Meta Bets on Scale + Apple's A.I. Struggles + Listeners on Job Automation
Hosted by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton
Produced by Rachel Cohn and Whitney Jones
Edited by Jen Poyant
Engineered by Alyssa Moxley
Original music by Dan PowellMarion Lozano and Alyssa Moxley
This week, Meta hits the reset button on A.I. But will a new research lab and a multibillion-dollar investment in Scale AI bring the company any closer to its stated goal of 'superintelligence'? Then we break down Apple's big developer conference, WWDC: What was announced, what was noticeably absent, and why Apple seems a little stuck in the past. Finally, a couple of weeks ago we asked if your job is being automated away — it's time to open up the listener mail bag and hear what you said.
Additional Reading:
Meta looks for an A.I. reset
Apple Executives Defend Apple Intelligence, Siri and A.I. Strategy
This A.I. Company Wants to Take Your Job
'Hard Fork' is hosted by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton and produced by Rachel Cohn and Whitney Jones. This episode was edited by Jen Poyant. Engineering by Alyssa Moxley and original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, and Alyssa Moxley. Fact-checking by Ena Alvarado.
Special thanks to Paula Szuchman, Pui-Wing Tam, Dahlia Haddad and Jeffrey Miranda.
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The home of one of the largest catalogs of Black history turns 100 in New York
NEW YORK (AP) — It's one of the largest repositories of Black history in the country — and its most devoted supporters say not enough people know about it. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture hopes to change that Saturday, as it celebrates its centennial with a festival combining two of its marquee annual events. The Black Comic Book Festival and the Schomburg Literary Festival will run across a full day and will feature readings, panel discussions, workshops, children's story times, and cosplay, as well as a vendor marketplace. Saturday's celebration takes over 135th Street in Manhattan between Malcom X and Adam Clayton Powell boulevards. Founded in New York City during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, the Schomburg Center will spend the next year exhibiting signature objects curated from its massive catalog of Black literature, art, recordings and films. Artists, writers and community leaders have gone the center to be inspired, root their work in a deep understanding of the vastness of the African diaspora, and spread word of the global accomplishments of Black people. It's also the kind of place that, in an era of backlash against race-conscious education and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, exists as a free and accessible branch of the New York Public Library system. It's open to the public during regular business hours, but its acclaimed research division requires an appointment. 'The longevity the Schomburg has invested in preserving the traditions of the Black literary arts is worth celebrating, especially in how it sits in the canon of all the great writers that came beforehand,' said Mahogany Brown, an author and poet-in-residence at the Lincoln Center, who will participate in Saturday's literary festival. For the centennial, the Schomburg's leaders have curated more than 100 items for an exhibition that tells the center's story through the objects, people, and the place — the historically Black neighborhood of Harlem — that shaped it. Those objects include a visitor register log from 1925-1940 featuring the signatures of Black literary icons and thought leaders, such as Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes; materials from the Fab 5 Freddy collection, documenting the earliest days of hip hop; and actor and director Ossie Davis's copy of the 'Purlie Victorious' stage play script. An audio guide to the exhibition has been narrated by actor and literacy advocate LeVar Burton, the former host of the long-running TV show 'Reading Rainbow.' Whether they are new to the center or devoted supporters, visitors to the centennial exhibition will get a broader understanding of the Schomburg's history, the communities it has served, and the people who made it possible, said Joy Bivins, the Director of the Schomburg Center, who curated the centennial collection. 'Visitors will understand how the purposeful preservation of the cultural heritage of people of African descent has generated and fueled creativity across time and disciplines,' Bivins said. Novella Ford, associate director of public programs and exhibitions, said the Schomburg Center approaches its work through a Black lens, focusing on Black being and Black aliveness as it addresses current events, theories, or issues. 'We're constantly connecting the present to the past, always looking back to move forward, and vice versa,' Ford said. Still, many people outside the Schomburg community remain unaware of the center's existence — a concerning reality at a time when the Harlem neighborhood continues to gentrify around it and when the Trump administration is actively working to restrict the kind of race-conscious education and initiatives embedded in the center's mission. 'We amplify scholars of color,' Ford said. 'It's about reawakening. It gives us the tools and the voice to push back by affirming the beauty, complexity, and presence of Black identity.' Founder's donation seeds center's legacy The Schomburg Center has 11 million items in one of the oldest and largest collections of materials documenting the history and culture of people of African descent. That's a credit to founder Arturo Schomburg, an Afro-Latino historian born to a German father and African mother in Santurce, Puerto Rico. He was inspired to collect materials on Afro-Latin Americans and African American culture after a teacher told him that Black people lacked major figures and a noteworthy history. Schomburg moved to New York in 1891 and, during the height of the Harlem Renaissance in 1926, sold his collection of approximately 4,000 books and pamphlets to the New York Public Library. Selections from Schomburg's personal holdings, known as the seed library, are part of the centennial exhibition. Ernestine Rose, who was the head librarian at the 135th Street branch, and Catherine Latimer, the New York Public Library's first Black librarian, built on Schomburg's donation by documenting Black culture to reflect the neighborhoods around the library. Today, the library serves as a research archive of art, artifacts, manuscripts, rare books, photos, moving images, and recorded sound. 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Youth scholars seen as key to center's future For years, the Schomburg aimed to uplift New York's Black community through its Junior Scholars Program, a tuition-free program that awards dozens of youth from 6th through 12th grade. The scholars gain access to the center's repository and use it to create a multimedia showcase reflecting the richness, achievements, and struggles of today's Black experience. It's a lesser-known aspect of the Schomburg Center's legacy. That's in part because some in the Harlem community felt a divide between the institution and the neighborhood it purports to serve, said Damond Haynes, a former coordinator of interpretive programs at the center, who also worked with the Junior Scholars Program. But Harlem has changed since Haynes started working for the program about two decades ago. 'The Schomburg was like a castle,' Haynes said. "It was like a church, you know what I mean? Only the members go in. You admire the building.' 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A wave of sailors coming to Sioux Falls
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When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Former Black Widow Scarlett Johansson didn't want to be credited on the Marvel Phase 5 movie Thunderbolts*, because she wasn't actually involved with the film. In conversation with Thunderbolts star David Harbour for Interview Magazine, Johansson answered "no" when asked if she'd seen the movie yet. Then, when Harbour congratulated her for being an executive producer, said: "I asked to have my credit removed because I wasn't involved." When Harbour joked that she hated the movie, Johansson answered, "No, you're just wanting that to be the case," then affirmed she's "proud" of the cast. Johansson has been clear before that she has no plans to return to the MCU as an actor, though she has indicated that she's open to directing a movie. "Even producing Black Widow and being a part of the production of that, and the development of the story, and the story between Natasha and Yelena… [there is] I think, a way of doing it, a way of maintaining the integrity of the idea of human connection, family, disappointment, all of the things that were themes in [Eleanor the Great], and doing it in a giant way in a giant universe — there's ways of doing that… So, yeah, definitely, it could be, it would be fun," she said recently. In the same interview with Harbour, Johansson also got candid about her experience as Black Widow. "Like in [Captain America: The] Winter Soldier with Chris [Evans], we were really dynamic. In some of the other films, the cast was so enormous and there was so much plot to serve that you start to feel like you're a device to move it along," she said. Next up for Marvel on the big screen is The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which will kickstart Marvel Phase 6. Before that, though, there's one last Marvel Phase 5 project – Ironheart lands on Disney Plus this June 24 in the US and June 25 in the UK. You can keep up to date with our guide to all the upcoming Marvel movies and shows on the way.
