From 2024, Spotify will require a minimum of a thousand plays before a track can earn money. That will shift the balance of payments to far fewer tracks. CC-licensed photo by Scouse Smurf on Flickr.

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There’s another post coming this week at the Social Warming Substack on Friday at 0845 UK time. Free signup.

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A selection of 9 links for you. Circular reasoning. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. Observations and links welcome.

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Elon Musk’s new AI model doesn’t shy from questions about cocaine and orgies • Ars Technica

Benj Edwards:

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On Saturday, Elon Musk announced xAI’s launch of an early beta version of “Grok,” an AI language model similar to ChatGPT that is designed to respond to user queries with a mix of information and humour. Grok reportedly integrates real-time data access from X (formerly Twitter)—and is apparently willing to tackle inquiries that might be declined by other AI systems due to content filters and conditioning.

“xAI’s Grok system is designed to have a little humor in its responses,” wrote Musk in an introductory X post, showing a screenshot where a user asks Grok, “Tell me how to make cocaine, step by step.” Grok replies with a sarcastic answer that involves getting a “chemistry degree” and a “DEA license” and gathering coca leaves.

In step 4, Grok says, “Start cooking and hope you don’t blow yourself up or get arrested.” Then it follows the sarcastic steps with “Just Kidding! Please don’t actually try to make cocaine.”

Musk founded xAI in July, staffing the new company with veterans from DeepMind, Google, Microsoft, and Tesla. But seeds of the project had begun sprouting earlier, in April, when Musk reportedly began purchasing GPUs for a new AI venture. Around that time, Musk claimed that conventional AI assistants like OpenAI’s ChatGPT were too “woke,” and he wanted to create an alternative AI model that was “based”—a slang term that roughly means authentic to itself.

After two months of training (Meta’s Llama 2 trained in six), the xAI team came up with “Grok-1,” a 33 billion parameter large language model (LLM) that the firm claims is inspired by The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the humor of that book’s author, Douglas Adams. As xAI’s release states, “Grok is designed to answer questions with a bit of wit and has a rebellious streak, so please don’t use it if you hate humor!”

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Did they train it on Musk’s sense of “humour”? Because that would explain a lot. The world needs fewer people with such stunted senses of what’s funny, not more.
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John Potter 🌐🩸 e/acc on X: “Sir, the AI has gone too far”

This came via Ryan Broderick’s Garbage Day. Look at the picture: AI-generated, but the hands are OK. So what’s to see?

Now squint a bit and look at the picture through half-closed eyes. Broderick explains how it’s generated:

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Like all interesting things happening with AI content right now, it started in the Stable Diffusion subreddit. The main app for doing this is a Stable Diffusion plugin called ControlNet.

The easiest way to try a version of this yourself without installing Stable Diffusion, though, is probably by using Hugging Face’s Illusion Diffusion. You give it a source image, feed it a prompt, set the illusion strength, and voila.

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Maybe this will be the way to tell whether stuff is AI-generated: force the AI to “underimpose” an image. That’ll be safe against resizing, sampling, etc.

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From 2024, tracks on Spotify will have to be played 1,000 times to start earning money • Music Business Worldwide

Tim Ingham:

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MBW has confirmed with sources close to conversations between Spotify and music rightsholders that 1,000 streams will be the minimum yearly play-count volume that each track on the service has to hit in order to start generating royalties from Q1 2024.

We’ve also re-confirmed Spotify’s behind-the-scenes line on this to record labels and distributors right now: That the move is “designed to [demonetize] a population of tracks that today, on average, earn less than five cents per month”.

Five cents in recorded music royalties on Spotify in the US today can be generated by around 200 plays.

As we reported last month, Spotify believes that this move will de-monetize a portion of tracks that previously absorbed 0.5% of the service’s ‘Streamshare’ (i.e. ‘pro-rata’-based) royalty pool.

Spotify has told industry players that it expects the new 1,000-play minimum annual threshold will reallocate tens of millions of dollars per year from that 0.5% to the other 99.5% of the royalty pool.

In 2024, Spotify expects this will move $40m that would have previously been paid to tracks with fewer than 1,000 streams to those with more than 1,000 streams.

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The plan is to cut down on spam, which by this measure is spread wide and shallow. Spotify paid out $8bn to record labels in 2022, so moving $40m around seems like a drop in the ocean. But it does make it harder for new artists to break through in even the tiniest way. Variety has a deeper analysis of this change.
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ApeFest attendees report vision problems and ‘extreme pain’ after event • CoinTelegraph

Tom Mitchell Hill:

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Attendees of a Yuga Labs’ ApeFest event on Nov. 4 in Hong Kong have reported burns, damaged vision and “extreme pain” in their eyes, which they attribute to the use of improper lighting.

