AI's infiltration of films, music, painting — even sculpture — is inspiring new resistance to tech in art, and putting a premium on work that's purely human.

• Why it matters: Art has long been seen as a uniquely human endeavor, making AI's advance into this realm especially unsettling, Axios' Erica Pandey writes.

🌴 "There's a feeling of existential dread in the air in Los Angeles," says Charlie Fink, a longtime Hollywood producer and professor at Chapman University in Orange County, California.

• "AI is coming, and nobody knows how. It makes you anxious if you're looking at something AI made and thinking: 'Well, that's a movie.'"

Case in point: "The Brutalist" — nominated for 10 Oscars in January and winner of Best Actor for Adrien Brody — used generative AI to make actors' Hungarian accents sound more authentic.

• Other nominated films, including "Emilia Pérez" and "Dune: Part Two," also used AI, The New York Times notes.
• The most-downloaded country song in America is written and sung by AI alone.
• AI is being used to generate paintings and sculptures, some of which are selling for thousands of dollars, BBC reports.

🦸 Reality check: New technologies have always been used to make art, from cameras launching photography to CGI (computer-generated imagery) bringing monsters and superheroes to life.

• AI could even "lead to a new golden age of independent cinema" by giving smaller filmmakers the tech to compete with big production houses, Fink says.

But resistance is building:

• "Breaking Bad" creator Vince Gilligan has a note in the credits of his new show, "Pluribus," which debuted this month: "This show was made by humans." Gilligan told Variety recently: "Who wants to live in a world where creativity is given over to machines?"
• "Thee Stork Club," a live music venue in Oakland, California, recently banned artists from using AI-generated fliers to promote shows, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
• More than 200 musicians — including heavy hitters Billie Eilish, Katy Perry and Smokey Robinson — signed an open letter to AI developers last year to "cease the use of artificial intelligence to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists," Axios' Sara Fischer reports.

🎧 The intrigue: Even if people want to avoid AI art, they might be fooled anyway.

• In a recent survey by Ipsos and the French streaming service Deezer, 97% of respondents couldn't distinguish between human-made and AI-generated songs — and 52% said they felt uneasy that they couldn't tell the difference.

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Ukrainian, U.S. and European officials met in Geneva today to discuss President Trump's plan to end the war in Ukraine, after Kyiv and its allies raised alarm over what they saw as major concessions to Russia, Reuters reports.

• Why it matters: Diplomacy over the plan has been unfolding at a fast pace since Axios revealed it on Tuesday. Trump has set a Thanksgiving deadline for reaching an understanding with Ukraine on the plan.

"We're continuing to work with the Ukrainians to make this the best deal for them," a U.S. official told Axios' Barak Ravid and Colin Demarest yesterday.

• The official added that the details of the agreement may change from the original version of the U.S. peace plan: "That's why we're having talks."

The U.S. team is led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and includes White House envoy Steve Witkoff and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who met Ukrainian President Zelensky in Kyiv Thursday and presented him with the U.S. plan.

• Get the latest.

When a reporter asked New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in the Oval Office on Friday if he stands by calling President Trump a "fascist," the president bailed him.

• "That's OK. You can just say yes," Trump quipped, patting the mayor-elect on the arm during the stunningly chummy session.

Mamdani doubled down when NBC's Kristen Welker asked him in a "Meet the Press" interview aired this morning: "[D]o you think that President Trump is a fascist?"

• "[T]hat's something that I've said in the past. I say it today. And I think what I appreciated about the conversation that I had with the president was that we were not shy about the places of disagreement, about the politics that has brought us to this moment," Mamdani said.

"You've called him a despot," Welker said. "Do you still believe President Trump is a threat to the democracy?"

• Mamdani's response: "Everything that I've said in the past, I continue to believe ... I'm not coming into the Oval Office to make a point or make a stand. I'm coming in there to deliver for New Yorkers."

Watch the interview.

People line up to receive food assistance at a turkey distribution organized by the Houston Food Bank yesterday. Over 3,500 families were served.

The 2025 hurricane season is about to end on Nov. 30 without a single mainland U.S. landfall for the first time in a decade, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick reports.

• Read the story.

A new Netflix documentary attempts to cast doubt over the authorship of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Napalm Girl" photo — an image that helped define the horrors of the Vietnam War.

• Why it matters: The dispute reopens questions about how Western media historically overlooks the work of local freelance journalists in war, but is drawing strong reaction from some photographers of that era, Axios' Russell Contreras reports.

"The Stringer: The Man Who Took the Photo," scheduled to debut on Friday, revisits the 1972 image attributed to Associated Press photographer Nick Ut.

• It suggests that stringer Nguyễn Thành Nghệ, not Ut, captured the iconic photograph, yet never received credit from The AP due to office politics and the general disregard for local freelancers. The AP and Ut dispute that story.

Friction point: David Hume Kennerly, a friend of Ut and a Pulitzer Prize-winning Vietnam War feature photographer, told us: "If it was true that Nick didn't take the picture, it's impossible to believe he wouldn't have said something about that over the last 50+ years. The reason why he hasn't? He took the photo."

• Read on.

President Trump says he's enlisting legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus to spruce up the courses at Joint Base Andrews — adding a site long known as the "president's golf course" to his long list of construction projects.

• "We're doing some fix-up of the base, which it needs. We're gonna try and reinstitute the golf courses. I'm meeting with the greatest Jack Nicklaus," Trump told reporters outside the White House before boarding Marine One to head to Andrews.

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Instant classic: Red Bull Racing's Dutch driver Max Verstappen jumps toward his teammates after winning the Las Vegas Formula 1 Grand Prix last night.

• Post-race drama: Two top drivers — Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri — who originally placed 2nd and 4th were disqualified due to excessive wear on the planks under their cars.

That development significantly narrows the gap among Verstappen, Norris and Piastri for this year's F1 championship, with just two races left in the season.

• More from The Athletic.

Mike took this pic from the start/finish line in the grandstands last night, as crews and dignitaries thronged the track mere minutes before the iconic "Lights out" starting sequence: Five red lights turn on one by one, before all of them go out at once to start the Grand Prix.

• Red Bull Racing CEO Laurent Mekies said after the third annual Las Vegas Grand Prix: "Every race in Vegas has been better than the previous one ... It feels like Formula One fell in love with Vegas this year. You can feel it with a lot more fans around the track and a lot more atmosphere in the paddock."

Mike took this pic Friday from a 31st-floor room at the Wynn Las Vegas.

• The 3.8-mile-long course has 17 high-speed turns. During 50 laps, drivers top 215 mph "as they jockey for position and race past iconic landmarks, hotels, and casinos and down the legendary Las Vegas Strip."

Get the latest ... Quotes from teams, drivers.