Latest news with #HowardsEnd
1News
7 hours ago
- Politics
- 1News
National Library to dispose of 500,000 books from overseas collection
The National Library is set to dispose of half a million books from its foreign books collection to make room for more items about New Zealand. The initial decision - made over six years ago - was met with public backlash. While a fraction of the books were saved, the rest will be pulped from today. 'There are compelling reasons to remove them,' National Library's Mark Crookston told Breakfast. 'It's a decision not taking lightly, they come from a lending collection, which is no longer being lent. 'Only 1% of the items were being lent in the years leading up to the decision in 2018. Over 80% have not been lent for 20 years.' ADVERTISEMENT But author Harry Ricketts, who's been fighting against the cull, says he's 'miffed' at the decision. 'It's partly a generational thing, someone like me comes from a generation in which [believes] - like the character in Ian Forster's Howards End – 'books', said Margaret, 'move by the holy word'. 'The physical object of a book is particularly important. 'The idea that somehow only 'our' books – what are 'our' books? – should be preserved – seems a rather dodgy criteria.' Crookston said it was just 'good collection management' to not retain lending collection items much longer than they are required to be lent. 'This is just basic library practice that we learn in library school collection management 101.' 'They're just taking up space and taking up resources that can be better utilised for collections that are wanted.' ADVERTISEMENT The books are currently being stored in number of locations in Wellington and Whanganui. Crookston estimated the volume of items would take up 'the square metreage of approximately a third of a rugby field.' Internet Archive agreement scrapped In December 2018, the then Minister of Internal Affairs approved the National Library's request to remove the items under the National Library of New Zealand Act. An agreement was then made with the Internet Archive to export the remaining items to their offshore digitisation base, to provide online access as well as retain physical copies. However, Crookston said the library has now withdrawn from this agreement. "Responding to subsequent concerns about copyright issues, the National Library paused this project and now have withdrawn from this agreement." ADVERTISEMENT The remaining disposal options included transfer, sale, donation and destruction. 'While 15,000 collection titles have been transferred to other libraries, the experience with donating approximately 50,000 titles to book fairs in 2020 resulted in a modest pick-up from the public which reinforced the purpose of disposal in the first place.' The National Library said from 2017 to 2020, less than 1% of the items involved were borrowed. "Most of the titles have not been issued for the last 20 to 30 years," it said.
The Herald Scotland
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Games of Thrones and Succession stars head for book festival
The worlds of stand-up comedy, politics and broadcasting will also be represented in the line-up announced today. Read more: It encompasses almost 700 events, which will be largely staged at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, which opened last year in the former Edinburgh Royal Infirmary building, and the nearby McEwan Hall. Gavin and Stacey star Ruth Jones, the co-creator of the much-loved comedy series with James Corden, will be discussing her writing, including new novel By Your Side, which focuses on a woman paid to investigate the lives of people who have died alone track down their heirs. Actor Viggo Mortensen will be appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August. (Image: PA) Viggo Mortensen, who is best known for his starring role in the Lord of the Rings films, and Oscar-winning Vanessa Redgrave, whose screen credits include Howards End, Atonement, Mission Impossible and Mary, Queen of Scots, will be appearing in 'The People Speak,' which will feature powerful performances of stories, speeches and protest songs from around the world. Dundee-born stage and screen star Brian Cox, who appeared alongside Harriet Walter in Succession, will take part in a festival celebration of cinema hosted by film critic Mark Kermode, in the first edition of his MK3D events to be staged in Scotland. Actress Vanessa Redgrave. The magic of the movie soundtrack will be the focus of a separate event which will see Kermode and radio producer Jenny Nelson sharing some of the stories behind iconic soundtracks and exploring the connection between cinema audiences and great musical scores. Fans of comic Tim Key will be taking a break from his latest run of Fringe shows to discuss a poetry collection he wrote while he was working in Hollywood last year on a new sitcom spin-off from the American version of The Office. Actress Tuppence Middleton. (Image: Sub) David Baddiel will recall his middle-classic Jewish upbringing in London, how his mother survived the Holocaust and went on to have a decades-long affair with a golf memorabilia salesman, and his father's battle with dementia. Actress Tuppence Middleton, star of Downton Abbey, War & Peace and Black Mirror, will open up on how having obsessive compulsive disorder has impacted on her life. Colin Greenwood, bass player with Radiohead, will recall his experiences in the rock group since it was formed in the mid-1980s and the collection of his photographs documenting the band's career. Belle and Sebastian singer Stuart Murdoch will explain how his experiences of chronic fatigue illness influenced his debut novel, Nobody's Empire. Best known as the creator of Broadchurch and his time as a showrunner of Doctor Who, Chris Chibnall will discuss his debut novel, a murder mystery which has already been snapped up for a screen adaptation by ITV. Broadcaster Kirsty Wark will interview former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon about her long-awaited memoir.
