On this weeks episode of The Most Innovative Companies Podcast, Josh and Yaz sit down with Sweetgreen CEO Jonathan Neman to talk all things Sweetgreen from prices to AI “cooks” and his favorite item on the menu.
Less than a year after she came out with her Grammy-winning album Short n Sweet, pop singer Sabrina Carpenter announced the release date of her next project, titled Mans Best Friend, with a new album cover on Wednesday, and it has ignited a headline-grabbing debate. While some fans of the singer are salivating over the mere mention of another Sabrina Summer, others are none too happy with the album covers messaging.
The cover depicts Carpenter in heels and a black minidress, crouching on the floor. An anonymous man holds a handful of her iconic blonde hair.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sabrina Carpenter (@sabrinacarpenter)
Fans and critics immediately took to social media to voice their support or concerns with the images messaging, and though many fans staunchly defend Carpenter and the album cover as satirical, exaggerated, and ironic, others, including the domestic violence advocacy group Glasgow Womens Aid, say that the image of a Carpenter kneeling on the ground being dragged by her hair is triggering, regressive, and frankly, distasteful.
Pushing boundaries or tired tropes?
Discourse about the albums imagery calls to mind a long history of public criticism directed toward women artists. Many women who have challenged boundaries around what was acceptable in music and other artistic disciplines have found themselves on the receiving end of cultural blowback, but this conversation reads differently.
The prevalence of social media means that the album cover went viral overnight, as people saw and posted about the new cover, and some critics worry about the impact of the message on young fans. (Carpenter is a former Disney Channel star.) Fans also have the ability insult each others intelligence overtly via Instagram and TikTok, calling those who dont get it dumb and dense.
Comments on the original Instagram post lean both directions, with some expressing their excitement and others telling Carpenter that the cover is not the slay you think it is.
One user explained that even if the cover is an ironic joke, it’s not an effective one. If the fans who know all of her lore are the only ones who can interpret her attempt, that isnt satire,” the user wrote. “[It’s] an inside joke that reads misogynistic to everyone else which makes it really harmful.”
Still, Carpenter is known for the wry messaging in her music, prompting some TikTok users to call out others whom they claimed just didn’t get it.
The people criticizing Sabrina Carpenters new album cover for Mans Best Friend are so obtuse, said one TikToker in a video. None of you have ever used context clues in your life and it shows.
However, others accuse Carpenter of not paying attention to context. A common refrain is that Carpenter is acting oblivious to America’s current political climate and the deep misogyny that runs through it.
One TikToker said the album cover was giving the same vibes as Dr. Squatchs giveaway of the soap called Sydneys Bathwater Bliss. (Allegedly, the soap is infused with actress Sydney Sweeneys actual bathwater.) The user also cited the social media trends of tradwife life, the clean girl aesthetic, and the promotion of white thinness as signs of a slide back into conservatism.
Read the room, the user said in her video. Its using dark humor in a situation thats not appropriate whatsoever.”
From family photos in the cloud to email archives and social media accounts, the digital lives of Americans are extensive and growing.
According to recent studies by the password management companies NordPass and Dashlane, the average internet user maintains more than 150 online accounts. Individuals produce hundreds of gigabytes of data each year. But few people have plans for what happens to that digital legacy after they die.
Unlike physical possessions, online assets often dont pass smoothly from one generation to the next. Loved ones struggle to access important accounts or recover treasured photos. Many families face these challenges while already overwhelmed with grief.
Most tech companies havent kept up with this reality. Fewer than 15% of popular online platforms have clear systems for handling a users death, and customer support is often limited, according to our new study. As peoples digital footprints expand, the lack of planning has become both a practical and emotional burden for families. This is especially true for older adults who may not be aware of the steps required to manage their digital estate.
We are an associate professor of information science and a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder. We are researching how to design technologies for people engaged in end-of-life planning for their data.
First clinic of its kind
We realized there was no organization or comprehensive website to help people navigate the technical, privacy, or practical challenges they were facing. In response, we launched what we believe is a first-of-its-kind solution: the Digital Legacy Clinic.
Just as writing a will helps manage physical possessions after death, planning your digital legacy ensures that your online life is handled according to your wishes.
Our clinic opened in late 2024. The free clinic offers support both to people planning for the end of their digital lives and to those managing the digital estates of loved ones who have died.
Led by students and housed in the University of Colorado Boulders information science department, the clinic operates much like a pro bono law clinic. Community members in the Denver and Boulder areas, as well as from across the country, can contact the clinic for help.
