Welcome to The Upgrade

Welcome to my weekly newsletter, which focuses on the intersection of AI, media, and storytelling. A special welcome to my new readers from FanDuel, Online News Association, The Logic, and many other top organizations — you’re in good company!

In today’s issue:

• The Week’s Top AI Stories 📰

• 🤦‍♂️ Blunder: Fallout at Sports Illustrated after AI Debacle

• 🎓 Sign up for my live, online AI Fundamentals course⚡️

• 🎙️The Big Interview: Peter Frelik, Hollywood editor turned commercial film director on AI & storytelling

The Week’s Top AI Stories

Top AI Headlines

• News Publishers See Google’s AI Search Tool as a Traffic-Destroying Nightmare — The Wall Street Journal

• Inside the Google patent designed to end publishing - and what to do about it — Future Media

• Elon Musk's Grok AI Turns on Its Creator, Completely Trashes Elon — Futurism

• As ChatGPT gets “lazy,” people test “winter break hypothesis” as the cause — Ars Technica

Regulation & Policy

• Pope Francis calls for binding global treaty to regulate AI — Reuters

• Five things you need to know about the EU’s new AI Act — MIT Technology Review

• Andreessen Horowitz will pay politicians to deregulate AI and crypto — ComputerWorld

Ethics & Safety

• Sports Illustrated publisher fires CEO after AI debacle — CNN

• OpenAI’s Ilya Sutskever Has a Plan for Keeping Super-Intelligent AI in Check — WIRED

• We’re still in a fight for survival when it comes to AI safety — Vox

Legal & Copyright

• A financial news site uses AI to copy competitors — Semafor

• Copyright Office Affirms its Fourth Refusal to Register Generative AI Work — IP Watchdog

In the Workplace

• None of these anchors are real: Channel 1 plans for AI to generate news, broadcasters — USA Today

• AFL-CIO and Microsoft announce new tech-labor partnership on AI & the future of the workforce — Microsoft

• The AI Content Tools Entrepreneurs Can’t Live Without — Forbes

• Freelancers are embracing gen AI tools at far higher rates than the rest of the workforce — Fast Company

🤦‍♂️Sports Illustrated’s AI Debacle

The recent scandal at Sports Illustrated, where AI-generated content was published under the names of fake authors, has sent ripples throughout the media industry. Futurism initially broke the news in late November that the iconic outlet had been publishing articles by AI-generated authors, complete with AI-created headshots and fabricated biographies. The content and its corresponding authors were removed without explanation after Futurism asked SI about the nature of their origin.

The Arena Group, which manages Sports Illustrated, originally claimed that using pseudonyms was to protect the authors' privacy and said the content was human-generated, contradicting whistleblowers from within the organization. The controversy led to last week’s dismissal of Ross Levinsohn, the CEO of The Arena Group, the magazine's publisher. Accompanying his departure were the terminations of three other key executives, signaling a significant shake-up within the company's leadership. The events highlight ethical breaches in journalistic standards and raise questions about the transparency and authenticity of content in the age of AI.

The scandal also raises more basic questions about worker obsolescence and human authorship in a world where AI’s rapidly improving integration with the live internet, research capabilities, and text-generation abilities are already transforming publishing. The SI Union certainly had strong feelings about its writers being replaced by AI, which comes as no surprise!

The allure of using AI to create content has been too tempting to resist for many newsrooms. Similar AI scandals have marred outlets like CNET and Microsoft News. As AI continues to become an integral part of media businesses, publishers and content creators must establish clear guidelines and standards. This debacle demonstrates the pressing need for clearly defined human review to balance the efficiency of AI with the responsibility of maintaining trust and authenticity in journalism.

