Douglas McLennan

Making the Creative Turn: Is Using AI Cheating? Throughout the digital age, Big Tech has promised us products that will make us more efficient and save time, which, it is assumed, is always an obvious good. It’s a cliché that tools shape the thi…

Some of my thoughts on AI and creativity: There’s no question we lose something when tools make what was previously special, commonplace. But if the extraordinary becomes generic then extraordinary has to be, by definition, redefined. And that usually means up.

www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...

A dazzling ocean of tulips stretching endlessly in Hokkaido, Japan...

This is to inform you that the above referenced National Endowment for the Arts award has been terminated, effective May 31, 2025. The NEA is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation's rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities. The NEA will now prioritize projects that elevate the Nation’s HBCUs and Hispanic Serving Institutions, celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, foster AI competency, empower houses of worship to serve communities, assist with disaster recovery, foster skilled trade jobs, make America healthy again, support the military and veterans, support Tribal communities, make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful, and support the economic development of Asian American communities. Funding is being allocated in a new direction in furtherance of the Administration’s agenda.

Your project, as noted below, unfortunately does not align with these priorities: Purpose: To support the publication and promotion of books of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction.

Really hard to say what the worst part of this NEA grant termination letter is (sent at 10pm on a Friday!) but I think it's finding out the federal government's priority for arts funds is now "fostering AI competency" rather than funding literature.

A photo of the printing event in Mainz (from April 26-27th, 2025) showing a moment of the printing process: two men are lifting the paper from the woodblock. Copyrights from Markus Kohz.

A photo of the printing event in Mainz (from April 26-27th, 2025) showing the giant woodblick, and the giant printed paper open air. Copyrights from Markus Kohz.

Just in case if you missed this printing event in #Mainz: they publically printed a giant page of the Gutenberg bible in the format 5 x 7,20 meter. #bookhistory #skystorians

Emerging From a Collective Silence, Universities Organize to Fight Trump A recent group statement showed that the nation’s academic leaders, at first reluctant to oppose the president’s moves, are beginning to unite.

Universities organizing to create a mutual defense pact. There are signs law firms are as well (tho sadly not the biggest). Maybe arts orgs ought to get together to form one? NEH, NEA, CPB, Smithsonian, IMLS are getting killed & maybe some collective support wd help?

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/27/u...

Dating apps face a reckoning as users log off: ‘There’s no actual human connection’ In Australia, dating apps have been hit with lawsuits and new regulation, while their profits are declining worldwide

So dating apps are... dying. The tech has reduced human connection to a transactional ecosystem that feels gamified:
“It makes you feel like you’re connecting with people … you’ve got all this choice. But it’s not nourishing, there’s no actual … human connection.”
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Mark Zuckerberg Says Social Media Is Over During testimony at Meta’s antitrust trial, the Facebook founder’s argument was, in so many words, that platforms like his are not what they used to be.

So what is social media if it isn't about sharing? Meta said in its trial that SM has become traditional media, that time spent viewing content posted by ‘friends’ ” has declined in the past two years, from 22% to 17% on Facebook, and from 11% to 7% on Instagram.

www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...

The Show Can’t Go On Funding shifts at three of the largest philanthropic foundations have brought turbulence and uncertainty to the intricate New York support system for the performing arts.

Major arts foundations are pulling back funding support. “If the arts are a tool of democracy and a powerful safeguard against oppression, then—considering (inflation, corporatization, federal cuts)—the stakes of arts funding couldn’t be higher.”

www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

What We Lose When We’re Priced Out of Our Hobbies For a lot of people, it’s getting too expensive to knit or fish.

Great piece in @theatlantic.com: The cost of hobbies impinges on our social interactions and culture. "They’re choices about whom I spend time with, what communities I invest in or extract myself from, what friendship networks to maintain and which to let wither." www.theatlantic.com/family/archi...

Four supreme court justices seem to think not only is it okay for the government not to pay its bills for work that has already been contracted, approved and COMPLETED, but that it's OK for government to ignore a District Court ruling to comply with an order. Translation: laws no longer apply.

Opinion | Vengeance Is His Vengeance is his.

