Seemingly Brief

Seemingly Ranch

Who needs a dedicated Taylor Swift beat reporter when we’ve got Swiftie accounts keeping us updated on which condiments Taylor is consuming?  

If you’ve seen random people posting “seemingly ranch” out of context this week, this image is why.  

Platform Updates

The Rest of Meta 

• Meta announces new Quest 3 VR headset as Apple competition looms

• Facebook and Instagram will soon get a slew of AI-powered creator tools

• Meta filmed Mr Beast, Paris Hilton and 26 more to build celebrity AIs based on Llama 2 (hard pass) 

TikTok

• TikTok Adds Centralized Wallet To Manage In-App Transactions

YouTube

• YouTube Updates Monetization Guidelines on Certain Sensitive Topics

Google 

• Google Podcasts to shut down in 2024 with listeners migrated to YouTube Music

• Google adds a switch for publishers to opt out of becoming AI training data

Amazon

• FTC files a massive antitrust lawsuit against Amazon

• Panos Panay is leaving Microsoft for Amazon

Reddit

• Reddit Launches Gold Program That Will See Top Contributors/Mods Paid for Their Efforts

• Reddit will no longer let you opt out of personalized ads

Snap 

• Snap Begins Testing Sponsored Links in ‘My AI’ Chatbot Responses

• Snap’s Shutting Down Its Enterprise AR Development Project

Twitter

• Elon Fires Half Of ExTwitter’s Election Integrity Team, Because A Manager Liked A Tweet Calling Him A Fucking Dipshit 

• EU warns Elon Musk after Twitter found to have highest rate of disinformation

Twitter Alts 

• Artifact is becoming Twitter, too (hence why I’ve always included it in the “Twitter Alts” section) 

Culture Movers 

Film & TV

• The Hollywood writers’ strike is over — and they won big

• Amazon Will Stick Ads on Prime Video Unless You Pay Up

• Paramount’s CBS Sports Creator Studio will pair influencers with athletes

• Biggest streaming companies join first official trade group

• CollegeHumor Changes Name to Dropout, as Digital Comedy Player Rebrands for Streamin

Creator Economy 

• Spotify is going to clone podcasters’ voices — and translate them to other languages

• Linktree shares statistics about the 200 million creators who are part of the “attention economy”

Gaming 

• Unity apologizes to devs, reveals updated Runtime Fee policy

AI 

• Getty made an AI generator that only trained on its licensed images

• You can now prompt ChatGPT with pictures and voice commands 

Hot Union A(I)utum? 

Last week, I did a round-up of some of the big labor movement stories from the summer, and now that it’s officially fall, I’ve got more news to share. The writer’s strike is officially over, and Joe Biden became the first sitting US President to walk a picket line with striking workers. 

One of the standout points in the final WGA agreement with the studios is the section on AI:

“Per the agreement, AI cannot be used to write or rewrite scripts, and AI-generated writing cannot be considered source material, which prevents writers from losing out on writing credits due to AI.”

Writers may still choose to tap AI tools in assisting their work, but studios can’t mandate it. TL;DR: workers are in the driver’s seat for how and when AI tools can assist their labor. Not only do I think this is a great outcome for this particular contract, but I think it’s a great model for how we should be thinking about AI tools becoming a part of other industries. 

There are two big ethical and legal battlegrounds forming around AI right now:

1. The Input - How are these models trained? What material is being used? How should copyright apply to training material? 

2. The Output - How are we using these models in our lives? When should they replace or augment human labor? How do we navigate the scale and quality of media they can create? 

I want to spend more time in another newsletter digging into The Input because, oh boy, do I have ideas there (and because I’m watching stories like this as they play out to inform my take more before sharing it). But on The Output side, this WGA agreement is a major milestone in defining how this argument will take shape going forward. One of the most prominent unions in one of America’s most iconic industries successfully negotiated a contract that treats AI as just an assistive tool and not a replacement for any human creativity, intellectual property, or labor. 

Headline Fatality  

This week, “Twitter” “CEO” Linda Yaccarino demonstrated her standard level of quality judgment when she willingly showed up for an interview at the Code Conference, where she’d have to sit on stage and answer questions from qualified journalists in front of an audience and cameras. I’m sure you’ll be surprised to learn that it seems to have not gone well for her. Personally, I’m waiting on the video of her interview to come out so I can pour a nice cocktail and laugh my ass off, but while we wait, please enjoy this absolutely brutal display of excellence in headline writing from Slate.