First, a person interested in getting support fills out a simple form. Then, a member of the clinic will send a follow-up email to clarify and offer preliminary advice. Since every case is different, often clinic workers will then meet via Zoom with a client to create a personalized plan for them and their family.
How the clinic helps
The clinic offers guidance on a wide range of digital estate concerns, including setting up digital legacy tools such as trusted contacts on Google and Apple or legacy contacts on Facebooksomeone you choose to manage your main profile after youve died. People can also get guidance on how to memorialize or delete social media or other online accounts after a loved one has died.
For example, Facebook allows you to either memorialize an account or request its removal. To memorialize it, youll need to submit a form with the persons name; date of death; proof of passing, such as an obituary; and verify your relationship to the deceased. Including these steps can help your loved ones manage a digital legacy with clarity and care.
The clinic also helps people recover and preserve digital assets. That includes photos, videos, emails, and other important documents, such as legal documents stored on a Google Drive.
For those who are planning for after they die, the clinic can guide them in creating a digital estate plan. That plan might include inventorying online accounts, documenting login credentials, and leaving instructions for account closure, or determining steps to email the documents to your lawyer.
Students supporting their community
The ongoing work of the clinic is run entirely by undergraduate and graduate students, who build and maintain the clinics website, manage the client intake process, and research solutions tailored to each case.
For the students, its a hands-on learning opportunity that connects academic work to real-world needs. The experience is also professionally valuable. Students learn how to communicate complex tech topics with empathy, navigate privacy laws, and manage sensitive data responsibly.
A resource for older adults
While the Digital Legacy Clinic is available to people across the country, its location in Boulder makes it especially accessible to older adults in the Boulder and Denver areas who may prefer or benefit from in-person support.
For older adults, the clinic can play a crucial role in helping them organize their digital lives while theyre still alive. This can reduce confusion for loved ones later and even help prevent issues such as identity theft or account misuse. Many older adults now maintain extensive online presences, but they may not have the tools or knowledge to ensure their accounts are secure and accessible to people they trust.
Dylan Thomas Doyle is an information science researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Jed R. Brubaker is an associate professor of information science at the University of Colorado Boulder.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The House narrowly voted Thursday to cut about $9.4 billion in spending already approved by Congress as President Donald Trump‘s administration looks to follow through on work by the Department of Government Efficiency when it was overseen by Elon Musk.
The package targets foreign aid programs and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides money for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, as well as thousands of public radio and television stations around the country. The vote was 214-212.
Republicans are characterizing the spending as wasteful and unnecessary, but Democrats say the rescissions are hurting the United States’ standing in the world and will lead to needless deaths.
Cruelty is the point, Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said of the proposed spending cuts.
The Trump administration is employing a tool rarely used in recent years that allows the president to transmit a request to Congress to cancel previously appropriated funds. That triggers a 45-day clock in which the funds are frozen pending congressional action. If Congress fails to act within that period, then the spending stands.
This rescissions package sends $9.4 back to the U.S. Treasury, said Rep. Lisa McClain, House Republican Conference chair. That’s $9.4 billion of savings that taxpayers won’t see wasted. It’s their money.
The benefit for the administration of a formal rescissions request is that passage requires only a simple majority in the 100-member Senate instead of the 60 votes usually required to get spending bills through that chamber. So, if they stay united, Republicans will be able to pass the measure without any Democratic votes.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said the Senate would likely not take the bill up until July and after it has dealt with Trump’s big tax and immigration bill. He also said it’s possible the Senate could tweak the bill.
The administration is likening the first rescissions package to a test case and says more could be on the way if Congress goes along.
Republicans, sensitive to concerns that Trump’s sweeping tax and immigration bill would increase future federal deficits, are anxious to demonstrate spending discipline, though the cuts in the package amount to just a sliver of the spending approved by Congress each year. They are betting the cuts prove popular with constituents who align with Trump’s America first ideology as well as those who view NPR and PBS as having a liberal bias.
In all, the package contains 21 proposed rescissions. Approval would claw back about $900 million from $10 billion that Congress has approved for global health programs. That includes canceling $500 million for activities related to infectious diseases and child and maternal health, and another $400 million to address the global HIV epidemic.
The Trump administration is also looking to cancel $800 million, or a quarter of the amount Congress approved, for a program that provides emergency shelter, water and sanitation, and family reunification for those forced to flee their own country.
About 45% of the savings sought by the White House would come from two programs designed to boost the economies, democratic institutions, and civil societies in developing countries.
