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Happy Wednesday, Future Party. If you’re in San Francisco, you may have seen a billboard for a chatbot called ChatTJB. It turns out that it’s not actually an AI, but a guy named Tucker Bryant… and, yes, he’s responding to every one of the queries himself. By August 6th, that was over 30,000 of them. He said he’s trying to make people think twice about simply believing that chatbot answers are really from an LLM. Even raising awareness can be a work of genius. |
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The Paramount/Warner Bros. Merger Produces A Lot Of Drama |
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Courtesy of Paramount Pictures |
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Paramount CEO David Ellison announced that he will move the company out of California if he can’t settle the state’s antitrust lawsuit. |
The Big Picture: Moving Paramount out of California would be a seismic disruption to the film and TV industry… but so would its proposed merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. That’s why the industry — creatives, execs, representatives, cinema owners, etc. — is so split on its support. Ellison’s threat could make some influential critics of the deal change their opinion. |
Behind The Scenes: Ellison is really hoping California AG Rob Bonta blinks. |
Ellison told his senior management that if he can’t settle the lawsuit filed by Bonta and 12 other states by September 30, he’ll start moving the company out of the state the next day. He’ll first move the company’s HQ, followed by the studio’s operations over the next five years. He hasn’t decided exactly where but pinpointed Texas, Tennessee, and Georgia as options. Paramount’s board of directors has already approved the plan — not a surprise considering the company would have to start paying Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders $7 million a day until the deal closes, starting October 1.
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Closing Thoughts: Bonta’s seemingly not taking the bait, calling Ellison’s plan an “attempt to blackmail the state into letting an illegal deal go through.” He also said that any settlement, if he were to entertain the idea, would need to be “structural” (like a divestment of, say, CNN) rather than “behavioral” (like promising to make a certain number of films annually). |
If the plan to move out of California is a bluff, Ellison may need to start thinking about selling divisions that would be duplicates under a combined Paramount/WBD. Could CBS or Paramount+ hit the auction block? |
Prediction: If Ellison is serious about leaving, then expect states to roll out the red carpet to woo the company over. Who wouldn’t want the first major Hollywood studio not in Los Angeles? |
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Spotify Is Only Interested In Real Musicians |
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Courtesy of Spotify |
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Spotify announced that it will start labeling artists it suspects are “AI Personas.” |
Why It Hits: AI artists — not just AI-generated music — are causing a stir in the industry for all the wrong reasons. There have now been multiple instances in which an artist has taken off in streams, only for it to be revealed that they’re not real. While humans are behind these personas, their anonymous nature is eroding what makes the artist-fan relationship special — actual connection. |
Between The Lines: Spotify wants more transparency from artists on its platform. |
The AI Personas label will debut sometime in mid-September and will affix a badge to potential AI profiles, in search results, and even on track rows on playlists. This will apply to profiles that hit a certain number of listeners and have artist profiles that “appear to represent photorealistic AI-generated identities.” Spotify’s algorithms won’t include these artists in either editorial or algorithmic recommendations. Additionally, profiles can self-disclose if they’re AI (which they can already do if they want) or appeal Spotify’s decision if the company labels them as such.
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Final Generation: Spotify rolled out the tool because it said listeners have expressed that they’re not fans of finding out that an artist they like turned out to be just an AI avatar — which goes to show the innate desire for people to feel like the person behind a song is a flesh-and-blood artist. The company said, “While we believe all artists have creative choice in determining how they present themselves, Spotify’s programming is focused on elevating music from authentic artists building careers in music.” |
Ironically, AI Personas has nothing to do with whether people actually used AI to make the music. That’s probably because that’s way harder to police… but also because people may be kind of okay with that as long as they know for certain it’s a human pushing the controls. |
The Future: Without the monetization and discovery rewards, it’s possible that the emerging era of AI avatar profiles could be put on mute. |
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Should major Hollywood studios stay based in California? |
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72.7% of you voted No, never in yesterday’s poll: Have you encountered AI during a job interview? |
“No, but I haven’t had a job interview in over twenty years.” |
“I would not proceed with such an interview. It was bad enough sending in letters of application to Indeed. I think they all went directly to the trash bin. The same is to be expected of AI — it makes for a good way to hide DEI initiatives.” |
“I am sure the resume screening process uses some version of AI and likely has for some time now, but I don’t think I was hired since AI has been moving to the front.” |
“Not that I know of, at least, though I did use AI to help me negotiate my last employment deal.” |
“I found it being used most often by small/start-up companies that, I’m betting, didn’t have on-staff HR to do the work.” |
Let’s keep the conversation going. Join Poll Of The Day, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality. |
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PARTNERSHIPS | COMMUNITY | PODCAST | FRIENDS |
Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Polled and Copy-edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar. |
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