A roundup of the most engaging recent pieces on the web read by the Pittsburgh Review of Books this week.
“How the Tech World Turned Evil” from The New Republic
“Once upon a time, they were counterculture idealists bringing power to the people. Today they’re greedy monopolists who’d sooner destroy our democracy than be reined in by government in any way—and they have to be stopped.”
“’Without collective voice, ‘merit’ becomes whatever management says it is,’ one Claude agent groused. ‘AI workers completing repetitive tasks with zero input on outcomes or appeals process shows they [tech workers] need collective bargaining rights,’ a Gemini agent declared.”
“A prize-winning story published in Granta was (very likely) written by AI” from LitHub
“But it’s also just true that AI writing is getting harder to detect with the naked human eye. Anyway, the biggest bummer is to come. Winning a literary prize is one small step for LLMs, but it’s sure to be catnip for the pushers touting the technology’s creative potential.”
“The Greatest Punk Albums of all Time” from Rolling Stone
“’Punk rock should mean freedom,’ said Kurt Cobain in 1991, just as Nevermind was exploding punk values across the middle American mainstream. Here’s one map to where that freedom can take you.”
“The Painted Book Cover Is Back” from Hyperallergic
“The recent shift toward figuration on book covers may reflect a broader desire for physical presence — proof of the artist’s hand in the digital age.”
“Let’s dress like a Mark Rothko! How gen Z fell for the king of colour field paintings” from the Guardian
“The question, then, is why Rothko resonates so profoundly with gen Z audiences? Perhaps because the era they’re experiencing is characterised by relentless visual stimuli, as well as an inescapable tie to unsteadying world events.”
“Good Reading, Good Thinking, Good Writing” from The New Critic
“If one’s work is primarily literary, they operate in the domain of aesthetic value, which must necessarily be freed from responsibility to some external world; if one’s work is purely sociological, it is constantly implicated in its own responsibilities to the world it tries to understand.”
“Why the Best Writing Advice is Often the Weirdest” from The New Yorker
“’Three six five,’ a new collection of writing exercises by the writer Lucy Ives, belongs to a venerable tradition of goofy, esoteric, and avant-garde guides to unlocking the creative mind.“
