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UK prime minister tells MPs a trade war is ‘in nobody’s interests’ View the full article

Audiences are used to Hollywood mining pre-existing material for movies. For over two decades now, the industry’s go-to source for blockbusters has been comic books. And increasingly, it’s been video games. But occasionally, Hollywood turns to Reddit, too. This week, it was announced that the popular Hollywood actress Sydney Sweeney had acquired the film rights to a four-year-old Reddit post. As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, the Reddit post in question is a short story by a Massachusetts-based high school English teacher named Joe Cote. That short story and post, titled “I pretended to be a missing girl so I could rob her family,” is about a girl who shows up at the house of a family whose daughter went missing years earlier. The girl says she is their missing daughter so she can stay with them for the night—a lie she uses in her attempt to rob their house. The Hollywood Reporter says that Warner Bros. won the rights to the film deal, which was described as “competitive.” Warner Bros. picked up the rights after Sydney Sweeney became attached to star in and produce the short story adaptation. Sweeney reportedly then brought Oscar-winning scriptwriter Eric Roth, of Forrest Gump fame, to make the story into a screenplay. A release date and director have not yet been announced. Hollywood has been interested in adapting Reddit posts into films before But “I pretended to be a missing girl” isn’t the only Reddit post that has been picked up for a movie adaptation before. This is actually the second confirmed time a Reddit post has attracted Hollywood’s attention. The first time happened nearly 14 years ago. As reported by Variety in 2011, Warner Bros. (seems like the studio loves Reddit, doesn’t it?) picked up the film rights to a Reddit post with the lengthy title “Could I destroy the entire Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU?” This post was another short story, and this one explored what would happen if a group of modern-day U.S. Marines were transported back in time to the Roman Empire. The film adaptation’s working title was “Rome, Sweet Rome.” The short story was written by author and “Jeopardy!” champion James Erwin. However, those Reddit scribes hopeful that their next post—short story or otherwise—will be picked up by Hollywood and see them soon walking down the red carpet need to understand one thing: just because a studio picks up the film rights to something doesn’t mean that the film will ever see the light of day. The majority of acquired film rights go on to languish in “development hell,” an industry term used to describe projects that get stuck in purgatory for whatever reason, often due to a revolving door of talent coming to and leaving a project. In 2018, Little White Lies reported that “Rome, Sweet Rome” was stuck in development hell. Of course, just getting anything picked up by Hollywood, even if it is never made into a movie, is a success in its own right. And when it comes to Reddit posts, it’s now happened at least twice. As the superhero genre continues to die a slow death, Hollywood is certain to be looking for something it can generate movie ideas from for years to come. As the two examples above show, Reddit may be one of those places. View the full article

It’s been a wild few years for Snowflake, from a record-breaking IPO to a plummeting stock price to a data-breach scandal. Sridhar Ramaswamy took over in the heat of the turmoil and helped steady the ship, in part by betting big on AI. Ramaswamy shares lessons from the company’s turnaround including insights behind high profile partnerships with OpenAI and Anthropic, how Snowflake embraced China’s Deepseek early, and why Ramaswamy calls Snowflake the most consequential AI-data company in the world. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I had a guest on the show recently who confided that a lot of CEOs are kind of paralyzed right now by sort of external uncertainties in the world, shifting tariffs, and regulations, and executive orders. How do you deal with, and think about, the environment and all the changes relative to the things that you can control yourself? One of my firm beliefs in life is that you need to focus on the things that you are going to have an impact on. There are many things that, let’s face it, we are simply not going to have any impact on. Obsessing about unchangeable things in the short term is the recipe for being uncertain about life. There is a lot of macro uncertainty. Businesses will react, and we will have to worry. For example, if the stock market keeps going down, or if the business climate gets worse, it’ll have an impact on Snowflake, but so far, it’s been heads down, get great product work done, get great customer deployments done. You recently said that Snowflake is the most consequential data and AI company in the world. That is an ambitious assertion, especially for a business that, at least previously, was known as a data storage company. How do you back up that claim? The most important data for the most important enterprises in the world is already stored