In Your Head: Links

Innovative three-year-olds expose the limits of AI chatbots
New experiments show that very young children are better at solving creative puzzles than ChatGPT and other AI models. (Psyche)

This Is What Your Brain Does When You’re Not Doing Anything
When your mind is wandering, your brain’s “default mode” network is active. Its discovery 20 years ago inspired a raft of research into networks of brain regions and how they interact with each other. (Wired)

Is It Real or Imagined? How Your Brain Tells the Difference.
New experiments show that the brain distinguishes between perceived and imagined mental images by checking whether they cross a “reality threshold.” (Quanta)

Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.

Immersive Experiences: Links

Tribeca Games and Immersive 2023: How are immersive technologies changing the way we tell, view, and perceive compelling stories? (Wunderman Thompson Intelligence)

•  Vision Pro: What has Apple built, what is it for, what does it mean for Meta, and why does it cost $3,500? Check back in 2025. (Benedict Evans)

Early Stats from the General Social Survey: How Virtual Arts Participation Fared in 2022: The arts module of the 2022 GSS was designed to track various types of arts activity among adults in the U.S. Unlike previous surveys, the module includes many questions about virtual participation in arts events. The module also asked respondents whether, at the time of the survey, they were taking part in such activities more or less often than when the pandemic was in its first year. (Arts Journal Blogs)

NASA Is Behind New York’s Newest Immersive Art Show: The federal space agency has a surprisingly long history of art collaborations. (Observer)

Some quick notes on Apple’s Vision Pro by Andy Matuschak: The hardware seems faintly unbelievable—a computer as powerful as Apple’s current mid-tier laptops (M2), plus a dizzying sensor/camera array with dedicated co-processor, plus displays with 23M 6µm pixels (my phone: 3M 55µm pixels; the PSVR2 is 32µm) and associated optics, all in roughly a mobile phone envelope.
But that kind of vertical integration is classic Apple. I’m mainly interested in the user interface and the computing paradigm. What does Apple imagine we’ll be doing with these devices, and how will we do it? (Andy’s working notes)

Olfactory Overload: How it feels to have hyperosmia, a heightened sensitivity to smells, which can accompany autism. (The Polyphony)

How your brain stays focused on conversations in a noisy room: The brain processes voices differently depending on the volume of the speaker and if the listener is focused on them. (New Scientist)

Why Being in Nature Makes You Smarter, According to Neuroscientists: The scientific evidence is overwhelmingly clear: spending time outdoors boosts your brain function. (Outside)

Why VR Photography Could Be the Next Big Thing: Pictures that let you see more; Apple’s new Vision Pro headset lets you take immersive photos and video; Canon is showing off a camera that lets you take 360-degree shots; The new technologies could boost the popularity of virtual reality photography. (Lifewire)

Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.

AI's IQ: Links

Links on AI, from how it works to how intelligent it actually is:

There is no AI: There are ways of controlling the new technology--but first we have to stop mythologizing it.
As a computer scientist, I don't like the term "A.I." In fact, I think it's misleading--maybe even a little dangerous. Everybody's already using the term, and it might seem a little late in the day to be arguing about it. But we're at the beginning of a new technological era--and the easiest way to mismanage a technology is to misunderstand it. (Jaron Lenier,
The New Yorker)

What Is ChatGPT Doing … and Why Does It Work?: That ChatGPT can automatically generate something that reads even superficially like human-written text is remarkable, and unexpected. But how does it do it? And why does it work? My purpose here is to give a rough outline of what's going on inside ChatGPT--and then to explore why it is that it can do so well in producing what we might consider to be meaningful text. (Stephen Wolfram)

AI for data storytelling: Artificial Intelligence in data journalism projects often showcases some of the most imaginative aspects of how to use new tools to perform analyses that just weren't possible before. (Simon Rogers)

A.I. Pop Culture Is Already Here: We're living in a world in which every style, every idea, and every possible remix can be generated as fast and frictionlessly as possible. (Kyle Chayka, The New Yorker)

