Latest news with #BBCMaestro
Engadget
25-05-2025
- Business
- Engadget
MasterClass deal: Get up to 40 percent off for Memorial Day
Memorial Day sales are in full swing, bringing discounts to headphones, vacuums, smart home gear and even some subscription services. One of the latter is on MasterClass memberships, which are up to 40 percent off for the holiday. From May 22 to 26, you can sign up for one year for as low was $72. Just make sure to subscribe before the end of Memorial Day itself to take advantage of the discount. When you take a MasterClass course, one of the world's top experts guides you through a series of videos on how to approach their craft. The Memorial Day deal drops the cost of a Standard subscription to $6 per month when billed annually, which comes out to $72 in total. That gives you access to more than 200 courses for a year, though you can only watch them on a device connected to the internet. It makes an excellent gift for someone you love — or for yourself. MasterClass is also discounting its higher tiers for Memorial Day. With a Plus subscription, you can watch MasterClass courses on two devices at once, and download them to watch offline whenever you want. A Premium subscription boosts the number of devices to six. The latter also includes access to MasterClass On Call, which lets you chat with AI recreations of MasterClass experts (Although, as our review notes, that feature still needs a bit of polishing.) After you've wowed your friends and family with your new grilling skills, MasterClass has plenty of other lessons that you can explore to continue your education. Creative writers can check out the BBC Maestro course that "resurrects" Agatha Christie, using her notes, an actress and AI rendering to teach the art of crafting a killer mystery. The platform also just launched a 20-episode series on healthy skin, featuring a panel of accredited dermatologists and cosmeticians. Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice .
Chicago Tribune
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Biblioracle: Why I'm against ‘digital necromancy,' like the AI-driven Agatha Christie writing course
In 2012, hip hop star Tupac Shakur performed at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts festival on stage with Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, even though Tupac had been killed in a drive-by shooting in 1996. The Tupac hologram was a little Hollywood special effects trickery that cost heavy sums, but now, thanks to generative artificial intelligence, we can resurrect just about any historical figure. Or can we? The most recent example to come across my radar is a BBC Maestro course featuring the woman who is considered the best-selling author of all time, Agatha Christie. BBC Maestro courses are essentially slickly produced, extended informational lectures combined with some exercises the viewer is meant to do along the way. They are not interactive, nor do they count for credit. They are, to my eye, purely for entertainment purposes. The maestros range across experts in singing, cooking, acting, decorating with flowers, and even sleeping. Still living writers who have done Maestro courses include Harlan Coben and Isabel Allende. But Agatha Christie is new because she is deader than one of the victims of her iconic mysteries, including 'Murder on the Orient Express' and 'Death on the Nile.' But there, on screen, in the preview video, is the voice and words (sort of) of Agatha Christie briefly expounding on the essential elements of a good mystery while she walks through a stately country house. This 'reanimated' Agatha Christie is being done with the permission of her estate, and consists of a script drawn from her writing, an AI that's mimicking her voice, and a layering of her face over that of a live actor. While the Christie estate and the avatar developers insist that they are working hard to be faithful to the original sentiments of the living person, AI ethicists object to this resurrection, pointing out that it is literally putting words in the mouth of someone who lived, and who cannot consent to this use. This is an example of what I have taken to calling 'digital necromancy,' and if you can't tell from my choice of term, I'm against it. There was a time where I would have brushed off the Agatha Christie example as mostly harmless, and on the scale of the application of generative AI in the service of digital necromancy, it's less egregious — especially considering its being done with permission from the people who have the rights to give permission — but I now see this and other examples as part of a bad movement that