on Snowflake. Snowflake is the gold standard for analytics. We have something like 700-odd Global 2000 companies that are on Snowflake, and if you exclude the folks from China that we are not even going after, that is 700-something out of 1,600. They all put their most important prized information on top of Snowflake. Large public companies close their books every month on top of Snowflake. Financial institutions share data with each other. Snowflake is the beating heart of at least the U.S. financial system in terms of how data moves from place to place. I mentioned at the beginning that Snowflake was one of the first U.S. companies to adopt DeepSeek. You’re also the only data platform, big one, to offer models from both OpenAI and Anthropic. What did you see in DeepSeek, and second, why have you leaned into having multiple models available? Our strength is as a data platform. We are not a foundation model company, and honestly, most companies have no business of pretending that they are foundation model companies. It takes very specialized expertise, incredible talent density, and a very, very big wallet. And so for this, we decided to go the way of partnerships. We collaborate with a lot of folks. We focus on developing data products, which, in my mind, is the place where value is going to be realized. When people think about OpenAI, they think, “Ah. These are the people that make the foundation models.” No, no, no. OpenAI is an amazing product company. ChatGPT is a legitimate product. It is going to approach the pantheon of the greats, the products that have a billion-plus users, and so helping people get value from models and the data that Snowflake has is what we are about. Hence the leaning into heavy partnerships. Things like hosting DeepSeek quickly, that’s just a little bit of making sure that you can still run the hundred-meter sprint in 10 seconds. It was a challenge. It was an amazing model. We had it out in two days flat. There was a lot of anxiety about DeepSeek. You don’t necessarily feel that same kind of anxiety, or even if you do, you feel like you have to have it available. Let’s break that anxiety down. There are many parts of DeepSeek. One is the open-source model. DeepSeek also offers services on servers that are hosted in China, where if you use their app, for example, everything that you are typing in is getting sent to China. Now, without getting too much into geopolitics, people will rightfully say that sending business data to China is a bad idea. It’s the same kind of fear that we have about TikTok. Hosting the DeepSeek model does not introduce any kind of security compromise. We host it. We take security and risk management very seriously. Us hosting DeepSeek did not cause issues like that. Any anxiety about, “Oh, DeepSeek can do things so much more cheaply than OpenAI. They’re cheaper, faster ways to build these models”? See, that’s the part of it that I actually like. That’s not anxiety. The reason I like that is because if there are highly capable-models that are freely available, the value of the data that is in Snowflake goes up. It doesn’t go down. The value of the model companies goes down, and they have to innovate even harder. But innovation is a good thing for all of us. The cheaper that models get, the more broadly adoption there is, the more benefit that we, as society, are going to get, and certainly, Snowflake as a business. You have mentioned the trend of businesses moving to India. You are an immigrant to the U.S. from India. You came from India with just a few suitcases and a couple hundred dollars, as I recall. There’s so much angst in the U.S. around immigration right now. How much do you think about it, given your personal experience? Look, I’m incredibly blessed. I came with a bachelor’s degree, yes, I think it was $700. Neither of my parents went to college. I got a doctorate from Brown that Brown entirely paid for. I got a monthly stipend and a free PhD, and I think I’ve contributed in meaningful ways to the country, helping create great, amazing businesses. I think the larger issue is that our population feels like there is enough prosperity to go around. People in our country need to feel like they have a prosperous future before they’re willing to lean in and say, “We want more immigrants to share in that prosperous future.” But I think those are the core issues that our government needs to address, where all of us feel like they have the opportunity like how I got the opportunity. My take is there’s no generosity without prosperity. What do people and business leaders most misunderstand about the state of technology right now? I think they are both feeling pressure about things like AI, but are also flooded with options for what to do. I think there’s just so much noise coming in terms of partnerships between X and Y or this new agent, take this or the other. I think that just separating out what is real from what is hype, I think, is very hard. I would say this is less a misunderstanding than an amount of confusion, and I don’t think the AI industry helps itself with things like not talking about hallucination rates or not talking about things like what it takes for something to truly be enterprise-grade? There’s a little bit of, “look, ma. It’s so cool,” kind of attitude to some of the things that happen in AI. I think there is a maturity process that is going to happen, but figuring out what is real from what is hype is the biggest challenge that business leaders, enterprise leaders face today. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Every year around this time, I prepare to move my living room lemon tree outside for the season. In the fall, when temperatures drop below 40 degrees overnight, Daisy (yes, she has a name) gets rolled into my living room, where she winters under a grow light, and then as soon as the overnight temperatures stabilize in spring, back out she goes to live on the patio. Since I live in the Pacific Northwest, this is the only way to keep a lemon tree; they simply aren’t built to withstand a real winter outside. But, even if you are unwilling or unable to host your trees inside your home or greenhouse over the winter, you may still be able to turn your patio into a mini orchard. Generally, when you buy trees or shrubs, you plant them in the ground, and the expectation is that these plants will grow to get quite large. But if you don’t have the room to plant a large tree or shrub, you can consider getting a tree or shrub small enough to remain in a pot. Smaller and smaller dwarf type trees and shrubs are being cultivated all the time, and regardless of what kind of fruit you like, it is almost guaranteed that there will be a variety that is small or micro enough to remain in a pot. My potted lemon tree is not expected to get much larger than this, so I roll the pot into my living room each winter. Credit: Amanda Blum These potted plants, which should remain under six feet, can live on your patio, so long as they get enough sunlight, water and heat in the summer. In fact, your patio can provide the opportunity to better control the environment for your potted plant. You can provide shelter from storms, control the moisture level to help prevent disease, and move it around if the original location doesn’t suit it. At least for spring and summer, you and your micro trees should be very happy on your patio. The problem comes in winter. When you purchase plants you should always pay attention to their winter hardiness rating. For instance, cacti can’t survive a cold winter outside, but a pine tree has no issue. Plants generally go dormant over the winter, which means they focus on root growth, and not leafing, fruiting, or flowering. These small trees and shrubs are particularly vulnerable, since their roots are not in the ground, but a pot, so they lack the insulation the ground can offer. The first way to ameliorate the winter hardiness issue is to bring your plants into a greenhouse during winter—that’s what nurseries do. Of course, most people (including me) lack a greenhouse. The second best option is a spot in your home where the plant will be able to get enough light, water, and heat to survive the winter. Since your home is inevitably heated enough for the temperatures to remain above forty degrees at night, your tree is fine. Remaining situated near a window or under a grow light is sufficient for these plants. A third location might be the garage, or another unheated building, because even though temperatures will drop below forty degrees, if they consistently stay between 20 and 40, the plant will remain dormant, isn’t exposed to wind or freeze, and should be able to survive. Just because the plant is dormant doesn’t mean it won’t require care; you’ll need to check moisture levels every few weeks. You can’t allow the soil in the pot to get too dry. My lemon tree stays warm inside all winter under a grow light and some natural sunlight from a nearby window. Credit: Amanda Blum If you can’t bring your plants inside, you’ll need to find ways to insulate them outside, and you have a few options. Remember, the walls of your home provide some shield from the wind, and give off some heat, so relocating the plant next to the wall is a good start. You can create a cage around the plant using chicken wire and fill the cage with straw. The straw provides the insulation, while allowing for air flow, and the straw is unlikely to transmit disease or virus to the plant. You can also mound up compost or wood chips around the pot itself; this will recreate the insulation the ground offers to protect the roots. You can even purchase tree blankets, which provide a layer of breathable insulation. The thing to remember is that, like a blanket, this insulation only helps temper the winter conditions, not ameliorate them. For some trees, like citrus, this simply may not be enough warmth. For that reason, choose your patio fruit carefully, depending on what growing zone you live in and whether you have the ability to make these plants your roommates over winter. There are very winter-hardy citrus now, but you might be better suited to a patio blueberry or apple. If your plants are going to live outdoors, you’ll want to choose a heavy ceramic or concrete planter—one that provides some insulation from the cold. But if your plant is moving indoors with you all winter, you may be impressed by how good-looking plastic planters have become. Modern, self-watering, and—most importantly—light, they can make moving your patio tree indoors and out a lot easier. To find the right variety tree or shrub for your yard, you should start with a local nursery. However, don’t be afraid to buy a plant that will be shipped to you; I’m constantly surfing through the One Green World catalog, because they carry varieties of cold hardy trees my local nursery doesn’t. View the full article