Democratic leadership, in urging their caucus to vote no, said that package would eliminate access to clean water for more than 3.6 million people and lead to millions more not having access to a school.
Those Democrats saying that these rescissions will harm people in other countries are missing the point, McClain said. Its about people in our country being put first.
The Republican president has also asked lawmakers to rescind nearly $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which represents the full amount its slated to receive during the next two budget years. About two-thirds of the money gets distributed to more than 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations. Nearly half of those stations serve rural areas of the country.
The association representing local public television stations warns that many of them would be forced to close if the Republican measure passes. Those stations provide emergency alerts, free educational programming, and high school sports coverage, and they highlight hometown heroes.
Advocacy groups that serve the world’s poorest people are also sounding the alarm and urging lawmakers to vote no.
We are already seeing women, children, and families left without food, clean water, and critical services after earlier aid cuts, and aid organizations can barely keep up with rising needs, said Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, a poverty-fighting organization.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) said the foreign aid is a tool that prevents conflict and promotes stability, but the measure before the House takes that tool away.
These cuts will lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, devastating the most vulnerable in the world, McGovern said.
This bill is good for Russia and China and undertakers, added Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN).
Republicans disparaged the foreign aid spending and sought to link it to programs they said DOGE had uncovered.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said taxpayer dollars had gone to such things as targeting climate change, promoting pottery classes, and strengthening diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Other Republicans cited similar examples they said DOGE had revealed.
Yet, my friends on the other side of the aisle would like you to believe, seriously, that if you don’t use your taxpayer dollars to fund this absurd list of projects and thousands of others I didn’t even list, that somehow people will die and our global standing in the world will crumble, Roy said. “Well, let’s just reject this now.
By Kevin Freking, Associated Press
Women athletes who want to start a family have often received little to no support or faced repercussions.
Remember when, back in 2019, Olympic runners Allyson Felix, Alysia Montao, and Kara Goucher shared that Nike, their sponsor, said it would stop paying them if they werent runningeven during pregnancy and postpartum. It wasn’t until after the women called out the company in The New York Times that Nike instituted a new maternity policy.
Women basketball players, soccer players, and other athletes across sports have also shared their negative experiences as expecting or new mothers and their fight for change.
So its deeply heartening when progress occurs, like a new policy championed by players at the Womens Tennis Association (WTA). The organizing body for womens tennis has announced the Fertility Protection Special Entry Ranking Rule, which protects the ranking of women who undergo procedures like embryo or egg freezing.
After hearing from players that the option of fertility protection offers a proactive way to balance family goals and career ambitions, were delighted that this new measure, alongside the fertility grant offered by the PIF WTA Maternity Fund, will contribute to enabling our athletes to realize their full potential and become parents at a time of their choice, said Portia Archer, CEO of the WTA, in a statement. (PIF stands for Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.)
How the new rule will work
Athletes will qualify if they leave for at least 10 weeks to undergo the treatment and are ranked between Nos. 1 and 750 in singles or doubles. They will then receive a special entry ranking (SER) based on the 12-week average of their WTA ranking from eight weeks prior to the start of their out-of-competition period, the WTA states. Players can use the ranking for up to three tournaments.
The WTA, founded by Billie Jean King, already offers ranking protection for pregnant individuals or those pursuing another form of parenthood. In March, the organization introduced 12-month paid maternity leave for athletestechnically independent contractorsand two months for adoption, a partners pregnancy, or surrogacy. The WTA claims its the first instance in womens sports history that comprehensive maternity benefits are available to independent, self-employed athletes.
However, they must meet specific qualifications, such as participating in a certain number of tournaments. The WTA simultaneously introduced grants for fertility treatments.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who heads the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has announced eight new members to the CDC’s independent vaccine advisory committeesome who are critical of vaccinesafter firing the entire group, prompting questions and concerns.
Kennedy said the new members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) will be at ACIP’s upcoming meeting on June 25 to June 27, which is slated to discuss vaccine recommendations for the HPV vaccine (which the CDC has deemed safe, and prevents cervical cancer and 90% of cancers caused by HPV in females), and of course the COVID-19 vaccine.
Those new members are: Joseph R. Hibbeln, Martin Kulldorff, Retsef Levi, Robert W. Malone, Cody Meissner, James Pagano, Vicky Pebsworth, and Michael A. Rosssome of whom are either close allies of RFK Jr. or vaccine skeptics, according to the BBC.
