“For many good reasons, there are lots of tensions around GenAI and a sometimes-growing antagonism between those who are critical and rejecting AI and those who are engaging with AI (regardless of whether they do so critically or uncritically). I think there should be meaningful conversations amongst these groups (and all the variations among and beyond them). But, at times, the dismissiveness of one by the other leads me to wonder how thoughtful we are being about the discourse as a whole.

For those of you who are still willing to learn about AI, Ethan Mollick does a good breakdown of the 3 major AI platforms and what each is most useful for. open.substack.com/pub/oneus…

Ted Gioia declares that long form material has made a comeback. I think he’s right! open.substack.com/pub/tedgi…

adam@social.lol “suspended” me, whatever that means. What a coward. Apparently, my posts can be seen here, but not “there” (wherever “there” is). Hilarious.

I am particularly interested in what is apparently known as “source bounded AI” such as Google’s NotebookLM. This allows you to “train” and individualized use based only on the documents that YOU have uploaded. I’m particularly interested in how that might be used in education and self-education. One of the real issues once you have gotten out of school is not being able to have a real discussion about things you read.

Really? We’re going to judge learning effectiveness based on (checks notes) an EEG assessing “cognitive load”? Please. Just stop with this. arxiv.org/abs/2506….

Tom at @apoorplayer wrote a powerfully honest essay called “The Age of Futility” that inspired me to do what we used to do in the old days of blogging: write a post on our own blog, and then link to the original, creating an actual conversation. Here’s my contribution: “The Age of Sensibility.”

“The theatre, by the beginning of the current century, had become yet another American industry composed of a series of interlocking professions, each dependent upon the others, with its business operations centralized structurally and geographically. It had, in the course of the nineteenth century, become less democratic in both its administration and appeal and had assumed the role of manufacturer of a product prepared and packaged for nationwide distribution. The long run had become its principal goal; the star system and the star vehicle had become the means to that end; the combination company had become recognized as the standard producing unit of the commercial theatre; and the practices of theatre management and play production, once the domain of the actor-manager, had become discrete and separate endeavors.

“The Annecy [Animation Festival] crowd cheered the announcement [of the upcoming Pixar film Gatto and went wild as Docter unveiled animation tests of a distinct, unique hand-painted look, something Pixar has never shown before. The film appears to be rich in colors from Venetian settings, and blends 2D hand paint textures with cutting-edge CG animation." I assume the anti-AI crowd will boycott this as well as all other Pixar CGI-created films.

Yesterday, I got a mailer from the New Criterion saying they were “defenders of the beautiful and the good” and that they focused on the arts and culture. I know from writing my dissertation that the New Criterion leans right, but I figured no big deal because the focus was on art and literature. So I subscribed. The first article was Heather Mac Donald parroting Trump’s dumb ideas with admiration while she accepted the Burke Award, and praising Roger Kimball for predicting (and celebrating) Trump’s election.

Officials in the Trump administration had some well-timed trades right before Trump announced tariffs. It was totally obvious at the time, and it was good to have it confirmed. Propublica is playing it very safe in this article, but has made the evidence public nonetheless. Well done! www.propublica.org/article/u…

I have a new author page that includes a blog: scottwalters.net.

OK, this is cool. Falcons nest on the roof of the UMass W. E. B DuBois Library where I get my academic books (I get my more popular books at the local Cheshire Library). They have a live cam on this page so you can watch: www.library.umass.edu/falcons/

Just finished “The Heartbeat Library” by Laura Imai Messina. A beautiful, deeply-felt book that was truly extraordinary.

Parking this here for the future: “As arts organizations become part of the world of markets instead of being buffered from it, their focus shifts from preserving human heritage and culture to attracting and building a paying audience. It’s easier, after all, to measure artistic success in terms of tickets sold than in terms of something vague like aesthetic triumph. Arts organizations start to think and act like businesses, adopting management philosophies and marketing techniques and training staff in management and business practices.

Hey, look, Ma! My letter is in American Theatre Magazine!

This post by @ayjay pretty much describes me as well. “Back to My Books,” by Alan Jacobs.

Yesterday was my birthday, and my wife and I went to the Habitat ReStore and I bought a used desk for my study for $32, which is the height of birthday celebration!!!

“We exchange something very precious for money: our life energy. Do we want to spend our time and energy earning money and contributing to the market economy, or fostering creative pursuits, our relationships, and community, and contributing love?” Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin Off the Grid and Beyond the American Dream by William Powers

I wonder how many people would heave a sigh of relief and enthusiastically support this platform described by Matthew J. Franck in his (somewhat) tongue-in-cheek article “My Presidential Candidacy.” It certainly would restore legislative balance, make the House and Senate elections more important, and help us get away from the overheated idea of the imperial presidency that we’ve labored under for more than 50 years.

OK, I’m settled in for the NFL draft. I’m not hard-core: I’ll probably turn it off after the Panthers pick (at #8…or will they trade back???)

Do stock market people ever get tired of knee jerk responses? “Oh, look!” Trump said something nice about Powell. Huzzah! Let’s run the prices up!" Insanity.

It seems to me that a large portion of new ideas that, when eventually adopted, turn out to be game changers are made by people secure enough to risk imagining a new direction. Maybe they’re independently wealthy, or have some other form of security that allows them to consider riskier ideas. Maybe we should cultivate ideas no matter where they come from.

Today’s reading: On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times by Michael Ignatieff – a welcome salve for the soul. I’ve been particularly drawn to the chapters on Job and on Marcus Aurelius. The book was inspired by the 2017 event in Utrecht in which four choirs would sing musical versions of all 150 Psalms. Three years later, during the early months of the pandemic, these performances were broadcast, one per day, to provide consolation.

I read Carl Hendrick’s “Ultra-Processed Minds” and I find myself wishing I could start my teaching career over again, and refuse to give so much away to “coverage.” Eventually, I was speeding through 2500 years of theater history and literature in a single semester, an impossible task, and doubtlessly a blur to students. Even when I was fortunate enough to spend an entire semester exploring a single playwright, I would cover a new play every two days.