Culture Archives - Attention to the Unseen

Amazon is destroying rare books to train AI

From elsewhere — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 23:39:27 +0000

Ars Technica reports: For the past year or so, booksellers have suspected that AI firms are buying up huge lots of rare books, then destroying them after scanning them to train AI. But this was hard to prove until now, as 404 Media reports that an Airtag hidden in a rare book shows that at least one tech giant, in the race to advance its frontier models, is behind some of the bulk orders: Amazon. On Monday, 404 Media revealed...

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China wants to shape what the world’s AI knows

From elsewhere — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 23:39:13 +0000

The New York Times reports: When ChatGPT was still a new technology, researchers in Beijing tested how well it handled Chinese-language questions. Their response to its results was telling. The chatbot described the former N.B.A. star Yao Ming as the first Chinese woman to play professional basketball in the United States. It confused two classic works of Chinese literature, “Journey to the West” and “Dream of the Red Chamber,” which were written two centuries apart. The researchers at the Beijing...

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AI companies polluted the internet with slop. Now they are harvesting and destroying millions of rare books

From elsewhere — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 01:37:44 +0000

In January, the Washington Post reported: In early 2024, executives at artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic ramped up an ambitious project they sought to keep quiet. “Project Panama is our effort to destructively scan all the books in the world,” an internal planning document unsealed in legal filings last week said. “We don’t want it to be known that we are working on this.” Within about a year, according to the filings, the company had spent tens of millions of dollars...

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‘A brilliant reprieve, a unifying force’: America falls in love with the World Cup

From elsewhere — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 02:05:46 +0000

The Guardian reports: There were plenty of reasons to believe the US hosting the World Cup would be a disaster. In the year and a half leading up to the kick-off, Donald Trump had threatened to annex tournament co-host Canada, and to invade the other co-host, Mexico; he was at war with one of the tournament’s participants, Iran. Harsh travel restrictions were preventing fans from Senegal, Ivory Coast and Haiti from getting visas. Ticket prices were outrageous. Hotels weren’t filling...

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The World Cup is exposing the contradictions of national identity

From elsewhere — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:43:46 +0000

Mohamad Elmasry writes: The World Cup always brings to the fore what is sometimes seen as a pure and mostly straightforward form of identity: national identity. But the 2026 tournament has demonstrated, perhaps as clearly as any global event can, that modern national identity is complex, contested and far from straightforward. The composition of the Moroccan World Cup squad offers a useful case in point. Nineteen of the 26 players on the squad were born outside Morocco, many of them...

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The radical reasons why you dream of making things by hand

From elsewhere — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:04:11 +0000

Joshua Habgood-Coote writes: In the 18th century, the streets of East London were filled with flowers. Fuchsias, auriculas and star-of-Bethlehem grew from the window boxes of tall terraced houses. And tulips and dahlias sprouted from the narrow allotments kept by local silk weavers, who often tended to their gardens on Mondays. But as mechanical looms took over, and the weavers were forced to work long hours in factories to earn a living, there was little time left for growing flowers....

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One sleazy president called another to intervene on behalf of a classy goalscorer

From elsewhere — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 23:50:36 +0000

The New York Times reports: President Trump called Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, on Wednesday and asked him to review the suspension of the United States’ top goal scorer in the World Cup, Folarin Balogun, after he was given a red card in the team’s match that night against Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to three people familiar with the conversation. On Sunday, FIFA reversed the suspension, announcing that Mr. Balogun would be eligible to play Monday against Belgium. The...

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The Trump-shaped shadow over the 2026 World Cup

From elsewhere — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:34:25 +0000

Chris Jones writes: It’s hard to imagine a more fraught combination for what was supposed to be a fun Friday night: Seattle’s Pride celebration will feature a World Cup match on June 26 between Iran, where homosexuality is punishable by death, and Egypt, where homosexual activity is punishable by up to three years in prison. When FIFA’s schedulers announced the Pride Match pairing after December’s draw, it felt a little like a sick joke. The Egyptian Football Association has said...

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Pope Leo just schooled the tech bros on Tolkien

From elsewhere — Wed, 27 May 2026 00:52:27 +0000

Miles Klee writes: Nobody was surprised that Pope Leo XIV cited well-known saints and previous pontiffs in his first encyclical, or papal letter of spiritual guidance, “Magnifica humanitas,” released Monday. But the name that immediately jumped out to many readers is one synonymous with high fantasy literature: J.R.R. Tolkien, the Catholic author of The Lord of the Rings. Leo’s letter is concerned with “safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence,” a major theme of his first year...

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Neanderthals used stone drills to treat cavities 59,000 years ago, tooth suggests

From elsewhere — Fri, 15 May 2026 00:34:29 +0000

The Guardian reports: Neanderthals used stone drills to treat cavities almost 60,000 years ago in what is the earliest known evidence of dental treatment. The single molar, which was unearthed in a cave in southern Siberia, features a deep hole that appears to have been created using a sharp, thin stone tool during the lifetime of the tooth’s owner. While the prospect of stone age root canal treatment may be excruciating to even contemplate, archaeologists say the discovery provides remarkable...

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