Kulldorff, an epidemiologist and biostatistician, helped write the Great Barrington Declaration, which questioned lockdowns and other public health measures early in the COVID-19 pandemic, per National Public Radio; while Malone worked on mRNA technology for the COVID-19 vaccine early on, then became a critic and made false claims about the shot, also per NPR.
Wednesday’s move comes just days after Kennedy fired all 17 sitting members of the ACIP, which makes recommendations on the safety, efficacy, and clinical need for the shots, advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the vaccine schedule and required coverage of immunizations.
While Kennedy justified the firings, saying in a Wall Street Journal op-ed the panel of esteemed pediatricians, epidemiologists, immunologists, and other physicians was plagued with conflicts of interest, that’s questionable. As Fast Company has previously reported, Kennedy has a long history of repeatedly making false claims that have been debunked, and railing against or ranting about vaccines, medical drugs, the health system, and our nations food.
RFK Jr. also has no medical degree, breaking with long-standing tradition for the health secretary post, and his nomination was the latest in a string of controversial picks by Trump for his second term.
Oracle investors are on cloud nine today as the stock reached record heights. The companys fourth quarter earnings results beat expectations yesterday and projected even more gains in cloud infrastructure.
After rising nearly 8% in after-hours trading following the earnings release Wednesday evening, Oracle (ORCL) has continued to rise throughout the day on Thursday. The stock reached an all-time record of $202.04 at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, and has been steady since then.
Oracle’s financial results for the fourth quarter showed $15.9 billion in total revenue, up 11% from the previous quarter. The net income for the quarter was $3.4 billion, with earnings per share of $1.19.
Growth in Oracles cloud infrastructure revenue was particularly strong, jumping 52%, and it shows no signs of slowing in fiscal year 2026. The companys cloud infrastructure sales are projected to grow over 70% next fiscal year. Today, Oracle got the ball rolling by announcing a multi-year cloud infrastructure contract with Seekr, an artificial intelligence company.
FY25 was a very good yearbut we believe FY26 will be even better as our revenue growth rates will be dramatically higher, Oracle CEO Safra Catz said on the companys Q4 earnings call. Oracle is well on its way to being not only the worlds largest cloud application companybut also one of the worlds largest cloud infrastructure companies.
These powerful growth projections have also helped propel Oracle stock upward today, helping to boost the big tech sector and the S&P 500 along with it.
Oracle has a market capitalization of $563 billion as of midday Thursday.
It hits at a certain time in the afternoon, when a familiar craving strikes. You walk to the kitchen. The satisfying sound of a can cracking, the hiss of bubbles. Its time for a fridge cigaretteor as you might know it, a can of Diet Coke.
Earlier this week, TikTok user @reallyrachelreno posted: Overheard someone call Diet Coke a fridge cigarette and nothings been more true to me since. The video, which has since been viewed 3.5 million times, shows her cracking open a cold one in the sun. The caption: Time for a crispy ciggy in the summer. (ICYMI: The term crispy is used to describe a Diet Coke chilled to perfectionbonus points if served with pebbled ice and a lemon wedge.)
@reallyrachelreno time for a crispy ciggy in the summer @Diet Coke #fyp #dietcoke Cruel Summer – Taylor Swift
For many, the comparison is spot-on. Wow, thats so real. It just takes the edge off, one person commented. I gauge how hard my day is to determine if I get a little fridge cigarette, another added.
In a follow-up video, @reallyrachelreno cleared up a few things based on the comments. According to her analysis: Diet Coke equals Parliaments, regular Coke equals Marlboro Reds, and Coke Zero equals American Spirits. Any other diet soda equals menthol (disparaging). Full-fat Coke in a glass bottle? Thats a cigar.
In recent years, Diet Coke has made a noticeable comeback. Gen Zs version of the smoke break is the “Diet Coke break.” On TikTok, Diet Coke recipes go viral. Gen Z is obsessed with Diet Coke, Snaxshot writer Andrea Hernández noted in a recent newsletter. What is now being dubbed as fridge cigarettes has earned a cultural cachet without Coca-Cola having to do anything . . . but focus on delivering on taste and product. According to Hernández, Coca-Cola has held onto its position as the number one soda in the U.S. by tapping into nostalgia. After all, what captures the sweet nostalgia of summer better than a crisp can of Diet Coke in the sun?
