There are many benefits to A.I., such as being able to generate beautiful art, inspiring music, captivating writing, and mesmerizing videos. It democratizes creation (people can now create what’s in their minds), lowers costs (replacing human labor with algorithms), and enables hyper-personalization (works can be made just for you). The benefits are big and important.
But there is also something soul-crushing about it. People spend decades learning a craft and then see an A.I. make something...
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art
Four reasons art is made – and how they shape the art world
There is something very strange about the art world, which, I think, has to do with art stemming from four different motivations that often come into tension with each other.
More specifically, I suspect that art is created mainly for four reasons:
1) Urge: many artists seem to have a compulsion to create (sometimes, to create oddly specific things). They make art to satisfy this urge. In this category, I would also include art that is mainly motivated by helping the artist ach...
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What’s helpful and what’s unhelpful about postmodernism, critical theory, and their current intellectual offshoots?
More often than not, I find that postmodernist thought obscures rather than illuminates. But I also see useful elements in it. Here's my very un-postmodern attempt to "steel man" (i.e., find the value in) ideas related to postmodernism:
1. Narratives Serve Power - powerful groups do tend to have a substantial influence on narratives, beliefs, and what's "normal." Something "obvious" or "objective" or "a fact" may just (invisibly) be a part of the narrative you're immersed in and sub...
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The Museum of Questioned Quality
What would a fine art museum be like, if it were optimized relentlessly for what you care about?
Within the limits of my ability to model my own preferences, I think my ideal fine art museum would be what I'm going to call "The Museum of Questioned Quality." I suspect lots of people would find this museum concept distasteful, to say the least. So before describing what the museum is, I'll explain why the idea is appealing to me and what the idea sprouts from.
The Museum of Questioned ...
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Simple Advice on Being More Likeable
Books about how to be likable and charismatic often say things like:
LOOK make eye contact when people are talking to you (but look away occasionally so as not to be creepy, and look away for a greater proportion of the time when you're talking since that's what people do naturally)
REPEAT reflect back to people what they've said to you (e.g., "So you're saying that…")
ASK get people talking about themselves by asking questions, and follow up to their responses with further questions (...
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