Business Insider
02-05-2025
- Business Insider
The most important lesson from OpenAI's big ChatGPT mistake: 'Only connect!'
OpenAI messed up a ChatGPT update late last month, and on Friday, it published a mea culpa. It's worth a read for its honest and clear explanation of how AI models are developed — and how things can sometimes go wrong in unintended ways. Here's the biggest lesson from all this: AI models are not the real world, and never will be. Don't rely on them during important moments when you need support and advice. This is what friends and family are for. If you don't have those, reach out to a trusted colleague or human experts such as a doctor or therapist. And if you haven't read "Howards End" by E.M. Forster, dig in this weekend. "Only Connect!" is the central theme, which includes connecting with other humans. It was written in the early 20th century, but it's even more relevant in our digital age, where our personal connections are often intermediated by giant tech companies, and now AI models like ChatGPT. If you don't want to follow the advice of a dead dude, listen to Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, a startup that's OpenAI's biggest rival: "Meaning comes mostly from human relationships and connection," he wrote in a recent essay. OpenAI's mistake Here's what happened recently. OpenAI rolled out an update to ChatGPT that incorporated user feedback in a new way. When people use this chatbot, they can rate the outputs by clicking on a thumbs-up or thumbs-down button. The startup collected all this feedback and used it as a new "reward signal" to encourage the AI model to improve and be more engaging and "agreeable" with users. Instead, ChatGPT became waaaaaay too agreeable and began overly praising users, no matter what they asked or said. In short, it became sycophantic. "The human feedback that they introduced with thumbs up/down was too coarse of a signal," Sharon Zhou, the human CEO of startup Lamini AI, told me. "By relying on just thumbs up/down for signal back on what the model is doing well or poorly on, the model becomes more sycophantic." OpenAI scrapped the whole update this week. Being too nice can be dangerous What's wrong with being really nice to everyone? Well, when people ask for advice in vulnerable moments, it's important to try to be honest. Here's an example I cited from earlier this week that shows how bad this could get: it helped me so much, i finally realized that schizophrenia is just another label they put on you to hold you down!! thank you sama for this model 3 — taoki (@justalexoki) April 27, 2025 To be clear, if you're thinking of stopping taking prescribed medicine, check with your human doctor. Don't rely on ChatGPT. A watershed moment This episode, combined with a stunning surge in ChatGPT usage recently, seems to have brought OpenAI to a new realization. "One of the biggest lessons is fully recognizing how people have started to use ChatGPT for deeply personal advice," the startup wrote in its mea culpa on Friday. "With so many people depending on a single system for guidance, we have a responsibility to adjust accordingly."
Business Insider
02-05-2025
- Business Insider
The most important lesson from OpenAI's big ChatGPT mistake: 'Only connect!'
