Alexandra Alter in the New York Times:
Many publishers don’t explicitly prohibit authors from using A.I. in their book contracts. Instead, they rely on longstanding contractual clauses that require writers to affirm that their work is “original,” which many people in the book business now interpret as effectively banning the use of A.I. for text or image creation.
Publishers are also wary of A.I. content because currently, A.I.-generated text and art can’t be protected by copyright. Still, given the widespread uses for A.I. during research, outlining and other parts of the writing process, there’s little clarity on what constitutes its appropriate use. Many in the industry worry that publishers are leaving themselves vulnerable to scammers — or even writers who believe their A.I. use doesn’t cross any lines.
One problem in regulating authors’ A.I. use is that most corporate publishing houses don’t want to ban it outright.
More here.
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If you’re an electricity nerd like me, this is an exciting moment. Earlier this month, TerraPower—the
David Goodhart: The anywhere–somewhere value divide clearly contributed enormously to both the Brexit vote in 2016 in the UK and Trump’s first election in that same year, and indeed his reelection. The anywhere worldview, as you implied, is that of the highly educated, people comfortable with mobility, partly because they have often experienced it by attending residential universities. They are part of a world where change is something they can take in stride. Openness and autonomy come naturally because of their experiences as mobile graduates. It leans toward a natural kind of liberalism. Of course, they then go on into jobs that pay them well and confer high status.
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Much of literary culture regards the Gothic genre as an archaic embarrassment—gloomy ruins and paranormal lovers that serious practitioners have learned to dismiss. Yet such dismissals neglect a basic fact of literary history. Intimations of demonic realms and spectral forces emerged in tandem with the English novel, several early examples of which featured devil pacts, reanimation, ghost ships, and homunculi. Furthermore, neither British Romanticism nor French Symbolism would have been as consequential or interesting without Gothic writings by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Baudelaire. Indeed, one could argue that a nascent version of European Modernism emerged in the mid-1800s when Baudelaire began publishing his translations of Poe’s fiction, an enterprise foundational to the composition of Les Fleurs du mal (first published in 1857, definitive edition posthumously in 1868).
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In Immanuel Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783), Oliver sounded almost comically exasperated as he responded to a rambling critique Kant makes of David Hume (whom Oliver revered): “Immanuel,” he wrote, as if speaking directly to the philosopher across the centuries, “you are totally confused!”
For decades, economists have known that using gross domestic product (GDP) alone
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Floating in a warm, nutritious bath, the slices of mouse brain buzzed with electrical activity. Researchers gave them a few zaps, and parts of the hippocampus strengthened their wiring.
In late 2022, an ambulance pulled up to a bombed-out apartment building in this village outside Kyiv. Three people emerged. One wore a gray hoodie, another a baseball cap. Both had masks covering their faces.
Place a measuring cup in your backyard every time it rains and note the height of the water when it stops: Your data will conform to a bell curve. Record 100 people’s guesses at the number of jelly beans in a jar, and they’ll follow a bell curve. Measure enough women’s heights, men’s weights, SAT scores, marathon times — you’ll always get the same smooth, rounded hump that tapers at the edges.