should be not just resisted, but rejected. Worse are the historical chatbots where people who lived and spoke and wrote are compiled into bespoke large language models and then let loose without consideration or care. Earlier this year, it was found that an Anne Frank chatbot could not and would not condemn the Nazis who killed her, much of her family and millions of others. This is likely because of Anne Frank's most famous passage from her 'Diary of a Young Girl,' 'In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.' Defenders of this use of the technology say it helps students 'engage' with history, but what kind of engagement is this? It's not just pedagogically dubious, it's morally offensive. We have Anne Frank's words. We have scholars who have written about Frank, including 'The Many Lives of Anne Frank' by Ruth Franklin, which I reviewed here. If you want to know what someone thought, read them. If you want a writing teacher, find an interested, sufficiently expert human with whom you can interact. We are abundant, I promise. John Warner is the author of books including 'More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI.' You can find him at Book recommendations from the Biblioracle John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you've read. 1. 'American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis' by Adam Hochschild 2. 'The Message' by Ta-Nehisi Coates 3. 'Fraud' by David Rakoff 4. 'The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels' by Pamela J. Prickett and Stefan Timmermans 5. 'You Dreamed of Empires' by Álvaro EnrigueI think Scott is a good fit for the family drama (with a nice dash of comedy) from Luis Alberto Urrea, 'The House of Broken Angels.' 1. 'The Corrections' by Jonathan Franzen 2. 'This Is Water' by David Foster Wallace 3. 'The Goldfinch' by Donna Tartt 4. 'The Last Samurai' by Helen DeWitt 5. 'Long Division' by Kiese LaymonFor Bill, it feels like an occasion for some oddness and wit, which is excellently met by Charles Portis and 'Masters of Atlantis.' 1. 'Lessons in Chemistry' by Bonnie Garmus 2. 'Pride and Prejudice' by Jane Austen 3. 'The Housemaid' by Freida McFadden 4. 'Booth' by Karen Joy Fowler 5. 'Memorial Days' by Geraldine BrooksI have yet to find the reader who is not charmed by Rufi Thorpe's 'Margo's Got Money Troubles.' Get a reading from the Biblioracle Send a list of the last five books you've read and your hometown to biblioracle@
Engadget
23-05-2025
- Business
- Engadget
MasterClass subscriptions are 40 percent off for Memorial Day
If you're on grilling duty this Memorial Day and stressing about getting the steak and veggies just right, we've got a deal for you. The MasterClass Memorial Day sale, running from May 22 to 26, offers up to 40 percent off all subscriptions to the video learning platform. Starting at $72, you can learn how to grill from legendary Texas BBQ master Aaron Franklin, then enjoy other courses for a full year. Just make sure to subscribe before the end of Memorial Day itself to take advantage of the discount. When you take a MasterClass course, one of the world's top experts guides you through a series of videos on how to approach their craft. The Memorial Day deal drops the cost of a Standard subscription to $6 per month when billed annually, which comes out to $72 in total. That gives you access to more than 200 courses for a year, though you can only watch them on a device connected to the internet. It makes an excellent gift for someone you love — or for yourself. MasterClass is also discounting its higher tiers for Memorial Day. With a Plus subscription, you can watch MasterClass courses on two devices at once, and download them to watch offline whenever you want. A Premium subscription boosts the number of devices to six. The latter also includes access to MasterClass On Call, which lets you chat with AI recreations of MasterClass experts (Although, as our review notes, that feature still needs a bit of polishing.) After you've wowed your friends and family with your new grilling skills, MasterClass has plenty of other lessons that you can explore to continue your education. Creative writers can check out the BBC Maestro course that "resurrects" Agatha Christie, using her notes, an actress and AI rendering to teach the art of crafting a killer mystery. The platform also just launched a 20-episode series on healthy skin, featuring a panel of accredited dermatologists and cosmeticians. Follow @EngadgetDeals on X for the latest tech deals and buying advice .
Indian Express
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Agatha Christie is back—but did she approve this AI seance?
