone else.
NY’s ATT&T Building Makeover Provokes Argument Between Pragmatism And Design Theory
Justin Davidson: “Widely mocked and grudgingly admired, the emblematic tower of the postmodern age made its pop-culture debut as a scale model that its maker held aloft like a trophy on the cover of Time in 1979.”
Rules Of The Road For Classical Music Concerts?
“To my colleagues who work in classical music, I have a request. Let’s stop with the rules. If there is in fact something wrong with classical music, consider that it has everything to do with how we talk about it and nothing to do with anything else. And, if you are hearing music by Bach in a church performed by an internationally-known soloist who has been performing this music for nearly seven decades, being reverential is OK, not snobby or elitist. Likewise, some guidelines in the program may be entirely appropriate for a roomful of teenagers new to classical music-going.”
In A World Run By Algorithms Is There Any Place For Ideas?
“Platforms like Twitter and Facebook have done an astonishing jobs of connecting hearts and minds throughout the world, but they’re also filled with escalating sophistry, falsehoods, and vicious personal attacks that frequently displace intelligent conversation.”
Sometimes An Umbrella Is Just An Umbrella, But Not In British Literature
Now, we’re all going to reread literally every Dickens novel, not to mention J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books and, of course, Mary Poppins: “In addition to a vast array of sexual clues and cues, John Bowen has found Dickensian brollies masquerading as ‘weapons and shields . . . birds, cabbages and leaves.’ And whether they’re in the right place or the wrong place (like the umbrella in Quilp’s eulogy), there is some intangible but undeniable facet of umbrellaness that has captured the human imagination for centuries.”
Australian Actor Rebel Wilson Says She, Too, Has Been Sexually Harassed
Wow. “After she managed to escape from the situation she worked with her lawyer and her agent to complain about the allegations to studio bosses and demanded producers include a clause in her contract protecting her from the star’s aggression. But Wilson added that after taking steps to stop the alleged harassment she was threatened by her colleague’s representatives and told she had to ‘be nice’ and ‘support’ the actor.”
What’s It Like To Be A Disabled Theatre Audience Member?
Yeah, not great. Whew. “We ought to carefully consider who is excluded from the experience when required to sit in perfect silence, in a designated squeaky seat, in darkness, next to strangers, with no food or drink, without a bathroom, in a narrow row, for several hours. In fact, now that I’ve written that, it sounds more like a hostage situation than a way in which I want to spend my entertainment dollars. Oh, and PS, there are one million stairs, because this play is produced in the non-accessible, historic building that’s within the budget constraints of this small non-profit.”