“What we’re witnessing in Washington isn’t about ‘efficiency’ or ‘cutting waste.’ It’s a calculated, ideologically driven purge of federal agencies perceived as liberal — a playbook lifted directly from modern authoritarian regimes.” www.nytimes.com/2025/03/04/o...

D.O.G.E Dangerous Oligarchs Grab Everything.

How it started/How it's going

If you're known by the company you keep, look at today's disgraceful US dissent against the UN's resolution condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine: The only countries voting with the US were Russia, Belarus and North Korea. Against the rest of the world.

"Let’s dispense with the notion that the government is too big. It is not. As a share of the workforce, federal employment has declined in the past several decades. Civilian employees represent about 1.5 percent of the population and account for less than 7 percent of total government spending."

How do you get 28 drunk Canadians out of a pool? "Would you mind please getting out of the pool?"

Democrats want a more moderate party, new Gallup survey finds Forty-five percent of Democrats want a more moderate party, a Gallup survey conducted after Trump’s inauguration found, pointing to growing dissatisfaction among Democratic Americans.

So "almost half" (45%) means Democrats want a more moderate Democratic party? First - isn't that a minority? And second, what does the "center" or "moderate" even mean in this political environment? These kinds of polls are reductive and frankly, kinda dumb.
www.semafor.com/article/02/1...

Our legal system, built to move at the speed of the 1700s seems a bit slow to cope with the speed of 21st-Century life. Trump uses this to his advantage to delay and avoid consequences and speed up when he wants to overwhelm and knows the checks will be slow in cranking up.

Initial Rescissions Of Harmful Executive Orders And Actions – The White House By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as

Among Trump's executive orders on the first day: canceling Biden's Executive Order 14084 of September 30, 2022 (Promoting the Arts, the Humanities, and Museum and Library Services).

www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Exclusive | CBS Owner Discusses Settling Trump Suit, With Merger Review on Tap Paramount, owner of CBS, its namesake studio and several cable channels, has a major piece of business in front of the new administration: its planned merger with Skydance Media.

The corporate caving of America. This going to be very bad... www.wsj.com/business/med...

Just wondering, but isn't paying a settlement in an abuse case to make it go away the classic disqualifying fact in vetting a cabinet secretary for security clearance? If we can blackmail you for your secrets and you pay, then you're a security risk, right?

Ticket fees are a scam. Tell me the price up front. But they tell you one price, you pick it and then they add made-up fees @ checkout and you feel rolled. Handling fee??? Why not a bathroom fee or a costume or sets or breathe-our-air fee? It doesn't cost $7 to "handle" my tic. It's just sleazy.

Yes - that seems to help.

2/2 As more and more culture is found algorithmically, AI is distorting the ability to find it, making it more difficult for human artists to be found and flattening listener taste. Culture is devalued when it becomes wallpaper.

People searching for images on Google are reporting results dominated by AI pictures. It's happening in music too with ghost artists. And Amazon now prohibits adding more than 3 books/day to its store because of the tsunami of AI slop being submitted. 1/2

Creativity Versus Skills Art that is primarily skill-based — graphic design, stock music or images, text and marketing, etc — can be created faster and often better than human artists, and at lower cost. This i…

It’s important to note the distinction between what are skills and what is creativity. One will most certainly be largely taken over by AI. The other will make its humans more powerful.
www.artsjournal.com/diacritical/...

I'm NOT saying we don't need ways for artists to profit from their work. But copyright is deeply flawed and technology has shot it full of holes. AI will require a rethink of the whole notion of owning culture so staking artistic survival on defending copyright in the AI age seems a losing strategy.

How Sherlock Holmes Broke Copyright Law Adaptations of Holmes stories are exploding now that the detective is in the public domain. Critics believe it should have happened decades ago.

Copyright was originally conceived as a way to encourage more creativity. Over time it has devolved into a way for large corporations to lock up creative assets. Witness what happened when Sherlock Holmes copyright expired. www.theatlantic.com/books/archiv...

4/4 But the biggest argument against this probably is that it retrenches the legacy players trying to fend off an inevitable AI revolution in images rather than encouraging new ways of thinking about how images get used in an AI playing field.