Stars Learn to Love Their AI Doppelgangers

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By Jon Steinberg [email protected] ­om Profile and archive → Follow Jon on Twitter

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6:00 AM PDT

Hi, welcome to your Weekend.

There’s been a lot of bed-wetting down in Southern California this summer about the dangers of the artificial intelligence boom. Maybe bed-wetting isn’t fair: The Hollywood actors who are striking, in part, over how their AI-generated likenesses will be scanned, stored and monetized, have valid concerns. And they certainly can’t trust their studio minders to do right by them.

However, it’s telling that a growing number of celebrities and their estates have already transitioned from AI denial into deal-making. As Julia reports in this week’s cover story , stars and their agents are quietly beginning to take meetings with a number of generative AI startups. These companies are offering stars the chance to claim and license their own digital twins—AI versions of them that could appear in games, marketing, consumer goods and new artistic productions. Some of these companies even promise to fight deepfake fire with fire: One firm Julia highlights, Reimagia, promises to “actively seek out” unauthorized use of clients’ digital likenesses and “issue takedowns on an artist’s behalf.”

The striking actors aren’t wrong to be worried: The brave new world of digital doubles is undoubtedly going to empower bad actors and produce outcomes that could make the Black Mirror episode “Joan Is Awful” look like a true-crime documentary. But it also will carry real upside, and not just for celebrities.

As Julia writes, this is “a case where the experience of famed artists might offer us a peek at our own future." Stars may not live like the rest of us, but by establishing “the contractual language, court decisions and ethical standards” overseeing digital doubles, they may teach us how to defend our own turf in the age of AI.

Now onto this weekend’s stories...

the big read

‘Don’t Put Your Head in the Sand’: Stars Are Quietly Inking Deals to License Their AI Doubles

As Hollywood strikes grind on and generative AI companies multiply, celebrities and their estates are mulling their options. Julia takes us inside the world of celebrity digital twins, where new monetization opportunities await big names willing to scan their likenesses.

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Education Meets Insulation: Bento Boxes, Smartwatches and Other Back-to-School Buys

With school starting in the coming weeks, Annie asked Silicon Valley parents for their must-have back-to-school swag. Low-tech tech seems to be this year’s theme, from audio players to educational games.

Reading: The chilling reality behind spam texts Odds are you’ve gotten one of these texts in the last year: An unknown number says a friendly hello, but gets your name wrong and references some event you had nothing to do with. These ridiculous-seeming messages are in fact a portal to so-called “pig butchering scams,” in which texters lure unwitting victims into online romances and trick them into forking over their savings in cryptocurrency. Apparently $10 billion has been lost to this type of fraud. But the person on the other end of the spam is probably a victim too: This week’s Businessweek cover story (an excerpt from Zeke Faux’s forthcoming book “Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall”) unravels the unfathomably dark backstory, which traces back to human trafficking rings in Cambodia and Myanmar. The people sending those texts are allegedly being held captive, beaten, starved and sometimes killed. And the Chinese gangsters behind it all have been evading capture thanks to the anonymity granted by crypto exchanges like ZBXS and untraceable cryptocurrencies like Tether. —Julia

Watching: The greatest horror film never made  Remember the cult classic slasher film “Zepotha”? No? Maybe because it’s fake, the warped creation of TikToker Emily Jeffri, who urged her followers to play along. “We can convince thousands of people that this weirdly titled 80s horror film actually exists,” she wrote . The TikTokers then mobilized, spamming comment sections with exclamations like, “You remind me so much of Cole from Zepotha!” The trend was peak gaslighting, with the #Zepotha hashtag garnering over 160 million views in the last five days. It’s not the first time TikTok has spawned an intricate, crowd-sourced, mass hallucination—recall last November, when TikTokers created a fake economic system built on “dabloons.” But generative AI has taken the fake flick’s lore to the next level. Users have posted hyper-realistic movie posters , AI-generated pictures of the film’s “cast” and Zepotha-themed TikTok filters. We all know what comes next: someone in Hollywood buys the rights to “Zepotha,” and turns it into a real cult classic after all. —Margaux

Noticing: A TikTok-fueled college dorm spending boom Dorm essentials used to amount to some bedding and maybe a desk lamp, probably from Target. Now students are showing up to campus with bespoke furniture, designer linens, neon signs and color coordinated settees. According to CNBC , household spending on back-to-college purchases has shot up by 40% since 2019 to about $1,367 per student. Blame TikTok, where dorm transformations have become a hit genre. Take this pink floral TCU dorm , with wallpaper and West Elm-style furniture. Or this double at the University of Alabama , basically unrecognizable from its original state and featuring custom signs lit up with each roommate’s name. Or this  dorm at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville , where the students hung framed photos of their families wearing matching outfits. So, if you have a kid heading to college this fall, prepare for sticker shock…and maybe a professional photo shoot. —Annie

Makes You Think

Guys, therapy is a lot cheaper.

