David Pennington

“librarians are what the internet is aching for—people on task to care about the past, with respect to the past and also to what it shall bequeath to the future.” Can we reimagine libraries for the digital age?

In a world of perpetual data overload, [curation] implies information design and selectivity: the channeling, filtering, and organization into intelligible and usable information; the digging up of new or long ignored cultural corpora. Most of these corpora are simply sitting in storage: less than 1% of the Smithsonian Institution’s permanent... See more

You Don’t Have To Make Art

The early chorus of generative AI tools:
“Now everyone can make art regardless of their skills or tools.”

• Could you not make art before? Even elephants can paint. Our ancestors created well known art by etching with a stone into the walls of the caves they called home. A kid with a box of discount crayons has no problem

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What does it tell us about progress if the most influential technological innovation of the century is clearly destroying lives on a massive scale?

AI is entirely to blame for why most inboxes are useless.

The tech has made email marketers vastly more confident in their production to delivery pipeline, which means I’m receiving 5 emails when there used to be one - and getting 5 emails doesn’t 5X my interest in the sale. Of all things, it 1/5ths it with each message that arrives.

Even my text

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Sometimes when I’m parenting alone, I slip into a mental state I call “idling.” It happens when my toddler’s nearby but playing on her own, meaning I only need to pay her half of my attention.

I personally think it makes people less attractive, authentic and worth connecting to. Anything that strips us of our imperfections is missing the point. The AI images, music and video are another. Of note, I actually think the meme uses are fine (it’s entertainment, not art, and that’s something else).