Will an AI system ever deliver a translation of a literary text, say, that is not only accurate but also sensitive to meaning, unless it has a genuine understanding of what the story is about? But what would such understanding amount to? AI researchers like to talk about “human-level” intelligence… Yet we don’t even know what that means unless the system is conscious of itself; certainly it won’t be attained simply by making systems excel at the imitation game. – Prospect
Tag: 01.25.20
How The Unthinkable Becomes The Inevitable
How does the once-unthinkable become not only thinkable but self-evident? How does the unthinkable become something we cannot think away anymore? To get at that, we have to tell a history not only of emergence, but of the formation of the deepest levels of our intuition. I have a strong sense that our best reasoning takes place at a semi-conscious level, and I’m very interested in how that lower stratum of reasoning — the intuitions that drive our thinking in philosophy, mathematics, and the rest — is established. – Los Angeles Review of Books
Thelma Schoonmaker – Martin Scorsese’s Longtime Editor And Collaborator – Says He Hates Eyebrows
The other things Schoonmaker, who is nominated for the eighth time for an Oscar for The Irishman, says, have more to do with Netflix as a studio, and the long experience of trying to get the movie made. “‘Scorsese’s general manager said ‘Netflix will give you the money and they will leave you alone’ – and they did,’ she says. ‘I can’t tell you what a blessing that was. We’re sorry about the [short] theatrical release but nobody else would make this movie. The film wouldn’t have been made without Netflix.'” – BBC
Netflix Holds Its First Fan Screening At The Theatre It Bought In New York
Of course, it was for the sequel to the young adult rom-com To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, and of course, the place was packed with superfans who could answer obscure trivia questions and cheer when the film’s stars made a surprise guest appearance. One woman said, “I love sitting at home on my couch and being warm and cozy. … But there’s just something a little bit more magical about seeing it on a big screen with a bunch of other people, too.” – The New York Times
How Can Australia Come To Terms With Its Past?
Australia’s Aboriginal poets had some ideas as Australia Day – or #InvasionDay, as it’s known by many on social media – fever hit the country over the weekend. Problem: “Australia is the only Commonwealth country without a treaty between its government and Indigenous people. Yet, in the resulting vacuum, long after the gong’s last clang, the work of First Nations artists maps some directions reconciliation, treaty and atonement might take.” – The Irish Times
Salma Hayek Apologizes For Praising ‘American Dirt’
As controversy continues to swirl (for instance, as HuffPost recounts the ways American Dirt takes passages from Latinx writers’ nonfiction books on immigration) and as the book itself climbs the bestseller charts, Selma Hayek apologizes for praising the book without having read it – thus, perhaps, exposing the celebrity book endorsement for what it truly is: A PR racket. – The Washington Post
Are The Grammys Irrelevant?
Last night, the night before the 62nd Grammys, Sean “Diddy” Coombs called out the awards for their lack of diversity – and a decades-long refusal to recognize rap and hip hop. The NYT had already weighed in, agreeing: “Broadly speaking, nonwhite artists, female artists, and artists who come from the worlds of hip-hop and R&B are consistently marginalized, honored in genre categories but shut out in the four major categories (album, song and record of the year, and best new artist). Add it all up, and you get impending irrelevance.” – The New York Times
Have 21st Century Writers Fallen Out Of Love With Marriage?
Perhaps writers are out of love with romantic love, not only marriage. “If the romance fantasy was long doled out to women as a compensation for powerlessness elsewhere, contemporary writers are increasingly turning the marriage plot on its head.” – The Guardian (UK)
Netflix Is Betting On First-Time Filmmakers In The Streaming Wars
That may sound weird when Netflix also has Scorsese and Noah Baumbach out with Oscar-nominated movies at the moment (not to mention last year’s Roma), but: “The idea is to forge relationships with up-and-coming directors before they become big names. Last year, Netflix released 19 original movies from first-time directors on its streaming platform; another 11 have already been announced for 2020. About half of the first-time directors last year were women, and several titles hailed from directors of color whose films had diverse casts and characters.” – Los Angeles Times
When Fast Food Picks Up Larger Society’s Civil Rights Slack
You’ve probably heard of Harry Belafonte’s connection to the Civil Rights Movement, but … McDonald’s? Yes. The history of McDonald’s includes a large number of Black-owned franchises that also employ a lot of young (and not so young) Black women. But of course, there are issues: “Any time we have communities that have to rely on a business to be the place of refuge, to be the place for wifi, to be the sponsor of youth sports, to be the place where the youth job program happens, for the college scholarships to emanate from, then we have a problem.” – NPR