“An Illinois-based hobbyist club is concerned that one of their small, globe-trotting balloons, which was recently declared ‘missing in action,’ was shot down by U.S. Air Force last week,” noted the report.

Source: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/02/19/large-white-balloon-spotted-northeast-hawaii-air-traffic-control-confirms/

At one point, a post from the moderator of a local radio hobbyist Facebook group warned members to stop writing about the scanner traffic because the shooter might be monitoring the page to evade law enforcement or plant disinformation.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/19/us/michigan-state-shooting-audio-911.html

Joe Biden may have ordered the US Air Force to shoot down a hobbyist group’s radio ‘pico balloon’ by mistake, it has emerged.

Source: https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/10240644/chinese-spy-balloon-shot-alaska-us-amateur-ballooning-group/

Snapshots of Polish American life:Jan Stanislaw Zawiliński, an influential man-about-town who worked for the Polish National Alliance, took up photography as a hobbyist while living in Chicago’s Polish Downtown, centered at Polonia Triangle in West Town.

Source: https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/museums/ct-ent-museums-chicago-winter-2023-20230120-5eghkezjlffutnh67hmctlhiha-story.html

The mix of independent artists from hobbyist to superstar are growing fast on their own creative terms, and likely have different points of view and stakes related to the emergence of AI.

Source: https://variety.com/2023/music/opinion/ai-can-hurt-help-the-music-business-1235636453/