Sterling Proffer

“A writer,” said Thomas Mann, “is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” More difficult, because there is more for you to do, more that you know how to do, and because you hold yourself to higher standards.

The artists complaining about TikToks aren’t exactly condemning the platform. But they are showing that being on all the time, influencer-style, takes effort and talent that is different from the kind it takes to perform a great song. Do we really want our entertainers demystified and desperate? Are we too cynical and distracted to enjoy... See more

11. Sell a sync license: NFTs offer a potential opportunity for simplifying the sync licensing process. By embedding a complex set of rights and licenses into a fairly liquid digital token, copyright owners can simplify how they issue licenses and how everyone gets paid.

To understand why foundation models represent a “phase change in ai”, in the words of Fei-Fei Li, the co-director of Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centred ai, it helps to get a sense of how they differ from what went before.

Emergent properties are linked to another highly promising feature: flexibility. Earlier generations of ai systems were good for only one purpose, often a pretty specific one. The new models can be reassigned from one type of problem to another with relative ease by means of fine tuning. It is a measure of the importance of this trait that, within... See more

The cycle is dizzying and numbing: The allure of authenticity invites fascination and then, inevitably, skepticism. All along, truth and trust aren’t celebrated; they’re destabilized.