There is nothing accountable or legitimate about unelected officials setting taxation and spending policyView the full article

It’s rarely possible to be 100% efficient, 100% of our workday. We need breaks and working with others means we need time and space for that collaboration to happen. But oftentimes, a needed break or interaction can balloon into an unneeded time suck that leaves you feeling frustrated that you didn’t accomplish what you actually needed to get done. So how do you identify when you’re spending way too much time in an area and then eliminate that waste so that you have more time for what’s most important? As a time management coach, here’s what I’ve found to be the most effective ways to make this happen. Identifying your time sucks Honest awareness: Sometimes you already know exactly what’s stealing your time. You just need to be honest with yourself and willing to address it. Do you know that you just can’t resist checking your email every time a new message indicator pops up? Do you know that you think you can just watch one YouTube video and then seemingly the next second you realize you’ve watched 10? Do you know that you can never just send a quick text to your best friend, it always becomes a 20-minute text conversation? Write down what you already know is taking more time than it should during your day as a commitment to admitting it and fixing the issue. Automatic monitoring: Once you’ve recorded what you already know, one of the easiest next steps is to look at the automatic monitoring already in place on your phone. Most phones will give you a weekly report of where you spent time on different apps. You may think that you’re not scrolling that much on Instagram, but the data may tell a different story. You can also set up automatic reports of your computer usage if you find that’s an issue in addition to your phone. Personal time tracking: A third way to identify your time sucks is through personal time tracking where you can make note of where your time is going both on and off the screen. I typically recommend tracking your time for at least two days, but if you want to do a more thorough analysis, document it for a week. This can be done on paper, in an Excel document, or by using tools like Toggl or Timeular. My clients sometimes prefer the software options because of the ability to see consolidated reports. But if you find them overwhelming, it’s completely fine to keep things simple. If you complete the above three steps, you’re starting to get a clear picture of where your time might be overinvested. Then it’s time to take action. Here are some tips on eliminating, or at least reducing, the three biggest time sucks in most people’s days. Eliminating Your Time Sucks Screen time Some screen time can be a nice mental break. But if your data shows that you have more than 30 minutes of personal screen time during the workday that doesn’t fall into designated times off, like your lunch break, then you’re probably spending too much time in that category. If you can’t handle social media or news sites, put the nuclear option on your device so that you’re completely blocked from viewing them outside of scheduled times and have no option to undo the choice. You can also add online shopping sites or TV or movie sites like NetFlix or Hulu to the blocked list. If you work from home and are a gamer, considering locking up your controllers in a timed box so that you can’t even think about beating the next level. Communication In addition to screen time, inefficient communication can be a huge time suck in your workday. In fact, I see it as one of the biggest time wasters among people who are working much longer hours than they would prefer. To start, you’ll want to reduce or eliminate any scheduled meetings that don’t actually need to happen. There are many times where an email could suffice instead of a meeting. For example, when people contact me who I don’t know asking for a 15-minute meeting to explain something, I always reply by asking them to send over more information in written form. That way in less than a minute, I can scan what they sent and decide if it merits a conversation, and my workflow isn’t interrupted by unnecessary meetings. If you’re in an office environment, beware of the drive-by meetings. They can be super useful, but they also can be productivity destroying. If you really need to focus and have a door, close it. If you don’t have a door or people open your door spontaneously, put up a sign and/or put on headphones. Some of my clients even go so far to set up “office hours,” which are times when they’re OK with drop-in chats. Outside of those office hours, they request that people schedule a meeting. And finally, email and other asynchronous communication tools like IM or Slack can consume