AI showed up everywhere today — and not as a feature. A Stanford senior describes a campus where ChatGPT has become the medium of student life, from history papers to dating (The New York Times). Another professor watches students photograph exams mid-test, feed them to an LLM, then copy machine-written answers into the blue book (The New Critic). Meanwhile, the world’s first AI museum is opening in LA, marketing “phantasmagorical” generated wonder as the new immersive (The Conversation).

The counterweight: humanities enrollments are climbing as tech jobs evaporate (Irish Times). The students who were told AI made them obsolete are now being told their human-ness is the asset.

Two more: Peter Gelb — $1.2M salary, who manages 3,000 employees, 15 unions, and a 144-member board — says he won’t retire because he can’t imagine life without work (The New York Times). And the head of French TV’s Canal+ vows to blacklist 600 movie artists who signed a petition against the company’s right-wing billionaire owner (The Guardian). Not all pressure on culture comes from algorithms. All of our stories below.

See you tomorrow.

Doug

“I should leave when I cannot do the job properly or when the board doesn’t want me to be here. I’m a workaholic, I’ve always worked. I don’t enjoy free time. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about work. I need work. My life would be empty without work.” – OperaWire

During the exam, students were pulling out phones and taking photographs of the test to submit to LLMs before copying down machine-written responses into their blue books. – The New Critic

The head of France’s biggest film producer, Canal+, has said the group will no longer work with hundreds of cinema figures who signed a petition voicing concern over the growing influence of the rightwing billionaire owner Vincent Bolloré. – The Guardian

Stanford has always been a haven for aspiring techies, but recent events have taken the school into uncharted territory. A.I. is everything. We talk about it at the dining halls and in history classes, on dates and while smoking with friends, at the gym and in communal dorm bathrooms. – The New York Times

So what can motivate tech barons to give money to opera? How do we convince them that, with their help, they can be a part of imagining a new, mind-blowing, future for opera, just as they have transformed the way we think and live with their innovations? We need to answer those questions if opera is to survive. – The New York Times

The San Francisco sky was lit Friday night with dozens of colored lasers beaming from the Transamerica Pyramid toward Coit Tower and One Sansome Street. – ABC7

As it turns out, tech jobs may be drying up after years of students rushing to computer science. Who needs to code? AI does that for you. What AI can’t do – yet – is the stuff that makes us human: empathy, emotion, psychology, critical thinking. – Irish Times

The “living museum” will present a continuously evolving immersive, audiovisual experience based on millions of images, sounds and scents from nature. As an indication of what it will be like, Dataland’s website presents phantasmagorical images of ecological wonder and awe.

Prodigy is among a bevy of gamified tools that have gained a foothold in classrooms across the country by promising to make learning fun. (As Prodigy’s website puts it: “Kids no longer have to choose between homework and playtime.”) – The Atlantic

“Across TikTok and Instagram, videos centred on Rothko’s work are accumulating hundreds of thousands of views. One creator has begun styling outfits inspired by individual Rothko canvases; another assigns Rothko works to personality archetypes.” – The Guardian (UK)

“Every number is a homage to at least one classic musical, and often two or three. Here, the hills are alive with the sound of pastiche; the plains and the valleys too.” – The New York Times

What should it do with them, and all of the material therein? – El País English

“Gelb, who is paid $1.2 million annually, oversees a $326 million budget. … Beyond the often caustic scrutiny of opera critics and patrons, Gelb must reckon with the demands of 3,000 full- and part-time employees, 15 labor unions and a 144-member board of directors.” – The New York Times

Every great artist needs a nemesis – fictional or not! – in order to stand out. – Salon

Well, why not? “For me, it’s more about singing the music and just communicating it and making that as accessible as possible in the moment to the audience.” – The New York Times

“The open letter, published earlier this week to coincide with the opening of the Cannes film festival, was signed by more than 600 figures, including … Juliette Binoche.” Now the head of Canal+ says the organization will no longer work with any of the signers. – The Guardian (UK)

“In the new wall text accompanying a portrait of Mr. Trump, the impeachments are mentioned in a list of important events from the president’s first term.” – The New York Times

“Musicians, artists and writers generally possess something AI does not, which is the lived human experience out of which they create. That experience includes the accidents, serendipities and epiphanies that shape our arts.” – KC Studio

At least, according to The New York Times’s Helen Shaw. For instance: “When I think about the sheer old-fashioned ebullience of Cinco Paul’s Schmigadoon! — its compositional invention and depth of talent — I find myself hoping the voters will give it the laurel.” – The New York Times

Stacey Levine’s Mice 1961, published by a very small press in Oregon, is “a deeply weird book, a kind-of coming-of-age comedy with no easy takeaway, full of twangy dialogue that reads like an alien in a human suit going ‘hello fellow Earthlings.’”  – LitHub

“For decades, elected officials have not had to focus on the film and TV business, let alone turn it into a campaign issue. It was simply a given that local production would continue to play a dominant role in the city’s economy.” – Los Angeles Times (MSN)