April 13, 2023
what we are watching...
empowering you with insights and information from the edge of today’s headlines
Business
Max for the People: We know that anti-luxury is a trend in fashion, and anti-elite is certainly popular in politics, but we didn’t think that anti-quality would be a marketing tool in streaming. Warner Bros. Discovery have announced that they will merge HBO Max and Discovery into one screaming channel and remove HBO from the title. “Dropping HBO from the name is cementing that ‘we’re not just a home for premium programming. We’re the home for anything you want to watch.’” Warner is attempting to compete with Disney and Netflix and in effort to attract more subscribers, yet it feels to us as if they are reconstructing the cable bundle while destroying the brand equity of HBO.
Sims IRL: Would you pay for an app that is “a human stock market where you buy shares in the lives of real people, in order to control their decisions and watch the outcome”? That is the premise of the NewNew, which seems to be a new form of Patreon, where creators can get input from their fans for any type of decision or activity. Having trouble deciding what to wear? what to eat? what job to take? Ask your fans. Its like a create your own adventure book wrapped in a reality show. What could possibly go wrong.
End of an Era: GM has announced that it will be ending production of its classic Chevrolet Camaro (the final model will hit the streets in January 2024). We shall see if the Camaro goes from Muscle to EV like the Ford Mustang.
Don’t piss of the Judge: This week two defendants made unforced errors in high profile cases which led to rebukes from not so happy judges. Elizabeth Holmes lost her bid to stay home while appealing her conviction for fraud and conspiracy. One reason — the prosecution revealed she had bought a one-way ticket to Mexico. Rupert Murdoch, who is set to testify in a few days in the $1.6BN defamation case between Fox News and Dominion, was scolded by the judge. Evidently, Fox News failed to disclose that Murdoch was an officer of both Fox News (not only of the parent company), and as result may have missed some discovery. The judge in the case (and all of us) to Fox: “I don’t know why this is such a difficult thing” [to tell the truth], and may appoint a Special Master.
Happy accident: Polaroid has been making a come back lately due to its nostalgic appeal, and the company released a new blue-tinted film that was created accidentally by its innovation lab. Polaroid is embracing the trial and error approach in its marketing of Reclaimed Blue 600, and asking photographers to do the same and experiment.
Technology
ChatGPT is already old news: AutoGPT is an open-source application that was launched recently that autonomously develops and manages tasks. The new app strings together a series of Large Language Models to effectively manage itself on its own, whether it is creating a website, a Google doc or even answering customer service calls. So within a few weeks, we’ve created and destroyed the new high-paying job of prompt engineering, and we’ve connected our robot overlords to the internet.
AI goes to the Sims: Stanford and Google researchers took another approach to scaling LLM’s and put 25 instances of ChatGPT together and had them role-playing against each other in a fictional town. The experiment was an attempt to simulate human behavior using AI, and that was pretty much the result. Luckily, the handlers (prompters) kept the behavior civil and no trolls allowed, but the AI was able to generate realistic actions in response.
China jumps into the field: Alibaba is rolling out its own version of ChatGPT called Tongyi Qianwen, which should be added to its messaging app in the next few months. (Baidu launched its Ernie bot software a few weeks to not so stellar reviews.) However, Chinese officials issued draft guidelines of how AI will be regulated within the country. The guidelines state that the software should “reflect the core values of socialism,” and should not attempt to subvert state power.
Politics
Defund-a-pa-looza: The Missouri House voted to defund all of the state’s public libraries, rather than fight a lawsuit filed by the ACLU. The lawsuit seeks to overturn a recently passed law banning over 300 books in the state. A Texas town is considering the same ploy after a Federal judge ruled that banned books must be returned to circulation. North Dakota legislators took a different path toward hypocrisy: they voted to increase their own funds for meal reimbursement after defeating a bill for free lunch for low-income school children.
Rat Czar: New York City has officially appointed its own Rat Czar: Kathleen Corradi, will become the City’s director of rodent mitigation. Corradi had previously been responsible for a similar job at the Department of Education, and has apparently found her calling in terminating rats. To each their own?
Meanwhile, Mayor Eric Adams has in fact deployed two Boston Dynamics Robot Dogs as part of the NYPD. Here’s hoping they make an appearance at next week’s House Judiciary’s Field hearing in Manhattan.
Culture
Doggy style: Pigs in a blanket have always been a staple at weddings, but Oscar Mayer is taking the tradition one step further. The Wienermobile will be available for a limited time as a Wedding Chapel in, of course, Las Vegas. Weddings will be hosted on a first-come-first-served basis and even come with a hot dog-themed cake, so don’t skimp on the mustard.
It’s happening, again: Billy McFarland, the infamous mastermind behind the original Fyre Festival, sent a message out this week that the “Fyre Festival II is finally happening.” While he spent 6 years in prison for defrauding investors for the first Fyre Festival (we highly recommend watching the documentaries), McFarland hopes to pay back the money he owes for his last crime by launching another event. Maybe this will be like watching the Trainwreck: Woodstock 1999.
Fashion, but make it Digital: Loewe, the luxury Spanish fashion brand, has dropped its “Pixel” capsule collection, a physical fashion line which looks like glitched, pixelated hoodies, pants and even its signature handbags. Unlike Gucci, which recently paired with Yuga labs of Bored Ape fame, Loewe didn’t drop an NFT, but the clothing really does have a virtual effect.
Maxine, NY’s favorite chonk, threw out the first pitch at a Mets game….need we say more
— Lauren Eve Cantor
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