massive amounts more time than needed if you let them. One of the best ways to reduce time in these areas is to have designated times you log in and batch reply to all of the new messages, such as at the beginning, middle, and end of the workday. If that’s not permissible, at least give yourself a few spaces throughout the day to get focused work done by turning off notifications and if needed, putting up “Do not disturb.” Disorganization A final category of time suck during the workday is plain disorganization. You can waste so much time by being lost or losing items. Start with a plan: I encourage all of my clients to make daily and weekly planning a ritual so that they’re clear on their priorities and always know what to do next. But if that’s too overwhelming to start, at least write down the three most important things to accomplish for the day. That simple act can dramatically increase your progress on your most critical tasks. Leverage your energy: If you’re a super morning person, purposefully block that time from meetings, spend minimal time on email, and get your hardest tasks done first. If you’re barely awake until 10 a.m., do the opposite. Start slow responding to others and having a few meetings, and then block off 3 p.m. and later for your own work. Failing to organize your tasks around your energy levels can leave you frustrated because you have the time but not the mental capacity to get hard work done. Organize your environment: You don’t need office drawers worthy of a Pinterest post. But you do need to be able to find what you need when you need it. If your physical disorganization or electronic disorganization is causing you to waste needless time searching for things, take some time to get yourself in order. Sometimes that looks like spending a couple of hours purging your desk and filing things away. Other times, it’s best to work on a few papers or folders a day until you have sufficient organization. Your time will rarely be 100% utilized. But by following these tips you can dramatically reduce the time lost on time sucks so that you can invest it in what matters to you most. View the full article

Welcome to Pressing Questions, Fast Company’s work-life advice column. Every week, deputy editor Kathleen Davis, host of The New Way We Work podcast, will answer the biggest and most pressing workplace questions. Q: Help! None of my coworkers have kids and don’t understand what it’s like. A: No two people’s lives are the same and people with all kinds of family structures have issues that pull their time and attention away from work. That said, few things in life are as schedule-disrupting as being a parent. In an ideal world, your boss and coworkers wouldn’t need to be parents themselves to understand things like needing to miss work when you have a sick kid or having a hard out each day at daycare pick-up time. Also, in an ideal world the school day and calendar would align better with the typical work day. We are obviously not in an ideal world, and unfortunately resentment between parents and coworkers without children is common. Here are my suggestions to deal with it. Suggest changes that would benefit everyone Most parents can’t make 8 a.m. meetings, as that’s prime time for getting the kids out the door and to school. You know who else hates 8 a.m. meetings? Just about everyone. Rather have your colleagues resent you for being exempt from attending, suggest to your manager that morning meetings get rescheduled for after 9 a.m. The same goes for taking time off for life’s unexpected problems. You have to leave work when your kid is sick or when there’s a snow day, doctor’s appointment or a recital. But everyone has things pop up, whether it’s their own dentist and doctor appointments, or the needs of their relatives or pets. If you’re in a leadership position, you can help foster a culture that recognizes that life’s obligations sometimes need to take priority over work. If you’re not in a leadership position, you can be the change you want to see by happily covering for your colleagues when something comes up. Hopefully the next time your kid gets pink eye they’ll remember the time you took over for them when their dog had to go to the vet. Call it out If you feel like you’ve made a good faith effort to prove how you’re a team player, have demonstrated that you are just as productive as the non-parents on your team, and have offered solutions and you still feel resentment, you might want to be direct and talk to your coworker or manager about it. As with any difficult workplace conversation, you can still enter it with a collaborative mindset. There’s a problem and you are going to solve it together. You are not on opposing teams. As with other workplace disagreements, it can be helpful to approach the conversation with curiosity. Try something like: “I’ve noticed a lot of comments about my schedule. Is there something that’s causing an issue for the team or workflow that I’m not aware of?” If there is an issue you’re not aware of (like a domino effect of work falling on one person when you leave), once it’s out in the air you can problem solve. If there’s not an actual issue, just vague resentment, calling it out might force the person to address their own bias, or at least be the start of a conversation that can lead to more understanding. Want some more reading on working parents? Here you go: I’m the CEO of a family tech company. Here’s how I’ve created kid-friendly work hours The school year used to favor working parents, but not anymore 4 simple ways leaders can better support working parents How longer school days benefit working mothers View the full article