Until next Weekend, thanks for reading.

—Jon

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The Weekend. ai. electric vehicles. entertainment. By Jon Steinberg [email protected] ­om Profile and archive → Follow Jon on Twitter. Subscribe Now. 6:00 AM PDT. Hi, welcome to your Weekend. There’s been a lot of bed-wetting down in Southern California this summer about the dangers of the artificial intelligence boom. Maybe bed-wetting isn’t fair: The Hollywood actors who are striking, in part, over how their AI-generated likenesses will be scanned, stored and monetized, have valid concerns. And they certainly can’t trust their studio minders to do right by them. However, it’s telling that a growing number of celebrities and their estates have already transitioned from AI denial into deal-making. As Julia reports in this week’s cover story , stars and their agents are quietly beginning to take meetings with a number of generative AI startups. These companies are offering stars the chance to claim and license their own digital twins—AI versions of them that could appear in games, marketing, consumer goods and new artistic productions. Some of these companies even promise to fight deepfake fire with fire: One firm Julia highlights, Reimagia, promises to “actively seek out” unauthorized use of clients’ digital likenesses and “issue takedowns on an artist’s behalf.” The striking actors aren’t wrong to be worried: The brave new world of digital doubles is undoubtedly going to empower bad actors and produce outcomes that could make the Black Mirror episode “Joan Is Awful” look like a true-crime documentary. But it also will carry real upside, and not just for celebrities. As Julia writes, this is “a case where the experience of famed artists might offer us a peek at our own future." Stars may not live like the rest of us, but by establishing “the contractual language, court decisions and ethical standards” overseeing digital doubles, they may teach us how to defend our own turf in the age of AI. Now onto this weekend’s stories... the big read. ‘Don’t Put Your Head in the Sand’: Stars Are Quietly Inking Deals to License Their AI Doubles. As Hollywood strikes grind on and generative AI companies multiply, celebrities and their estates are mulling their options. Julia takes us inside the world of celebrity digital twins, where new monetization opportunities await big names willing to scan their likenesses. electric slide. Waiting for Cybertruck: Some Tesla Customers Have Lost Faith During the Long Road to Production. After years of delays, Tesla’s brutalist truck is inching closer to delivery. Reporter Tim Stevens reached out to a dozen current and former Tesla fans who put $100 down on a Cybertruck reservation, and found that some have developed reservations of a different sort. market research. Education Meets Insulation: Bento Boxes, Smartwatches and Other Back-to-School Buys. With school starting in the coming weeks, Annie asked Silicon Valley parents for their must-have back-to-school swag. Low-tech tech seems to be this year’s theme, from audio players to educational games. Reading: The chilling reality behind spam texts Odds are you’ve gotten one of these texts in the last year: An unknown number says a friendly hello, but gets your name wrong and references some event you had nothing to do with. These ridiculous-seeming messages are in fact a portal to so-called “pig butchering scams,” in which texters lure unwitting victims into online romances and trick them into forking over their savings in cryptocurrency. Apparently $10 billion has been lost to this type of fraud. But the person on the other end of the spam is probably a victim too: This week’s Businessweek cover story (an excerpt from Zeke Faux’s forthcoming book “Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall”) unravels the unfathomably dark backstory, which traces back to human trafficking rings in Cambodia and Myanmar. The people sending those texts are allegedly being held captive, beaten, starved and sometimes killed. And the Chinese gangsters behind it all have been evading capture thanks to the anonymity granted by crypto exchanges like ZBXS and untraceable cryptocurrencies like Tether. —Julia. Watching: The greatest horror film never made  Remember the cult classic slasher film “Zepotha”? No? Maybe because it’s fake, the warped creation of TikToker Emily Jeffri, who urged her followers to play along. “We can convince thousands of people that this weirdly titled 80s horror film actually exists,” she wrote . The TikTokers then mobilized, spamming comment sections with exclamations like, “You remind me so much of Cole from Zepotha!” The trend was peak gaslighting, with the #Zepotha hashtag garnering over 160 million views in the last five