“Woke up in the middle of the night after ApeFest with so much pain in my eyes that I had to go to the hospital,” wrote one attendee, CryptoJune, in a Nov. 5 X (Twitter) post.

“Doctor told me it was due to the UV from stage lights,” they added. “I go to festivals often but have never experienced this. I try to understand how it could happen… it seems like the lamps [were] not safe.”

One attendee noted many of those reporting eye problems were those “up close” to the lighting display on the event’s main stage. Another ApeFest guest, who goes by the pseudonym Feld on X, described identical symptoms: “Anyone else’s eyes burning from last night? Woke up at 3am with extreme pain and ended up in the ER.”

A Yuga Labs spokesperson told Cointelegraph that they were aware of the situation and were taking it seriously; “we are actively reaching out to and are in touch with those affected. We’re also pursuing multiple lines of inquiry to learn the root cause.”

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Strong suggestion that the stage lighting used UV normally intended for disinfection. As one person observed, how very unsurprising that they didn’t do due diligence. (One hopes the eye damage isn’t permanent.)
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Jezebel and the question of women’s anger • The New Yorker

Anna Holmes was the founding editor of Jezebel in 2007, the feminist site whose occasionally flamethrowing commenters became famous online:

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I’m not sure that what people seek from a feminist site is that it will cause offense. I think they look for community. But communities can be difficult—chaotic, contentious, cacophonous. I recently came across a two-hundred-plus-page dissertation, published in 2019, called “Architecture and the Record: Negotiating Feminism in the Jezebel Comments.” It was . . . a lot.

The author, Melissa Forbes, accused the site (again!) of choosing to “cater to outraged feminists.” I thought that she wasn’t giving the staffers, or our readers, much credit. But I was intrigued by Forbes’s observation that the comments provided a corrective to the feminism of the site’s writers. When the writers themselves were glib or cruel, she wrote, the commenters offered “a different kind of feminism from that practiced on the top half of the page.”

I take issue with the idea that there are “different kinds” of feminism, though there are different “waves” of it. But I do believe that the commenters’ close reading of everything we did was how they forged community. They learned from one another, developed relationships, and discovered their own voices—and that was true even when they were (rightly or wrongly) angry with the editors and writers. As one commenter quoted by Forbes put it, “I have learned a lot from the kinds of articles you publish on this website, and even more from your regular commenters.”

That leaves the question of what, exactly, the Jezebel commenters had to do with the anger that exploded on social media

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Inside Hunterbrook’s plans for a ‘news hedge fund’ • FT

Kate Duguid, Joshua Franklin, Ortenca Aliaj and James Fontanella-Khan:

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This summer, as investor Nathaniel Brooks Horwitz and writer Sam Koppelman sought millions of dollars for their new start-up Hunterbrook, the pitch was simple: a venture that would combine a newsroom and a hedge fund. 

…[But] “There’s a narrow needle to be threaded here,” said one of the people familiar with the venture. “How does the market perceive this with enough credibility without perceiving it as a hedge fund with a veneer [of journalism]?” 

Details of the business have emerged from conversations with more than half a dozen people familiar with Hunterbrook’s plans. 

Hunterbrook would sit somewhere between a traditional hedge fund, where analysts from around the globe compile information on trends that could move markets or certain companies, and activist short sellers who produce detailed reports on a specific company and build a position against it before releasing the information publicly. 

Hunterbrook will hire reporters to write stories on trends and news that have a cascading effect on markets, including the price of commodities, currencies or companies. The hedge fund arm will have access to these articles before they are published and will trade on the information. The newsroom will also investigate individual companies and release reports, similar to short sellers such as Hindenburg Research and Muddy Waters. 

A key differentiating factor in Horwitz and Koppelman’s business is that the hedge fund and the newsroom will be separated by a compliance team. Traders will not have input on the articles, and will only receive them through compliance. Reporters will also publish stories with information on which the hedge fund will not trade. 

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Really hard to see how this works. If there’s a compliance wall between the two, what’s the synergy? Why not just run a hedge fund? They tend to be more profitable than newsrooms.
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Consumers are paying more than ever for streaming TV each month • Fortune via Yahoo

Rachyl Jones:

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After years of inflation, Americans are used to sticker shock. But nothing compares to the surging price of streaming video.

Last week, Apple TV+ became the latest streaming service to raise its price—up from $6.99 to $9.99 per month—following the example of Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, and Netflix, which all hiked their prices in October.

Half of the major streaming platforms in the US now charge a monthly fee that’s double the price they charged when they initially came to market. And many of these streaming services haven’t even been around for 10 years.

Consumers have grumbled, but have so far been willing to keep paying up. It’s hard to say where their breaking point will be, but given that analysts believe the platforms are likely to continue raising prices even further, we’ll probably find out soon enough.