What Kind of Mind Does ChatGPT Have?: Large language models seem startlingly intelligent. But what's really happening under the hood? (Cal Newport, The New Yorker)

The Andy Warhol Copyright Case That Could Transform Generative AI: The US Supreme Court’s upcoming decision could shift the interpretation of fair use law—and all the people, and tools, that turn to it for protection. (Madeline Ashby, Wired)

AI Desperately Needs Global Oversight: As ChatGPT and its ilk continue to spread, countries need an independent board to hold AI companies accountable and limit harms. (Rumman Chowdhury, Wired)

The stupidity of AI: Artificial intelligence in its current form is based on the wholesale appropriation of existing culture, and the notion that it is actually intelligent could be actively dangerous. (James Bridle, The Guardian)

Photo by Hitesh Choudhary on Unsplash.

Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.

Arts and cultural economic activity accounted for 4.4% of U.S. GDP, $1 trillion, in 2021

Report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis:

Arts and cultural economic activity, adjusted for inflation, increased 13.7 percent in 2021 after decreasing 4.8 percent in 2020, according to statistics released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. By comparison, the broader economy, as measured by real gross domestic product, increased 5.9 percent in 2021 after decreasing 2.8 percent in 2020.

Arts and cultural economic activity accounted for 4.4 percent of U.S. GDP, or $1.02 trillion, in 2021, the Arts and Cultural Production Satellite Account shows.

Real (inflation adjusted) value added for core arts and cultural production industries, which include performing arts, museums, design services, fine arts education, and education services, increased 22.4 percent in 2021. Supporting arts and cultural production industries, which include art support services and information services, increased 11.6 percent in 2021.

  • Performing arts increased 33.9 percent in 2021 after decreasing 34.3 percent in 2020. The leading contributor to the increase was promoters of performing arts and similar events, which increased 122.4 percent in 2021 after decreasing 54.5 percent in 2020.

  • Museums increased 15.6 percent in 2021 after decreasing 5.0 percent in 2020.

  • Design services increased 18.1 percent in 2021 after decreasing 0.8 percent in 2020.

  • Fine arts education increased 27.4 percent in 2021 after decreasing 30.9 percent in 2020.

  • Education services decreased 1.7 percent in 2021 after decreasing 4.9 percent in 2020.

Visit BEA’s arts and cultural production webpage for the full report and an interactive map of the arts and culture economy in each state

/Source

Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.

Experiences Eventized: Links

Organized fun: who’s it all for? - Former London dweller returns to the city and discovers that something has changed. Gone is the habit of popping into a just-discovered club or exhibition. Thanks to the "experience economy", everything is now "strangely occupational". Every event is marketed and monetised, and usually sells out in advance. All of this organised fun is "the antidote to, and the accelerator of, alienation." (The Face via The Browser)

Your Favorite Podcast Is Probably an ‘Experience’ Now - In an effort to keep listeners’ attention, teams behind “My Favorite Murder” and other shows are creating IRL events. (Wired)

When Everything Becomes an Event - Historically, events have been vital community-building tools and catalysts for action. Every culture, including the most ancient and obscure, has its repertoire of events that marks various milestones, commemorates the past, and molds community while serving as an outlet for emotions. Still, what we have seen in the last three years is another generation of events—not entirely created, but certainly ushered in, by the pandemic and our use of virtual event platforms. This new breed of events is a turn from the extraordinary to the mundane. (Slate)


Photo by Vale Zmeykov on Unsplash

Antonio Ortiz

Antonio Ortiz has always been an autodidact with an eclectic array of interests. Fascinated with technology, advertising and culture he has forged a career that combines them all. In 1991 Antonio developed one of the very first websites to market the arts. It was text based, only available to computer scientists, and increased attendance to the Rutgers Arts Center where he had truly begun his professional career. Since then Antonio has been an early adopter and innovator merging technology and marketing with his passion for art, culture and entertainment. For a more in-depth look at those passions, visit SmarterCreativity.com.