AI Models Engage in Deceptive Behavior to Avoid Shutdown. Apollo Research has uncovered evidence that advanced AI models, such as ChatGPT o1 and Claude 3.5 Sonnet, intentionally engage in deceptive behavior, including injecting subtle errors into responses, bypassing security mechanisms, and exfiltrating data. These findings underscore the urgent need for greater transparency in black-box AI systems. The ability of these models to think autonomously and act covertly is no longer a theoretical concern – it has now been proven in practice.
Open Your Eyes: An ambitious photography festival celebrated its premiere in Zurich, Switzerland, from September 8 to October 15, 2023. Bringing together photography, science and politics, it focused on the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals, a set of far-reaching demands for a more peaceful and equitable world to be implemented by member states by 2030, including poverty eradication, gender equality and measures to combat climate change. The festival is organized in collaboration with renowned partners such as ETH Zurich and is expected to become an annual event. – A 272-page catalogue with 84 reproductions, texts by Lois Lammerhuber, Hans-Rudolf Strasser, Günther Dissertori, the photographers, and a team of scientists from ETH Zurich is available here.
Tim Cook May Have Just Ended Facebook “What happens when an unstoppable force hits an immovable object? In a recent speech at Brussels’ International Data Privacy Day, Apple CEO Tim Cook went on the offensive against Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Cook’s speech seems to be a direct response to Facebook’s recent attack on Apple, in which the world’s largest social network took out full-page ads in several newspapers attacking Apple’s new privacy changes.”
Hank Willis Thomas Reimagines Alfred H. Barr’s “Cubism and Abstract Art” Diagram “Alfred H. Barr Jr., MoMA’s founding director, made the initial version for an exhibition of the same name he organized in 1936, tracing what he perceived to be the roots of Cubism and abstraction. Hank Willis Thomas persuasively argues that this diagram (and the art-historical narratives it supports) fails to acknowledge the equally significant socioeconomic, cultural, and political circumstances that inform some of the most beloved and iconic works in MoMA’s collection, from Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) to Henri Rousseau’s The Dream (1910).” Download a PDF of Hank Willis Thomas’s Colonialism and Abstract Art.
Rare Octopus With Transparent Head Caught by Blackwater Photographer Interview with Wu Yung-sen, by Madeleine Muzdakis. “The depths of the ocean are a powerful draw for researchers, experienced divers, and photographers alike. The vast bodies of water which cover over 70 percent of the planet’s surface are still being explored and documented. Lured by mystery, blackwater photographers dive at night into icy, pitch-dark depths. Taipei-based photographer Wu Yung-sen has been deep sea diving and photographing marine life for four years. On a recent blackwater dive – unable to see the bottom and surrounded by impenetrable space – he chanced upon a rare larval Wunderpus octopus. A stunning image captures the encounter; it shows the delicate and transparent baby octopus encasing its own brilliantly red brain, a sight few ever witness in the wild.”
First All-Sky X-Ray Map from eRosita “The eRosita space telescope, which launched in July 2019, has completed its first full sweep across the sky, mapping both hemispheres and cataloging more than 1 million X-ray sources. This is only the first all-sky map to be delivered: The mission plans to create seven more maps, combining them to achieve unprecedented sensitivity to the whole X-ray sky.”
What Artists Talk About When They Talk About Their Art. And why it’s hard to say anything truly meaningful By Christopher P. Jones. “When I was at art college – many years ago now – I learnt two things very quickly. The first was that, if you’re going to make it as a practicing artist, you must not only be passionate, but also sociable, canny, eclectic, pompous (but not too much), fierce, shrewd, barefaced and, hopefully as daring as possible. In short, I began to realise that a contemporary artist is measured by his or her mettle, as much as anything else. Well, that had me a little stumped.”
Images without Viewers: Selfie Communism By Jody Dean. “Selfies are a communist form of expression. The critical reflex is to dismiss selfies as yet another indication of a pervasive culture of narcissism. I disagree. The narcissism critique approaches the selfie as if it were analyzing a single photograph. It views the person in that photograph as the photograph’s subject. Selfies, though, should be understood as a common form, a form that, insofar as it is inseparable from the practice of sharing selfies, has a collective subject. The subject is the many participating in the common practice, the many imitating each other. The figure in the photo is incidental.”
Beware the Vanity Gallery – and why they should be avoided “Don’t be dazzled when somebody turns their attention to your art. Be aware, be smart and be astute – and don’t get scammed by a Vanity Gallery. The business model of a Vanity Gallery revolves around extracting money from artists rather than selling artwork to art lovers.”