Welcome to Pressing Questions, Fast Company’s work-life advice column. Every week, deputy editor Kathleen Davis, host of The New Way We Work podcast, will answer the biggest and most pressing workplace questions. Q: Help! None of my coworkers have kids and don’t understand what it’s like. A: No two people’s lives are the same and people with all kinds of family structures have issues that pull their time and attention away from work. That said, few things in life are as schedule-disrupting as being a parent. In an ideal world, your boss and coworkers wouldn’t need to be parents themselves to understand things like needing to miss work when you have a sick kid or having a hard out each day at daycare pick-up time. Also, in an ideal world the school day and calendar would align better with the typical work day. We are obviously not in an ideal world, and unfortunately resentment between parents and coworkers without children is common. Here are my suggestions to deal with it. Suggest changes that would benefit everyone Most parents can’t make 8 a.m. meetings, as that’s prime time for getting the kids out the door and to school. You know who else hates 8 a.m. meetings? Just about everyone. Rather have your colleagues resent you for being exempt from attending, suggest to your manager that morning meetings get rescheduled for after 9 a.m. The same goes for taking time off for life’s unexpected problems. You have to leave work when your kid is sick or when there’s a snow day, doctor’s appointment or a recital. But everyone has things pop up, whether it’s their own dentist and doctor appointments, or the needs of their relatives or pets. If you’re in a leadership position, you can help foster a culture that recognizes that life’s obligations sometimes need to take priority over work. If you’re not in a leadership position, you can be the change you want to see by happily covering for your colleagues when something comes up. Hopefully the next time your kid gets pink eye they’ll remember the time you took over for them when their dog had to go to the vet. Call it out If you feel like you’ve made a good faith effort to prove how you’re a team player, have demonstrated that you are just as productive as the non-parents on your team, and have offered solutions and you still feel resentment, you might want to be direct and talk to your coworker or manager about it. As with any difficult workplace conversation, you can still enter it with a collaborative mindset. There’s a problem and you are going to solve it together. You are not on opposing teams. As with other workplace disagreements, it can be helpful to approach the conversation with curiosity. Try something like: “I’ve noticed a lot of comments about my schedule. Is there something that’s causing an issue for the team or workflow that I’m not aware of?” If there is an issue you’re not aware of (like a domino effect of work falling on one person when you leave), once it’s out in the air you can problem solve. If there’s not an actual issue, just vague resentment, calling it out might force the person to address their own bias, or at least be the start of a conversation that can lead to more understanding. Want some more reading on working parents? Here you go: I’m the CEO of a family tech company. Here’s how I’ve created kid-friendly work hours The school year used to favor working parents, but not anymore 4 simple ways leaders can better support working parents How longer school days benefit working mothers View the full article

Vaping devices are getting a makeover—one that seems likely to turn more teens into consumers. Experts have long worried that nicotine vapes appeal to minors with flavors like Cotton Candy and Blue Razz, along with bright candy-colored designs. Today’s vapes double as digital gadgets. Some mimic video games, others resemble smartphones or tamagotchi-style pets that “die” if you stop puffing. It’s gamified addiction. Behind the flashy designs lies a serious danger. Research shows that vaping harms both cardiovascular and respiratory health and can lead to nicotine dependency. Many of these new products are also unregulated, often smuggled in from overseas manufacturers. As vapes become more like toys, their health risks—and appeal to children—only increase. Vapes are going digital Dozens of vape manufacturers have started integrating screens into their products, originally meant to show simple battery displays. Some keep it basic—like Fumot’s design, which features a digital-clock-style percentage gauge below its signature monkey icon. But others are going bigger. Raz uses animated fire symbols, while Geek Bar displays constellations—mini light shows embedded in a puff. Some devices push things even further, embedding full-on video games just inches from the mouthpiece. The