Everybody hates Concur. Brex wants to replace it.
The AT&T “You Will” ads (directed by David Fincher!) were a sensation when they came out 30 years ago — and they were as right as they are confidently wrong, because they’re rooted in so many existing ideas about information. (See: zooming in on a photo of a physical book.) Also, AT&T mostly did weird mergers instead of any of these things but, you know. It’s a good ad.
I got got by a silly Aaron Rodgers-to-the-Jets April Fools’ joke by a local Wisconsin news website, but when I clicked the link there was just an explainer about why they expire their hoaxes at midnight. Clever!
James Vincent laid out the state of the law against the tech last year — it feels like things have escalated significantly since then, but this is an excellent weekend read if you’re looking for a primer on what’s to come. And lol at anyone banking on a consistent or coherent determination of fair use in the courts.
Alex Heath’s latest Command Line newsletter is a dispatch from the Cerebral Valley AI conference, where everyone knew they were playing fast and loose with copyright law, with no answers on how to handle the problem. If the open letters and regulators don’t slow the pace of AI down, the lawsuits certainly will!
Subscribe to Command Line to read the whole thing — the first month is free.
I was frankly amazed that no one onstage had much to say about the growing copyright concern around generative AI. “I don’t think anyone has the answer right now,” Cristóbal Valenzuela, the CEO of an AI startup called Runway that generates videos and images. Stability AI is being sued by Getty for allegedly using photos it didn’t license to train its models. Emad Mostaque declined to comment on the case itself beyond pointing out that he hired “the person who wrote the book on fair use leading our defense.”
There was a lot of talk throughout the day about the importance of letting people opt out of being included in model training, though it’s clear copyright has been an afterthought for the industry to date. I have a feeling that will come back to bite everyone who isn’t already taking this seriously.
Activist investors, unhappy Magic fans, and a D&D licensing battle all at once — oh, and there are Transformers, too.
It’s a super fun visual database of different video techniques and shot types with tons of reference clips. Websites! They’re rad.
[EYECANDY]
