I interviewed Ethan Hawke in NY a while back, and loved how sharp he was on all aspects of culture, but particularly theatre. I was fortunate to also interview both Frank Gehry and Martin Parr, at different times in my career as a journalist. Two titans who will be sorely missed. The thing very few people knew about Parr was how much he encouraged and supported other photographers. He was a brilliant photographer, but also a kind human who went out of his way to help emerging talent.
I was at a Nutcracker production yesterday with my children. The thought that kept rolling around in my mind was this: Al could never reproduce the glory of trained human bodies that have suffered to make art. Al could never reproduce the hand-embellished costumes, the crafted sets or the texture of the falling paper snow on the stage that has you wondering, on the edge, if a dancer might slip on it. Al could never create the the way I hold my breath watching humans be human- a dancer recovering their hat that's flown off mid-performamce and how beautifully they have used their improvisation to scoop it up and replace with without me seeing. I doubt I will ever fully bend to Al. I love humans too much.
I LOVE Ethan Hawke (though I haven’t watched many of his movies), and I love that he said this about A.I.
When I worked at BookPeople, he did an event for Rules for a Knight. I so impressed with his knowledge of and respect for, copyediting. He knew the difference between an en-dash and an em-dash. He is very intelligent and grounded. Made for an excellent event.
Thanks for introducing me to Penny Lane. Sitting in my hotel room outside Portland, OR, I started reading through her Substack posts. I particularly enjoyed Success For the Rest of Us.
The "everyone knows" idea is what is so exasperating to me - when you read someone like Jonathan Haidt and you have people criticising him for the design of his studies or the conclusions he's coming to, or whatever, all I can think is that I don't need perfectly designed studies and mountains of data to see what's right in front of my face. We've started to use science and data (especially in social sciences, which are so much more difficult to study cleanly) as a way to undermine our own human instincts and to avoid dealing with the situation until we reach this theoretical perfect point where we have all of the information, and by then it's too late. So it's true that everyone knows and yet we pretend that we don't in order to remove the guilt we have when we hand a toddler a phone to shut them up or numb out with TikTok after a long day.
I don't think AI is the big bad wolf everyone is making it out to be. It's just a tool - like Photoshop or Illustrator. It works to take some of the tedium out of the way - removing room noise from an audio track, or suggesting other words while we write. It can't shoot the video or write the novel. It's like thinking a screwdriver could build a house. Don't elevate AI to be your equal; it will NEVER be that good.
Serious question:
Why all the pearl clutching about AI generated art?
If "human generated" art is fundamentally superior, then all artists have to do to compete with AI is create art.
Creating art is hard but that has always been the case, right?
I interviewed Ethan Hawke in NY a while back, and loved how sharp he was on all aspects of culture, but particularly theatre. I was fortunate to also interview both Frank Gehry and Martin Parr, at different times in my career as a journalist. Two titans who will be sorely missed. The thing very few people knew about Parr was how much he encouraged and supported other photographers. He was a brilliant photographer, but also a kind human who went out of his way to help emerging talent.
I was at a Nutcracker production yesterday with my children. The thought that kept rolling around in my mind was this: Al could never reproduce the glory of trained human bodies that have suffered to make art. Al could never reproduce the hand-embellished costumes, the crafted sets or the texture of the falling paper snow on the stage that has you wondering, on the edge, if a dancer might slip on it. Al could never create the the way I hold my breath watching humans be human- a dancer recovering their hat that's flown off mid-performamce and how beautifully they have used their improvisation to scoop it up and replace with without me seeing. I doubt I will ever fully bend to Al. I love humans too much.
now playing: Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen.
I LOVE Ethan Hawke (though I haven’t watched many of his movies), and I love that he said this about A.I.
When I worked at BookPeople, he did an event for Rules for a Knight. I so impressed with his knowledge of and respect for, copyediting. He knew the difference between an en-dash and an em-dash. He is very intelligent and grounded. Made for an excellent event.
Just seems like a good dude!
Yes, he does.
Thanks for introducing me to Penny Lane. Sitting in my hotel room outside Portland, OR, I started reading through her Substack posts. I particularly enjoyed Success For the Rest of Us.
The intro to Out Getting Ribs is transcendent!!
Thank you so much for the jazz christmas playlist. I like jazz more and more.
Stay tuned for Tuesday’s newsletter 😊
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The "everyone knows" idea is what is so exasperating to me - when you read someone like Jonathan Haidt and you have people criticising him for the design of his studies or the conclusions he's coming to, or whatever, all I can think is that I don't need perfectly designed studies and mountains of data to see what's right in front of my face. We've started to use science and data (especially in social sciences, which are so much more difficult to study cleanly) as a way to undermine our own human instincts and to avoid dealing with the situation until we reach this theoretical perfect point where we have all of the information, and by then it's too late. So it's true that everyone knows and yet we pretend that we don't in order to remove the guilt we have when we hand a toddler a phone to shut them up or numb out with TikTok after a long day.
Could not agree more! Trust what’s in front of your own eyeballs and in your guts
I don't think AI is the big bad wolf everyone is making it out to be. It's just a tool - like Photoshop or Illustrator. It works to take some of the tedium out of the way - removing room noise from an audio track, or suggesting other words while we write. It can't shoot the video or write the novel. It's like thinking a screwdriver could build a house. Don't elevate AI to be your equal; it will NEVER be that good.