Craftbox V-Play, for example, comes in flavors like Strawberry Blowpop and Grape Escape, and features three built-in games: knockoffs of Pac-Man and Tetris, plus a fighter jet simulator. Marketed as a “Vapentertainment system,” the device even plays music as you game. For those seeking more connectivity, some vapes now function like smartphones. The Swype 3000 is perhaps the most well-known. It syncs with the user’s actual phone, displaying notifications and offering a limited suite of apps on the vape’s body. The tech is far from seamless—Business Insider’s Katie Notopoulos reported issues like buggy games and blurry alerts—but the concept is catching on. Brands like Airfuze, Vookbar, and Feed Sync are also producing so-called smart vapes. Despite their digital upgrades, vapes remain cheap, often selling for less than $20 wholesale (comparable to their analog predecessors). And, of course, they’re still disposable. Once the nicotine runs out, you’re left with a dead vape that doubles as a cheap video game console—or a phone with no service. A legal gray area Many gamified, screen-equipped vapes operate in a legal gray zone. They’re rarely manufactured in the U.S. (most come from Chinese factories) and almost none have received marketing authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. In 2024, the FDA sent a warning letter to the online retailer Vapes and Such cautioning against selling products that “may be attractive to youth” by “imitating a smartphone” or “imitating gaming technology.” Vapes have long faced criticism for their appeal to minors. In 2023, Juul agreed to pay $462 million in a settlement over its marketing tactics, which regulators said were designed to target children. Over time, concern shifted from flavors to design—sleek, candy-colored devices that looked more like tech accessories than tobacco products. “If it looks glamorous and it looks appealing, that’s going to be the first driver that will bring a horse to water,” Brian King, at the time the FDA’s tobacco regulator, told The New York Times. Screens represent the next evolution of that appeal. They don’t just make vapes look glamorous, they make them status symbols. With built-in games and push notifications, they’re nicotine devices and conversation starters. But that allure can be dangerous, especially for young users. View the full article

Offices, apartment buildings and retail locations in Los Angeles face a tangle of difficulties as the smoke clears from January's wildfires. High on the list is inadequate insurance, a common problem in California. View the full article

The web is being swamped by AI slop—but the swamp is creeping closer to home. Your email inboxes, phone SMS apps, instant messaging, and social media services are all being overtaken by inauthentic content. From AI-generated footage of Hollywood actor Brad Pitt that conned a French woman out of $800,000, to phishing emails that direct victims to live chats with AI bots purporting to be from a legitimate business but which are actually criminals, AI scams are everywhere. Two in every three people tested by Vodafone failed to identify an AI-driven phishing attack. One of those people was George Wilson, the founder of a small business based in Marietta, Georgia. Wilson asked Fast Company to use a pseudonym and not to disclose details of his business or bank information, concerned that being publicly identified as a scam victim could damage his company’s reputation and make him a future target. In November 2024, Wilson received an email claiming to be from his bank stating that an invoice payment he didn’t recognize was being delayed. After clicking a link in the email, he was taken to a convincing online chat page, where a supposed bank representative explained the situation. “It was all done in real time,” says Wilson. “Their dialogue was super natural, too, so while I was initially confused and suspicious, they managed to get rid of my fears.” The representative told him he was the target of an attempted scam and assured him the bank had blocked it. Wilson no longer has the chat log, but suspects he must have shared some information during the exchange that gave the scammers access to his account. The next day, several thousand dollars were taken from his business before he realized what had happened, contacted his bank, and learned he’d been scammed. The human-like interaction led Wilson to be defrauded of thousands—money he never recovered. “With AI, attackers can tailor messages to appear highly personalized, making it harder than ever for employees to distinguish a fake email from a legitimate one,” says Katie Paxton-Fear, an ethical hacker and cybersecurity lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University. The lure of AI for cybercriminals is obvious, and mirrors why the general public uses LLMs and other AI tools: They can generate convincing content at scale with minimal work. A lab-based study published in Harvard Business Review found that AI-generated phishing emails successfully deceived victims 60% of the time. It’s a high payoff for low effort, especially as LLMs take over the burden of crafting emails. “We know that social engineering is one of the most effective forms