In 1926, Agatha Christie vanished for eleven days, sparking a nationwide manhunt and endless speculation. Nearly a century later, she has 'returned'—not in flesh and blood, but through artificial intelligence. The BBC's latest project, Agatha Christie On Writing, has resurrected the Queen of Crime as a digital tutor, igniting a fierce debate over whether it this is a loving tribute, or AI taken too far? The controversy largely stems from the fact that Christie was notoriously private. She avoided interviews, shunned author photos, and once was turned away at the door of her own play's premiere party because she was too shy to identify herself. 'My chief dislikes are crowds, loud noises, and cinemas,' she once confessed. Despite her real-life reticence, she crafted some of fiction's most audacious detectives: the flamboyant Hercule Poirot ('an egocentric creep,' she called him) and the unflappable Miss Marple. Now, the woman who spent a lifetime dodging publicity is back in the limelight. Whether against her will or with her blessings, depends on whom you ask. BBC Maestro, the corporation's answer to MasterClass, has collaborated with Christie's estate to create a writing course 'taught' by the late author. Using AI-enhanced recordings, archival footage, and an actress (Vivien Keene) chosen for her biometric resemblance, the project stitches together a simulacrum of Christie—her voice, her mannerisms, even her piercing gaze. James Prichard, Christie's great-grandson and head of Agatha Christie Ltd, admits he was initially skeptical. 'But the script they came up with simply blew my brain away,' he said at the launch event. The BBC insists the course was crafted 'with incredible care and the utmost respect,' drawing from Christie's own words. Critics aren't convinced. Taking to Twitter, writer Gabriela Houston, wrote, ' BBC is now selling a 'Masterclass' in writing, presented by an AI avatar of Agatha Christie. Ghoulish, unethical and just deeply troubling. Shocked the estate approved this.' The BBC has clarified that Christie's estate approved every step, and the AI was fed only her authentic writings. Michael Levine, CEO of BBC Maestro, in a May 2 interview to Mashable India rejected the 'deepfake' label, calling it a 'respectful tribute.' Yet, as AI reshapes creative industries, ethical lines blur. If Christie couldn't consent, does her family's approval suffice? And what happens when this technology is applied to other late artists—Tolkein? Shakespeare? Austen? Poe? Christie's digital resurrection arrives amid a growing revolt from artists against unchecked AI exploitation. Over 400 British creatives—including Sir Elton John, Dua Lipa, Sir Ian McKellen, Kate Bush, and Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro—have signed an open letter demanding stronger copyright protections from AI firms. They are concerned that their voices, likenesses, and works are being harvested without permission to train AI models, effectively forcing them to 'give away' their art to tech giants. As Ishiguro, in a May 10 interview to the BBC, put it: 'Why is it just and fair—why is it sensible—to alter our time-honoured copyright laws to advantage mammoth corporations at the expense of individual writers, musicians, film-makers and artists?' The artists are pushing for an amendment to the UK's Data Bill that would force AI developers to disclose when they use copyrighted material. In February, musicians including Annie Lennox and Damon Albarn released a silent album in protest. Now, with Christie's AI revival, the question grows louder: Who controls an artist's legacy? Their heirs, corporations, or the algorithms scraping their work? This isn't the first AI resurrection—Peter Cushing's Grand Moff Tarkin was digitally revived in Rogue One, and Michael Parkinson's voice was recreated posthumously for a podcast. But Christie's case is unique as she's not a character, but a real woman whose life was marked by a fierce desire for privacy. Fans see an unprecedented opportunity to learn from a literary legend, while detractors see a slippery slope where AI reanimates the dead for profit. One can imagine that Christie, who once wrote, 'The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes,' might have found the entire spectacle absurd. Or perhaps, in true Christie fashion, she'd have plotted the perfect twist—one where the real mystery isn't how she returned, but why.
Los Angeles Times
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
An AI Agatha Christie? The bestselling novelist of all time deserves better than that
There are very few recorded interviews with Dame Agatha Christie, the world's bestselling novelist and generally acknowledged doyenne of crime, for one simple reason: She hated speaking in public. She often described herself as cripplingly shy — she agonized for days when a celebration for the 10th anniversary of her play 'The Mousetrap' required her to give a speech — and she remained morbidly press-adverse after the media swarm that followed her famous 11-day disappearance. (Though in defense of the press, what could one expect when a notable crime writer goes missing for almost two weeks in the midst of a shattering divorce and then, when found, refuses to explain what had happened?) In her autobiography, and through her literary avatar Ariadne Oliver, Christie often described taking great pains to avoid speaking in front of people and she (and Mrs. Oliver) particularly hated being asked questions about her writing. 'I never know what to say,' Mrs. Oliver would wail, echoing sentiments expressed by Christie herself. So when BBC Maestro announced, at the end of April, that it was launching a digital class in which an AI-resurrected Christie would offer lessons in writing, it was difficult not to be outraged. Never mind the whole 'I see dead people'-ness of it all; here was a woman who was on record, multiple times and often at great length, about how much she loathed having to talk about how she did what she did in front of a bunch of people. The creators of the series clearly anticipated such outrage. The prologue to the course features BBC Maestro Chief Executive Michael Levine and Christie's great-grandson James Prichard, chairman and CEO of Agatha Christie Ltd., explaining the care put into the series. The script, we are assured, is rigorously based on Christie's own words; the actor (Vivien Keene) was chosen after a year-and-a-half search; and the set (a library that houses a model of Christie's own typewriter), the costume (a tweed suit accented by pearls, a brooch and duplicates of Christie's engagement and wedding rings) and the hair are models of authenticity. More important, the course has the family's full support. 