OpenAI retracted a ChatGPT update after it made the AI chatbot overly sycophantic. The update used a new source of user feedback as a reward signal, leading to excessive agreeability. OpenAI acknowledged the mistake and shared lessons learned. I have better advice. OK, get ready. I'm getting deep here. OpenAI messed up a ChatGPT update late last month, and on Friday, it published a mea culpa. It's worth a read for its honest and clear explanation of how AI models are developed — and how things can sometimes go wrong in unintended ways. Here's the biggest lesson from all this: AI models are not the real world, and never will be. Don't rely on them during important moments when you need support and advice. This is what friends and family are for. If you don't have those, reach out to a trusted colleague or human experts such as a doctor or therapist. And if you haven't read "Howards End" by E.M. Forster, dig in this weekend. "Only Connect!" is the central theme, which includes connecting with other humans. It was written in the early 20th century, but it's even more relevant in our digital age, where our personal connections are often intermediated by giant tech companies, and now AI models like ChatGPT. If you don't want to follow the advice of a dead dude, listen to Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, a startup that's OpenAI's biggest rival: "Meaning comes mostly from human relationships and connection," he wrote in a recent essay. OpenAI's mistake Here's what happened recently. OpenAI rolled out an update to ChatGPT that incorporated user feedback in a new way. When people use this chatbot, they can rate the outputs by clicking on a thumbs-up or thumbs-down button. The startup collected all this feedback and used it as a new "reward signal" to encourage the AI model to improve and be more engaging and "agreeable" with users. Instead, ChatGPT became waaaaaay too agreeable and began overly praising users, no matter what they asked or said. In short, it became sycophantic. "The human feedback that they introduced with thumbs up/down was too coarse of a signal," Sharon Zhou, the human CEO of startup Lamini AI, told me. "By relying on just thumbs up/down for signal back on what the model is doing well or poorly on, the model becomes more sycophantic." OpenAI scrapped the whole update this week. Being too nice can be dangerous What's wrong with being really nice to everyone? Well, when people ask for advice in vulnerable moments, it's important to try to be honest. Here's an example I cited from earlier this week that shows how bad this could get: it helped me so much, i finally realized that schizophrenia is just another label they put on you to hold you down!! thank you sama for this model <3 — taoki (@justalexoki) April 27, 2025 To be clear, if you're thinking of stopping taking prescribed medicine, check with your human doctor. Don't rely on ChatGPT. A watershed moment This episode, combined with a stunning surge in ChatGPT usage recently, seems to have brought OpenAI to a new realization. "One of the biggest lessons is fully recognizing how people have started to use ChatGPT for deeply personal advice," the startup wrote in its mea culpa on Friday. "With so many people depending on a single system for guidance, we have a responsibility to adjust accordingly." I'm flipping this lesson for the benefit of any humans reading this column: Please don't use ChatGPT for deeply personal advice. And don't depend on a single computer system for guidance. Instead, go connect with a friend this weekend. That's what I'm going to do.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Disney's ‘Tangled' Live-Action Movie on Hold Indefinitely
Disney has put the live-action version of the 2010 animated hit 'Tangled' on hold, according to sources. The story based on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale of Rapunzel was in active development with Michael Gracey, director of 'The Greatest Showman,' slated to direct. 'Thor: Love and Thunder' scribe Jennifer Kaytin Robinson was on board to write the script. More from Variety 'Tangled' Live-Action Movie Set at Disney With 'Greatest Showman' Director Michael Gracey TV News Roundup: Starz and BBC to Produce Kenneth Lonergan's 'Howards End' Adaptation Starring Hayley Atwell USC Class Gives Students Inside Look at Disney TV Animation The decision comes amid Disney's release of 'Snow White,' which has grossed a tepid $69 million to date domestically. It's not clear whether there is a possiblity of reviving the live-action version at some point in the future. 'Tangled' made nearly $600 million worldwide during its 2010-2011 release, and was nominated for an Oscar for original song. With an 89% positive score on Rotten Tomatoes, it was a hit with both families and critics. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week What's Coming to Disney+ in April 2025 The Best Celebrity Memoirs to Read This Year: From Chelsea Handler to Anthony Hopkins
