There's been a lot going on in the media this year, and I'm going to use this update post to try and address some of the topics I'm not willing or able to write full posts for. If you're unfamiliar with this feature, I address multiple posts in the same entry because I usually don't have enough to say about each of them individually to warrant separate updates. This time around, the issue is also that there's too much that I feel I should be addressing, but I simply don't have the bandwidth to do more than acknowledge these issues in a semi-timely fashion. It's getting dystopian, folks.
The Misinformation Age and They Broke Google (A Rant) - Two years after ChatGPT got everyone's attention, generative AI is everywhere, and it's awful. It's kind of impressive how quickly it got so awful. Spurred on by Silicon Valley and the finance bros pumping money into the technology, large language model AIs have been disruptive in the worst way, impacting education, health, media, and the way the internet works most notably. Google and Bing now insist on foisting AI-aided search results on us, which are constantly presenting nonsense AI hallucinations as facts. ChatGPT and Grok are literally worsening people's mental health by telling them what they want to hear to dangerous extremes. Everyone's cheating and fabricating evidence for outrageous lies, including our lawmakers, which way too many people are willing to take at face value. Amanda Guizburg's Diabolus Ex Machina substack post scared the hell out of me. And it's bad for the environment too!
AI and Movies that Never Existed and Playing With AI Image Generators - I know that I'm probably in the minority, but it got very easy very quickly to spot most AI generated images. There's so much of it in circulation now, and there's absolutely no quality control, because the people who are using AI images the most heavily are the ones who are interested in quantity over quality. And boy is there quantity. This is already massively impacting image search results, and it's starting to seep into videos as well. And while we're on the subject…
The Joy of Fan-Made Trailers - What used to be a fun little editing hobby has turned into a massive problem on Youtube. Fake trailers are inundating video sharing platforms, and it turns out that way too many people have no idea how to spot them. I can only distinguish the real ones from the fakes because I'm a movie obsessive who is tracking upcoming movies months and years in advance, so I know which movies don't actually exist. Even so I've been tripped up a few times, thinking someone's dropped a highly anticipated trailer a week or two early. The studios are getting involved now because the latest wave of fake trailers are causing actual confusion, so Youtube is demonetizing some of the worst offenders. Still, I have to admit it is fun to consider the possibilities of Tom Hiddleston as James Bond, a "Titanic" remake starring Zendaya, and Tom Hardy as Popeye the Sailor Man. Just label these things more clearly, and we'll all be better off.
The News is Bad - Where do we even start? Donald Trump has launched multiple assaults on the news media, pushing FCC investigations and lawsuits against CBS and ABC, and making moves to defund PBS, VOA, and NPR. This has created a chilling effect across nearly all the major media platforms, with "60 Minutes" producer Bill Owens resigning after CBS capitulated. Terry Moran was fired from ABC for tweets calling out Stephen Miller. American journalism is in a state of crisis, with misinformation running rampant, and everybody is scared to contradict the current administration. Even Fox News gets flak for stating basic facts when Trump decides to take offense. I'd talk about the state of Twitter and the major American newspapers, but I'm depressed enough already. Let's move on to a topic that has nothing to do with politics.
China's Search For a Crossover Hit - "Nezha 2," at the time of writing, is currently the fifth highest grossing film of all time, the highest grossing Chinese film, and the highest grossing animated film. China's relationship with Hollywood has cooled considerably over the last few years. China no longer needs to make crossover hits, because they're doing just fine making blockbuster movies for Chinese audiences. As for Hollywood, after all the effort that was put into making "Shang-Chi" China-friendly, and it was still so roundly dismissed, it felt like everyone just gave up. That means fewer awkward Sino-American co-productions, which suits me just fine.
Regime Change at Warner Bros. - So, Warner Bros. Discovery lost $11 billion dollars in 2024, decided to split the company into two parts, and Max is now HBO Max again. Gee whiz. Well, at least their box office record is pretty good this year.
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