As they scramble to keep their systems online, AI companies are making things expensive for the rest of us. Large language models such as ChatGPT and Claude are so resource-hungry that tech companies may be purchasing 70 percent of the world's supply of high-end computer memory, causing a shortage. As a result, the prices of computer memory and storage are skyrocketing. The MacBook Air recently rose from $1,099 to $1,299. But even at that price you couldn't get one if you wanted to, noted Engadget recently. Meanwhile, Canon says the memory shortage may for it to raise prices for its products.

Aperture has always been a magazine first, a book publisher second, and only in recent decades a place with a bookstore and gallery space that people could walk into. During the pandemic lockdown, the doors to that space, in Chelsea, closed. Next month, those doors will reopen, at 380 Columbus Avenue, across from the American Museum of Natural History. The Upper West Side is an odd and interesting choice, if choice is even the word for a decision this momentous. Aperture has historically exis...