Fused #16: chunky plates and a bed for throuples
trying out a different schedule
Welcome to La Miccia! Arts & Culture News is a roundup of what’s happening in the world, through the lens of art. Thanks for reading!
In this letter, I talk about the thin line that AI treads with copyright infringement, a bed for throuples, and a Princess who used a Karl Lagerfeld mink coat as a blanket.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) looted all the artifacts from Sudan’s national museum. The RSF had been occupying the museum since 2023, when Sudan’s civil war broke out.
Have you seen the new high-speed trains in France? They’re set to debut in 2026 and are gorgeous.
Architects in the UK are protesting government plans to allow AI companies to train models on copyrighted work without their consent. There are currently 38 signatories to the letter. A 2024 report by the Royal Institute of British Architects indicates that 41% of architects in the UK use AI, with that number expected to rise to 54% by 2026.
Speaking of AI, has your feed been flooded with Miyazaki-esque images lately? They’re part of OpenAI’s latest version of ChatGPT-4o which has the ability to render impressive and photorealistic images. These images also border on copyright infringement territory; the dataset used to train the new model was clearly fed millions of pieces of material from Studio Ghibli, but a style can’t be copyrighted, so no laws have been broken in creating the images. If you’re wondering what Studio Ghibli’s founder Hayao Miyazaki thinks about AI, look no further than this 2016 clip:
I’m what the tech bros these days would call a nostalgic. I agree with Miyazaki in that AI art is an abomination. I think it’s morally corrupt and wish it didn’t exist but whether I like it or not doesn’t matter. It’s pervasive and growing at an unstoppable rate.
I was speaking to someone who helps companies implement AI capabilities in their organization the other day. He told me that his clients in the entertainment industry are lamenting that AI is challenging the assertion that only human beings can be creative. Now machines are being fed impossibly large datasets and can semi-autonomously create quite literally anything. The price of intelligence is getting cheap, and companies can now outsource creativity for a fraction of the price they would pay an actual human being. This isn’t happening just yet because AI models are still only semi-autonomous.
This reminds me of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike in 2023, where the union was demanding guardrails and restrictions around AI in the industry. The strike ended in favor of the WGA, which got its regulations, but I’m not sure how long this will last. Whether you are pro- or anti-AI doesn’t matter - the technology is here, and it’s being embedded everywhere, so it’s in your best interest to pay attention.
Gustaf Westman (the guy who makes all those chunky plates that I’m sure you’ve seen on TikTok) partnered with dating app Feeld to create a three-person bed. I think it looks cool.
Caravaggio's only known ceiling mural, housed in Villa Aurora, is finally set to be seen by the public. The villa, a 16th-century mansion in Rome, was nearly sold after a prolonged legal battle over its ownership. Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, a former TV journalist and New York estate agent, had lived there since marrying Prince Nicolò Boncompagni Ludovisi in 2009 but was evicted in 2023 following a dispute with her stepsons, who contested her claim to the property. Now, with a legal settlement in place, the villa may become a museum. During her eviction, Rita claimed to have “endured cold nights, using her 40-year-old Karl Lagerfeld mink coat as a blanket.”
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