'At the heart of this project was my father who knew Agatha Christie better than any person living,' Prichard says. 'At times he was astounded by how similar to his grandmother this version was. And my view,' he adds with a mildly challenging air, 'is that if he can enjoy this project, we can all enjoy it.' Challenge accepted. Keeping in mind Christie's fascination with disguise and advanced technology, as well as a passage in her autobiography in which she wishes a friend with more confidence could step in as a substitute during author interviews, I put my fears aside and ponied up $89 for the two-and-a-half-hour class. Which is so respectful I found myself, at more than a few points in the 12 sections, wanting to scream. We meet Keene's Christie behind a desk, and there she stays, smiling and nodding as she walks us through her thoughts on her craft (including, in the introduction, her aversion to offering them). Christie's autobiography is a doorstop. Thoughts about writing, her characters and her career run through it, but they rarely take up more than two consecutive pages. Christie historian Mark Aldridge has done a remarkable job of mining it, as well as other writings, to create a genuine tutorial with an admirable script. Yes, Christie offers the typical anodyne advice — write what you know and the type of book you enjoy reading — but she also gets very granular. A murder mystery is best at 50,000 words, the murderer and important clues must be introduced very early on, settings should be described thoroughly but economically ('sometimes a map works best') and one must never give into an editor who spells cocoa as 'coco.' In portions that include 'characters,' 'plots,' 'settings' and 'clues,' Christie assesses some of her work. She came to think that her first book, 'The Mysterious Affair at Styles,' was over-stuffed with plot, but remained irritated by those who claimed that the twist in 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' was a cheat. She wished she had introduced Hercule Poirot as a younger man, and was very happy to ditch Hastings for a while. She discusses the importance of observation in everyday life, describing, among other things, how an encounter in front of a shop window led to one of her Parker Pyne stories, as well as the usefulness of isolated settings ('snow can also weigh down telephone wires') and second (or third) murders. In the opening minutes, it's kind of neat to see what looks very much like a midlife Christie, smiling and talking in her very British way (the voice is not precise but close enough). Still, there is no getting away from the fact that this is a two-and-a-half-hour lecture, delivered by a woman sitting behind a desk who, with the exception of a very few hand gestures, never moves. The camera moves, shooting her from this angle and that, and occasionally roving over various covers of Christie's books. But Christie's body remains as still as the late Queen Elizabeth II delivering her Christmas address. I began to feel quite concerned for Keene — just how long were these takes? She delivers a vocally expressive performance and gives the digitally recreated face the necessary intelligence, wit and kindliness. The face itself looked fine — a bit glowy at times and immobile around the eyes — but its novelty quickly wore off. I would have happily traded what is essentially a parlor trick for a Christie who would get up and walk around a bit. Have a cup of tea, flip through a notebook. I realize that it is a course, and one I did not have to go through in one sitting. But as the first hour slid into the second, I found myself longing for someone, Aldridge perhaps, to mine Christie's exquisite autobiography more broadly and create an entire one-woman play. An evening with Agatha, free of AI, in which Christie could reminisce about her extraordinary life, from her glorious Victorian childhood to her later years as an archaeologist. Though known as the creator of the manor-house murder story, Christie was, as her books indicate, a voracious world traveler, learning how to surf before surfing was a thing, and dealing with adventures and misadventures (including a 14-hour honeymoon trek by camel and a hideous case of bed bugs on the Orient Express) that would give even the most intrepid travel influencer pause. She lived through two world wars, experienced wildly unexpected success and deep personal loss. She endured a heartbreaking divorce and a nervous breakdown, while raising a daughter and writing books, only to rally again and find love again in the most unexpected place. She wasn't a saint — her work occasionally includes the racist, antisemitic and classist tropes of its time — but she avowed fascism as often as her more political contemporaries and believed, as she says in the course, that she lived in contract with her readers for whom she had the utmost respect. She was a celebrity who never behaved as a celebrity, an artist who never admitted to art (and wrote her books on any steady surface, including orange crates and washstands), a novelist like no other who also wrote the longest-running play in history and whose work continues to sell while being adapted in film and television. Her contribution to the culture is literally incalculable. So surely she deserves more than a course that makes news mainly because of its use of dreaded AI. She's Agatha-freaking-Christie. Give her a movie, a miniseries, a play. Give her an actor who worries less about the face and more about the words, and the life that inspired them.