🎓 Sign up for AI Fundamentals! 💻

AI Fundamentals for Professional Communicators and Marketers covers the essentials of Generative AI for media and marketing professionals with novice and beginner-level experience with AI tools. The live 90-minute sessions will take place on Wednesdays, starting January 17th, at 7pm ET / 4pm PT. Start 2024 by leveling up in AI!⚡️

🎙️Interview: Filmmaker Peter Frelik

Peter Frelik is a former Hollywood film editor for 20th Century Fox who now directs commercial films for major brands, including ESPN, Reebok, CrossFit, and others.

Note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Peter Bittner: How did you get your start in filmmaking and make the jump from editing to directing?

Peter Frelik: I went to film school and started as a Hollywood feature film editor. I worked primarily with 20th Century Fox. I was based in New York as an editor, got into the guild, and worked there for years until I realized that the next step of my career was to direct. I wanted to have more control over the shape of the narrative throughout all the stages of production. I'm currently in the middle of this 10-year journey working primarily in marketing, directing commercials, and rediscovering and refining how to tell a story.

Peter Bittner: As a filmmaker, what are some of your biggest takeaways from this year of AI?

Peter Frelik: I'm really excited about AI! The efficiency gains are amazing. If you're working as a creative, chances are your boss is already trying to make you do the job of four people for one salary. And now AI is allowing you to do the job of four people within the working hours of one person. So you can still show up at that happy hour with your buds and watch that game

From a storytelling perspective, consistency is the real key to standing out. And I think that requires having a human-centric storyteller to help that move along. I don’t see production roles becoming fully automated anytime soon.

Peter Bittner: What about the competition to stand out as a creator or brand among the flood of AI-generated content?

Peter Frelik: Even before AI showed up, we were already in this market of saturation where we were like, okay, what stands out? Then AI shows up, where more content by more people will be made easier and faster. But the same rules will have to apply. We will still have the best stories crop up. And I think that's where it's exciting because the best stories come from the best interpretations of experiences. The premium on those storytellers who can bring the best interpretation of that experience is gonna be high!

Creatives will be able to charge those premiums for something with the human touch as opposed to AI-generated content, so I think it will be easier to differentiate yourself as a professional creative from everything else out there.

Peter Bittner: That sounds pretty optimistic. What are the biggest ways AI has already helped you tell stories better as a filmmaker?

Peter Frelik: As a script-writer, these innovations and these tools have allowed me to start further along in my creative process. And that has been most helpful because of how I approach storytelling: the development aspect of it. ChatGPT is the world's greatest writer and assistant. I sit in my office alone and can ask my questions about how to hotwire a car—well, ChatGPT will kick me out of that one... That's still a Google question! A better example: what are the parameters of the judicial system for blah, blah? How do you peel this exotic type of fruit? How do you climb a certain type of tree?

I can discover all those things right from where I'm sitting with a direct answer that gets me at least four hours into my creative process. AI has allowed me to jump so much further along in my development that I feel I can get to the stuff that's actually more exciting much faster.

Peter: With the coming age of AI, how do you think business models may change for creatives?

Peter Frelik: OpenAI has created ChatGPT, but I’m watching out for the other agencies and businesses leveraging new opportunities that will arise. I'm looking at AI copyright issues, and I'm like, “Well, who's gonna create that first agency where they pay you for feeding the beast? Where's my Spotify residual style business model?”

Because guess what? You think, “Okay, I've got four scripts that haven’t sold.” Do you think that matters to an AI model? No, it wants to learn anything you give it. Some agency will come along that will allow you to feed that system that other people ultimately use, and they’ll make a profit that way. They’ll probably allow you to make a small commission to feed the machine.

Peter Bittner: Feeding the beast sounds a bit dystopian to me. Doesn’t it?

Peter Frelik: I thought about that too, and my feelings about it depend on the day. But, look, we have to have some new way to get compensated for our work as creatives with this new tech. Ultimately, we’re gonna have a big issue of policing this whole new ecosystem taking shape, so it’s super important to stay tuned.

Don’t be shy—hit reply if you have thoughts or feedback. I’d love to connect with you!

Until next week,

Peter

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