Just when it seemed tech companies couldn’t sink any lower, they reached back to a long and authoritarian history: book burning. Today, author and bibliophile Ed Simon reflects on the disturbing disclosure that Anthropic scanned and then shredded out-of-print books to train its large language models, a brazen act of artistic plunder that aims to strip away our humanity.
Read, share, and take it as another reminder to support your local library while you’re at it.
Elsewhere, artists are still finding ways to offer flashes of hope in surprising places. One example is the psychedelic pickleball courts in Pittsburgh (say that five times fast). Sharmistha Ray, a co-founder of the experimental collective Hilma’s Ghost and an advocate for public art, created vivid murals in their signature geometric style to enliven one of the city’s recreational spaces.
Say what you will about pickleball, but it gets the people going.
More to come today, including a tribute to beloved dealer and Lubov gallerist Francisco Correa Cordero, who died on Sunday at age 37.
—Lakshmi Rivera Amin, associate editor
