Roundup: Twitter funds far-right and the human cost of AI

Read to the end for a warning to entertainment execs

The actors have joined the writers on the picket lines! If you didn’t catch my update on Friday, you can read it here. I’d be lying if I said I’m not excited for where this could go and what it might mean for the industry. But, of course, there was plenty of news other than that this week!

In the roundup, I focused on Twitter’s payments to far-right content creators and some important stories published this week about the content moderators behind Google and OpenAI’s popular chatbots. If you’re not already a paid subscriber, upgrade to get my thoughts on those things and a bunch of recommended reads, labor updates, and other news you might have missed!

On top of all that, I published my first ever piece in The New Republic this week on how Silicon Valley promised us a wonderful future of transportation, then just stuffed our cars full of digital tech so they could pull some profit out of them. Plus, on Tech Won’t Save Us, I spoke to Antony Loewenstein about how Israeli weapons companies test their products on occupied Palestinians before using it as part of their sales pitch when they sell it abroad. Truly despicable actions.

‎Tech Won’t Save Us: How Israel Uses Occupation to Develop Military Tech w/ Antony Loewenstein on Apple Podcasts

Anyway, have a great week and enjoy this week’s roundup!

— Paris

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Twitter funds the far-right

Months after first promising it, Twitter started making payouts to creators earlier this week — but it’s a very select group. Users like Ian Miles Cheong and accused rapist Andrew Tate posted screenshots showing the five-figure payouts they were getting from the platform, but it appears the initial group was not just predominately right-wing, but chosen by the company — and likely Elon Musk himself.