Latest posts
‘Death to Spotify’: the DIY movement to get artists and fans to quit the music app
Musicians have long criticized the streaming service’s paltry payouts, but a new wave of boycotts is emerging This month, indie musicians in Oakland, California, gathered for a series of talks called Death to Spotify, where attenders explored “what it means to decentralize music discovery, production and listening from capitalist economies”. The events, held at Bathers…
‘Cancel Netflix’: Elon Musk leads rightwing backlash over trans character in kids’ show
Resurfaced clip from Dead End: Paranormal Park led Musk to encourage his followers to cancel their subscriptions Elon Musk, the multibillionaire and self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist”, has in recent days trained his attention on getting people to cancel their Netflix subscriptions in protest of what he claims is the company’s “woke bias” and inclusion of…
Tilly Norwood: how scared should we be of the viral AI ‘actor’?
A bunch of code is being pushed as the next Scarlett Johansson, a creation that is already causing pushback from real human actors It takes a lot to be the most controversial figure in Hollywood, especially when Mel Gibson still exists. And yet somehow, in a career yet to even begin, Tilly Norwood has been…
Why I gave the world wide web away for free | Tim Berners-Lee
My vision was based on sharing, not exploitation – and here’s why it’s still worth fighting for I was 34 years old when I first had the idea for the world wide web. I took every opportunity to talk about it: pitching it in meetings, sketching it out on a whiteboard for anyone who was…
Adviser to UK minister claimed AI firms would never have to compensate creatives
Exclusive: Kirsty Innes made statement in now-deleted post on X seven months before taking up role as Liz Kendall aide UK politics live – latest updates A senior ministerial aide said AI companies would never have to compensate creatives for using their content to train their systems, in a statement that has alarmed campaigners demanding…
Massive Attack remove music from Spotify to protest against CEO Daniel Ek’s investment in AI military
The band cited a ‘moral and ethical burden’ placed on artists by revenue from their work ultimately funding lethal technologies Massive Attack have become the latest act – and first major-label one – to pull their catalogue from Spotify in protest at founder Daniel Ek investing €600m (£520m) in the military AI company Helsing. In…
To understand how AI will reconfigure humanity, try this German fairytale | Clemens J Setz
Artificial intelligence will replace creativity with something closer to magical wishing. The challenge for future generations will be dealing with the feeling of emptiness that leaves us with In the German fairytale The Fisherman and His Wife, an old man one day catches a strange fish: a talking flounder. It turns out that an enchanted…
AI firm plans to reconstruct lost footage from Orson Welles’ masterpiece The Magnificent Ambersons
Film-making studio Fable has announced it will attempt to recreate the 43 minutes cut from the auteur’s 1942 film using AI An AI company is to reconstruct the missing portions of Orson Welles’ legendary mutilated masterwork The Magnificent Ambersons, it has been announced. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the Showrunner platform is planning to use…
Roblox to extend age checks in attempt to curb adults talking with children
Company says changes to gaming platform will root out ‘bad actors’ after child safety concerns over unsupervised interaction The gaming website Roblox is to limit adult strangers from talking to children by the end of this year in an effort to root out “bad actors”. The fast-growing platform which has more than 110 million users…