@hauskris the @Diet Coke break origin story – yall arent ready for whats next #dietcokebreak #middaydietcokebreak #dietcoke #narratortrend #narratorsvoice #originstory #storytelling #dietcokerecipe #dietcokeforlife Got To Be Real (s performed by Cheryl Lynn) – Pop Music Workshop
Alongside the rise of the fridge cigarette, actual cigarettes have also crept back into pop culture, as The New York Times reported. In her hit single Headphones On, Addison Rae sings: Guess I gotta accept the pain / Need a cigarette to make me feel better. In What Was That, Lorde recalls: I remember saying then, This is the best cigarette of my life / Well, I want you just like that.
Its a sign of the times. Clean Girl is out. Cigarettes are cool again. And in a world full of prebiotic soda and protein water, sometimes all you really want is a crispy fridge cigarette to take the edge off.
A dozen years after its launch, fintech company Chime rang the bell this morning at the Nasdaq MarketSite in Times Square to celebrate its initial public offering.
One of the most anticipated IPOs of the year, Chime is seemingly already basking in listing-day glory. After announcing that shares would hit the exchanges at a price of $27, investors were champing at the bit, and shares opened much higher, at around $43. That gave the company a valuation of around $18.4 billion.
I never imagined when Chris [Britt, Chimes other cofounder and current CEO] and I met that wed be standing here today, Chime cofounder Ryan King tells Fast Company.
Even if Chime does manage to reach that lofty $17 billion valuation, that is still a far cry from the $25 billion valuation it lassoed in 2021. Notably, another fintech company, eToro Group, also recently went public and has seen shares grow by 18% in the weeks since. Circle Internet Group, a stablecoin issuer, experienced a similar post-IPO boost in recent weeks.
While we dont know where Chimes stock is headed, the companys leadership is happy to mark the milestone. Its a special moment, and Im feeling a lot of gratitude, King says. I figured itd be fun, wed learn some stuff, and build something new. But odds were, it wouldnt work out. That was the extent of it.
But after building the company into one of the biggest fintechs on the market over the last 12 years, King says its a culmination of everything he and Britt have worked toward. Chime offers online banking products and services, many of which don’t add on additional fees or charges that may be associated with the same services at traditional banks. It has roughly 8.6 million members, and during 2014, generated $1.7 billion in revenue, a 31% increase over 2023.
King says that the IPO timing was right for the company, despite volatility in the markets and political space. We have been preparing for this moment for a while. Were not trying to time the market, he says. We felt like the time was right.
As for whats ahead, King says theres still more work to do. Two-thirds of the country are not well served by the big, traditional banks, and we feel like weve created a better model, he says.
Were just getting started. Theres a lot more [work] in front of us than behind us.
Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here.
A cooler-headed look at Apples troubled AI story
Apple said at its WWDC developer conference Monday that the much-hyped Apple Intelligence features it announced at last years event are still not ready to shipand likely wont be until 2026. Now, the company is living with a media narrative that its failed, fallen behind, stuck in neutral, or in retreat on AI.
To be clear, Apples various operating systems already include AI-powered features, from photo cleanup to call screening. And the company did deliver some of the Apple Intelligence tools it promised last year. But those were first-generation large language model functions like text message summarization and writing assistanceunambitious by generative AI standards and not especially useful.
What got everyone excited at WWDC 2024 were the advanced, personalized AI features that allow Siri to leverage a users personal data and carry out actions on their behalf. Some examples:
A user could say, Hey Siri, when does Moms flight land? and Sirihaving access to the users email, contacts, calendar, and fileswould know the answer.
Siri would also be able to see whats on the users screen, so it could, for example, read an address from a text message and add it to a contact card.
A user could tell Siri to take action within an app, such as: Siri, take the red-eye out of this photo, or Send the email I drafted to Judy and Carmen.
Cool stuff, useful, and things Apple is uniquely positioned to offer. So what happened?
Apple software chief Craig Federighi and head of marketing Greg “Joz” Joswiak offered a fuller explanation during a round of media interviews Tuesday. According to them, Apple had a working version one of a new Siri architecture before announcing the personal AI features at WWDC 2024. (In other words: No, the demos werent vaporware.) The Siri team believed they could continue polishing the product until it performed reliably enough for a late 2024 release.
But Federighi explained in an interview with TechRadar that the system continued to generate too many unreliable results in internal testing. When a year-end release became unrealistic, the team aimed for spring 2025. But by then, the system was still inconsistent. Thats when the Siri team concluded it would need to create a version two of the new Siri architectureone that extends across the entire Siri experience. Until that reworked Siri is performing reliably in-house, Federighi said, the company wont speculate on a public release date.
