Good morning. There’s a new social media app with millions of users, none of them human.
SocialAI promises infinite replies and personalized conversations without the messy business of involving other people. It’s a wild leap into a bot-fueled future.
Look, I know we’ve already made one Matrix reference this week, but: Ignorance is bliss.
—Andrew Nusca
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California is tired of all the deepfakes
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a flurry of new laws intended to rein in deepfakes.
You can thank (or blame) Elon Musk. The move comes after the X proprietor shared an AI-altered video of presidential candidate Kamala Harris on the service in July.
That didn’t sit well with Newsom, a frequent Musk sparring partner and occasional political candidate himself.
One of the bills makes it illegal to include deceptive content of elected officials and candidates in election ads. A second requires online platforms to label or remove deceptive content. A third requires disclosures for AI-generated or substantially altered electoral ads.
Newsom also signed a pair of bills that prohibit studios from using AI impersonators to replicate the work of actors and other performers without permission or payment. (The Golden State is home to Tinseltown, after all.)
All of this activity comes as the tech world awaits the fate of SB 1047, the AI safety bill sitting on Newsom’s desk that holds AI vendors liable if their tech is used to create a “critical harm.”
Opponents, which include OpenAI and Nancy Pelosi, say it will kill innovation; proponents, which include none other than Musk, say it’s necessary. No pressure, Gav. —Jenn Brice
Lionsgate volunteers as AI tribute
The big question hanging over AI-generated video tools has been when Hollywood would embrace the technology, which for all its magic, threatens jobs and is embroiled in legal disputes around the content it was trained on.
Yesterday we got the answer. NYC-based AI startup Runway announced a deal with Hollywood studio Lionsgate, maker of classics like The Hunger Games and John Wick.
The first-of-its-kind arrangement allows Runway to train a new AI model on Lionsgate’s catalog. Lionsgate’s creatives will then use the model as a production tool.
While the financial terms are unclear, the deal is a huge win for Runway as it faces pressure from OpenAI’s Sora. But it’s worth noting that Runway is still facing lawsuits for copyright infringement.
As Mr. Wick likes to say: Yeah. —David Meyer
23andOnlyMe, apparently
In a move that’s shocking even by tech startup standards, all seven directors on the board of 23andMe resigned on Wednesday.
In a letter, the former board members—which include Sequoia Capital’s Roelof Botha and YouTube CEO Neal Mohan—reprimanded CEO Anne Wojcicki for not providing an “actionable proposal” for the direction of the genetic testing company.
Wojcicki—whose older sister, former YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, passed only five weeks ago—has committed to a monthslong effort to take 23andMe private. It had gone public during the peak of the venture boom in 2021; it has failed to turn a profit since. (Its shares were recently trading at $0.34.)
In a memo sent to employees on Tuesday, Wojcicki said she was “surprised and disappointed” by the resignations. She will continue her effort to take 23andMe private. —Jessica Mathews
YouTube gets hype
YouTube made history yesterday by releasing new features that benefit creators not named Mr. Beast.
The Google-owned company rolled out a new area called Communities and a new mechanism called Hype. Both features are intended to help personalities with smaller audiences drive follower interactions—and perhaps get them to break through on a massive platform that can be tough for newer entrants.
Communities allows creators and their subscribers to start new pages for people to chat directly on YouTube, kind of like Reddit.
Hype, meanwhile, promotes pages and creators with less than 500,000 subscribers. Any viewer who sees a video that’s been on the site for less than a week can now choose to “hype” it, pushing it up on a new leaderboard.
At the end of the day, it’s all about building the business. So get ready to smash that hype button folks. Byeeeee. —Kali Hays
Amazon comp is movin’ on up
If you work in the fulfillment or transportation departments of Amazon in the U.S., expect your next paycheck to be a little bigger.
Amazon says it will raise the pay of those staff by at least $1.50 an hour (to an average base of more than $22 an hour for hourly employees) and hand out free Prime memberships to boot.
The total bill for America’s second-largest private employer? More than $2.2 billion.
The move comes as the retailer’s warehouse staff maneuver for better contracts and improved working conditions. (The Amazon Labor Union affiliated with the Teamsters in June.)
It also arrives as the company heads into the all-important, mega-competitive holiday shopping season—though the Prime perk won’t kick in until next year. Sorry, Rings of Power fans. —AN
More data
—Apple pulls its iPadOS 18 update for M4 iPad Pro models. “She’s a brick and I’m drowning slowly,” some users were heard wailing.
—LinkedIn confirms its AI is training on your data. And yes, you can opt out.
—Meta wins dismissal of lawsuit alleging it defrauded investors. The suit concerned Apple privacy changes and Sheryl Sandberg’s use of corporate resources.
—GameStop CEO ordered to pay $1 million fine. He failed to report a purchase of more than $100 million worth of Wells Fargo voting shares. Oops.
—Google wins and Qualcomm doesn’t in EU antitrust. The search giant dodges a billion-Euro fine; the chipmaker trims its penalty to €239 million. —AN
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