days. It’s not the first time TikTok has spawned an intricate, crowd-sourced, mass hallucination—recall last November, when TikTokers created a fake economic system built on “dabloons.” But generative AI has taken the fake flick’s lore to the next level. Users have posted hyper-realistic movie posters , AI-generated pictures of the film’s “cast” and Zepotha-themed TikTok filters. We all know what comes next: someone in Hollywood buys the rights to “Zepotha,” and turns it into a real cult classic after all. —Margaux. Noticing: A TikTok-fueled college dorm spending boom Dorm essentials used to amount to some bedding and maybe a desk lamp, probably from Target. Now students are showing up to campus with bespoke furniture, designer linens, neon signs and color coordinated settees. According to CNBC , household spending on back-to-college purchases has shot up by 40% since 2019 to about $1,367 per student. Blame TikTok, where dorm transformations have become a hit genre. Take this pink floral TCU dorm , with wallpaper and West Elm-style furniture. Or this double at the University of Alabama , basically unrecognizable from its original state and featuring custom signs lit up with each roommate’s name. Or this  dorm at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville , where the students hung framed photos of their families wearing matching outfits. So, if you have a kid heading to college this fall, prepare for sticker shock…and maybe a professional photo shoot. —Annie. Makes You Think. Guys, therapy is a lot cheaper. Until next Weekend, thanks for reading. —Jon. Weekend Editor, The Information. Arm Flexes Its Pricing Muscle. Pinterest Shopping Push Crowded by TikTok Efforts. Crypto Venture Capital Firms Face Fundraising Woes. GPU Cluster Startup ‘Together’ in Talks For Third Financing in 9 Months. Arm Flexes Its Pricing Muscle. Google Trial Puts LLMs On the Docket; Databricks Projects Explosive AI Spending. ‘Cringe’ TikTok Videos Help a Singer Break Out. GPU Cluster Startup ‘Together’ in Talks For Third Financing in 9 Months. ‘Cringe’ TikTok Videos Help a Singer Break Out. Latest Articles   Exclusive startups venture capital Why the Two Biggest Winners in Instacart’s IPO Clashed By Cory Weinberg · Sept. 13, 2023 5:57 PM PDT By far, the two biggest winners of Instacart’s long-awaited initial public offering next week will be the grocery company’s largest individual shareholder, co-founder and former CEO Apoorva Mehta, and its largest venture backer, Sequoia Capital. Mehta’s profit from the listing stands to be more than $780 million, while Sequoia could make more than $1 billion. More than two... Google Lays Off Hundreds of Recruiters By Jon Victor · Sept. 13, 2023. Amazon Adds Ex-Intuit CEO to Board By Theo Wayt · Sept. 13, 2023. SpaceX’s Starlink Saw $1.4 Billion in 2022 Revenue By Becky Peterson · Sept. 13, 2023. Join live video Q&A’s. Exclusive. startups e-commerce. Dave Clark’s Last Days at Flexport. Dave Clark knew something was off when the executive chairman of Flexport, Ryan Petersen, showed up on the video call on Wednesday with Robert Swan, a board member at the freight forwarder. Exclusive. e-commerce amazon. Why Dave Clark and Ryan Petersen Butted Heads at Flexport. Dave Clark, a veteran Amazon executive who helped transform the company into a logistics juggernaut, made a huge splash last summer when he announced he was joining Flexport, a startup looking to shake up the old school freight business that had ballooned to an $8 billion valuation with backing from SoftBank and Andreessen Horowitz. Deals. startups venture capital. Venture Firms Hang the ‘For Sale’ Sign on Portfolios. Some of the most active startup investors have been hanging a “for sale” sign on their portfolios at a time when venture investors are finding it increasingly difficult to raise new venture funds. Exclusive. cloud ai. Nvidia Muscles Into Cloud Services, Rankling AWS. Last year, Nvidia made an unusual proposal to Amazon Web Services and other cloud providers that have long been the biggest buyers of Nvidia’s specialized artificial intelligence server chips. Exclusive. media/telecom Finance. Can Yahoo Be Saved? How Apollo Is Rebuilding an Internet Icon. When speaking about the company he inherited in September 2021, Jim Lanzone is remarkably blunt. “I always knew these products had seen better days,” said Lanzone, the CEO of Yahoo, over a video call in late August. Exclusive. startups ai. Inside Databricks’ Contrarian Playbook: Burn $1.5 Billion to Buy Big Growth. Much of the startup world has gotten a clear message from investors: Stop bleeding cash. Databricks, one of the software startups trying to benefit most from rabid corporate interest in artificial intelligence, is taking a different tack—and getting rewarded for it.