Frank Hecker
@frankhecker
Frank Hecker
What's the difference between an artist and a creator?
blog.metalabel.com
The only Permanent Underclass are the ones who believe it is permanent
swyx.io
More on the theme of widening inequality in a post-AI world.
The critical task, therefore, is not generating more (that’s going to keep happening), but designing the systems - the new algorithmic gatekeepers - that can rescue the meaningful from the deluge. The future of culture will be shaped not by the sophistication of our generators, but by the values embedded in our filters.
From Barking Hellhounds to AI Slop: What Electronic Music Foretells About Generative AI
Log-normal is the new normal and The creator economy
Consistent with the theory that increased cultural production widens the gap between the top performers and the bottom, heightening the effect of a log-normal (or power law, if you will) distribution.
A bleak essay, but I have quibbles: for example, why wouldn’t super intelligent beings have art? (Incomprehensible art to humans, most likely, but still art.)
The Practice Problem
educationnext.org
Lots of great quotes in this one, about politics and Americanism.
Infrastructure for Interdependence: Building technology in service of collective power
leaflet.pubGood to see innovation in social networks that is designed for users and groups themselves.
Against Compression
newcartographies.com
One of the better “contra AI” articles I’ve read. Interesting that it closes with a poem, because poetry is one of the better examples of intelligent compression around, along with metaphors. Possibly misquoting Randall Jarrell on Wallace Stevens more abstract poems: “It is G.E. Moore at the spinet”. An LLM can explain it to you, but it hits with more force if you’ve read Jarrell, Stevens, and Moore, and have ever listened to a spinet. (I can check 1, 2, and 4, but not 3.) Compression is most powerful when you have some idea of what’s being compressed.
Children Deserve an Ambitious Education
blueprintforagoldenage.substack.com