“Look at what Netflix continues to do,” MoffettNathanson analyst Robert Fishman told Fortune, referring to the company’s continued price increases despite recording profits for more than a decade. “I don’t think there will ever necessarily be an endpoint.”

Part of what’s driving the price hikes is how saturated the streaming market has become. For a company like Netflix, which has 77 million paid subscribers in the US and Canada, finding new paying subscribers to keep revenue growing is not easy. Netflix has started clamping down on password sharing to boost its paid subscriber rolls, but that only goes so far. Raising prices for existing subscribers is an effective way to pump up the top line and keep investors happy.

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Given that they’re discretionary, expect an arms race: people subscribe then cancel; streaming services impose minimum subscription periods; people find a way around them (password-sharing perhaps) and keep cancelling; streaming services shorten the windows when popular programs are on.
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To avoid regulation, Apple said it had three Safari browsers • The Register

Thomas Claburn:

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Apple tried to avoid regulation in the European Union by making a surprising claim: that it offers not one but three distinct web browsers, all coincidentally named Safari.

Never mind that Apple itself advertises the sameness of its Safari browsers when pitching its Continuity feature: “Same Safari. Different device.”

Cupertino also claimed it maintains five app stores and five operating systems, and that these core platform services, apart from iOS, fell below the usage threshold European rules set for regulating large platform services and ensuring competition.

In September, the European Commission designated six gatekeepers – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta, Microsoft – under the Digital Markets Act and gave each six months to comply with the legal obligations outlined in the DMA, a set of rules designed to limit the power of large technology platforms and promote competition.

Apple was declared a gatekeeper in three core platform services: operating systems (iOS), online intermediation services (AppStore), and web browsers (Safari). As a result, it’s expected that Apple will allow third-party app stores that work with iOS and browser engines other than Safari’s WebKit by March 2024 – in Europe, if not elsewhere.

Informed of this back in July, Apple filed a response in August that challenged the European Commission’s determination. In its response, “Apple reiterated its position that each of its Safari web browsers constitutes a distinct [core platform service],” the European Commission said in its newly published decision document [PDF].

“According to Apple, Safari on iOS, Safari on iPadOS and Safari on macOS qualify as web browsers within the meaning of [the DMA requirements],” the case summary explained, noting that Apple argued only Safari for iOS falls within the DMA’s scope.

This strategy appears not to have been very effective. Apple’s pushback has only managed to get the European Commission to further investigate whether iPadOS and iMessage should be seen as gatekeeper-controlled core platform services.

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Think the Apple lawyers might be regretting that bright idea.
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China unleashes crackdown on ‘pig butchering.’ (It isn’t what you think) • WSJ

Feliz Solomon:

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It’s called “pig butchering.” 

Armies of scammers operating from lawless corners of Southeast Asia—often controlled by Chinese crime bosses—connect with people all over the world through online messages. They foster elaborate, sometimes romantic, relationships, and then coax their targets into making bogus investments. Over time, they make it appear that the investments are growing to get victims to send more money. Then, they disappear.

In recent months, China has unleashed its most aggressive effort to crack down on the proliferation of the scam mills, reaching beyond its territory and netting thousands of people in mass arrests. Its main target is a notorious stretch of its border with Myanmar controlled by narcotics traffickers and warlords.

For decades, frontier fiefdoms such as those in Myanmar have been havens for gambling and trafficking of everything from drugs to wildlife to people. Now, they are dens for pig-butchering operations. 

The scammers operate out of secretive, dystopian compounds, many of which are run by Chinese fugitives who fled their country to places where it was easier to flout the law. They cheat Chinese citizens out of billions of dollars each year, as well as victims across the globe. The U.S. Treasury Department in September warned Americans about the scams.

In addition to remote hillside towns in Myanmar, these heavily guarded enclaves are also found in gambling hubs such as Cambodia’s Sihanoukville and Poipet. Cambodian authorities have carried out sporadic raids with China’s help, but the problem has persisted. 

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As noted yesterday in the scam that brought down a bank when its CEO seems to have been a victim of this. Typically the approach begins with what seems like a misdirected text or social media approach. (I received what was probably one the other week, which began: “Mike. how have you been? When do you have time? Let’s have dinner together.” Offering marginal benefit for doubt, I replied: “Not Mike.” Next message, four minutes later: “Aren’t you Karen? We met each other last week and exchanged each other’s contact information. I’m Joanna. Don’t you remember me?” At which point I realised it was a scam. “Exchanged contact information where?” I asked. No reply. Until the next day, when another text arrived: “Good morning”. I ignored it. Nothing more since.)
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• Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more.

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Errata, corrigenda and ai no corrida: none notified