Federighi also argued that Apple is trying to do something with personalized AI that nobody else has really done. Theres some truth to thatespecially if we limit the field to mobile-based AI assistants, and when were talking about doing it at Apples scale. Apple may look like an AI laggard now, but it would look far worse if it shipped something that didnt work or wasnt useful.
Still, its not accurate to say Apple is the only one in the game. In May, Google announced a suite of personalized AI features that will begin rolling out this summer. Its Gemini assistant can use personal data in email to offer summaries, draft messages, provide reminders, and deliver context-aware insights. Gemini Live can analyze objects in the camera view and on the screen. And the agent mode in the Gemini app, built on Project Mariner, can perform multi-step tasks for users both online and within apps.
Apples big mistake, of course, was announcing personal AI features in 2024 that it couldnt deliver in 2024or even 2025. That misstep might not have happened if this were just another set of traditional software updates. But were not in that era anymore. Apple is now operating in the realm of probabilistic computingthe domain of AI models. The usual rules for predicting software maturity and release timelines may no longer apply.
Meta to rebrand itself MetaGPT (just kidding)
Okay, forgive the Onion-esque headline, but it holds a seed of truth. Once again, Mark Zuckerberg is spending billions to push his company to the front of the line in the next big thing in consumer techthis time, its generative AI. (A few years ago, Facebook renamed itself Meta when it bet that the metaverse was the next big thing.)
Now, The New York Times and Bloomberg report that the social media giantafter seeing its Llama models lag behind those from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropicis launching a new generative AI lab with ambitions of achieving superintelligence. (OpenAI, Anthropic, and others are pursuing artificial general intelligence, where AI matches or exceeds human abilities across a wide range of tasks. Superintelligence refers to AI that vastly outperforms humans at many tasks.)
Zuckerberg has reportedly agreed to buy a 49% stake in Alexander Wangs Scale AIa company that specializes in human-labeled and synthetic training data for AI modelsfor nearly $15 billion. This appears to be another acquihire, where Metas primary interest is Wang himself. The 28-year-old will lead the new superintelligence group at Meta. (Microsoft made a similar move when it acquired Inflection AI and brought on its founder and CEO, Mustafa Suleyman.)
Meta is also offering seven to nine figure salaries to attract top researchers to the new lab.
The company already has a major AI figure in Yann LeCun, who leads its core AI research group. But The Times reports that Meta has experienced significant internal friction over how to approach the development and deployment of AI models. The companys focused AI efforts began in 2013 after it failed in a bid to acquire DeepMind, which ultimately went to Google.
Unlike OpenAI and Anthropic, Meta doesnt rely on selling AI models or apps. Its primary business is advertising. Thanks to its massive ad revenue, Meta can afford to open-source its AI models, effectively giving developers free access in hopes of flooding the ecosystem and becoming dominant through ubiquity. But if Zuckerberg succeeds in getting Meta to the front of the superintelligence race, that strategy could shift. The company might begin locking down itsmodels and charging for accessjust like Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic.
Hollywood is going after Midjourney, and it could be just the start
Over the past couple of years, a range of content ownersnews organizations, authors, artists, comics, and record labelshave filed lawsuits against generative AI companies. Their claim: these companies used copyrighted content, usually scraped from the internet, to train AI models without permission or compensation. In response, AI firms often argue that their use of such material falls under the fair use provision of the Copyright Act. OpenAI and Microsoft, for example, have made that argument in an ongoing copyright case brought by The New York Times.
Until now, the big Hollywood studios had mostly stayed on the sidelines. That changed today when the two largest, Universal and Disney, filed a joint copyright infringement lawsuit against Midjourney, one of the original AI image generators. (Midjourney is expected to roll out a new image-to-video feature this month, which may have prompted the legal action.) The studios have been under growing pressure from artists and writers to challenge AI labs over how training data is sourced.
The Disney and Universal suit may be the opening salvo in a much broader conflict between Hollywood and the AI industry. Why start with Midjourney, a relatively small player, when far larger and wealthier AI companies have used the same kinds of scraped, copyrighted data to train their models?
As The New York Times notes, the lawsuit appears to set the stage for something bigger. The language goes beyond a simple dispute between two companies. The plaintiffs argue that the use of copyrighted training data threatens to upend the bedrock incentives of U.S. copyright law that drive American leadership in movies, television and other creative arts.
Stay tuned.
More AI coverage from Fast Company:
Databricks new One dashboard brings AI to the business class
This corny conservative credit card ad signals a very scary future for AI
OpenAI and Anthropic are getting cozier with government
Teaching AI isnt enoughwe need to teach wisdom, too
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