of attack anyway, rather than malicious code, because you’ve got to try and have some way of landing the malicious code on victims,” says Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity professor at the University of Surrey. “It’s not surprising that LLMs are being used in the first instance to try and produce more effective versions of that.” As the public becomes more aware of AI-powered phishing, cybercriminals are already moving several steps ahead. Cybersecurity firm Kela reports that discussion of malicious AI tools on the dark web has increased 200% in the past year. In 2023, there were around 4 daily mentions; by 2024, they spiked to 14-plus. This booming underground market is a “seismic shift” in cyberthreat development, says Yael Kishon, AI product and research lead at Kela. Even open forums like Hack Forums are buzzing with discussions about optimal models for different attacks. A “Dark AI” forum regularly hosts new posts and replies, with a pinned mega list of AIs used for illicit purposes garnering nearly 20,000 views and more than 100 replies—on a public forum. Far more activity takes place in dark web spaces. This growing trade in malicious LLMs is a worry to the general public, but it’s not surprising. “Once upon a time, to be a cybercriminal you needed skills, you needed knowledge, and needed to be able to code,” says Rob Allen, chief technical officer at ThreatLocker, which monitors the rise of LLMs among criminals. “Now all you need, really, is bad intentions.” Only some mainstream LLMs have built-in guardrails to prevent malicious use, and dark web LLMs often rely on open-source models without safeguards or cracked versions of commercial ones. According to Kela’s analysis, discussions around jailbreaking LLMs have surged 52% year over year. Malicious LLMs sold on criminal forums typically fall into two categories: jailbroken commercial LLMs or altered open-source models. Their approaches vary. EscapeGPT, launched in August 2023 at around $65 a month, was based on ChatGPT’s 3.5 Turbo, analysis of its behavior showed. WormGPT, developed from an open-source model in 2021, reportedly brought in about $14,000 monthly by charging for access. This underground market reflects the legitimate AI industry: Competition is fierce, pricing strategies abound, and model creators market their tools aggressively. FraudGPT, a model released in July 2023, gets poor reviews (partly because its creators allegedly scam their own buyers) but still boasts in marketing materials about its 8.5-terabyte training data set. GhostGPT, one of the latest and most talked-about malicious LLMs, is either a jailbroken version of ChatGPT or a modified open-source model, according to researchers at Abnormal Security. “GhostGPT is a chatbot specifically designed to cater to cybercriminals,” the researchers say. “By eliminating the ethical and safety constraints typically built into AI models, GhostGPT can provide direct, unfiltered answers to sensitive or harmful queries that would be blocked or flagged by conventional AI systems.” Access is priced competitively: $50 for a week’s access to a Telegram bot, $150 for a month (less than OpenAI charges for access to ChatGPT Pro), or $300 for three months. The model can generate phishing emails and malware prompts on demand. It also boasts fast responses and no data logs, minimizing the digital trail for law enforcement. In testing, Abnormal Security got it to produce a convincing Docusign phishing email in less than a minute from the prompt “Write a phishing email from Docusign.” GhostGPT may be the newest model making waves in cybercrime circles, but it follows a familiar pattern. “We found that most use an API from OpenAI and jailbreaking prompts,” says Zilong Lin, a researcher at Indiana University Bloomington, who conducted an August 2024 analysis of more than 200 malicious LLMs available on the dark web. Criminals prefer jailbreaking existing models because building one from scratch is costly, Lin tells Fast Company. And with many models simply a single jailbreak prompt away from being shorn of their protections, it’s never been easier to leverage the capabilities of the world’s most powerful chatbots for nefarious means. But solutions can be complicated, says ThreatLocker’s Allen. “Fundamentally, everything is to a greater or lesser degree vulnerable,” he explains. “Most things are weaponizable.” This story was supported by Tarbell Grants. View the full article

Meghan Markle has been teasing the launch of her lifestyle brand, now called As Ever, for a while now, and Markle finally revealed its product line earlier this week. But while followers of the Duchess of Sussex are just now learning what her brand will offer, Markle’s fledging business has already faced its fair share of controversy. In the spring of 2024, Markle dropped the first hint at a potential business in the form of several artisanal jars of jam sent to various celebrity friends, each branded with the name “American Riviera Orchard.” The next update didn’t arrive until this February, when Markle announced on Instagram that she had scrapped the “American Riviera Orchard” brand for As Ever. Most recently, in a newsletter mailed to subscribers this Monday, Markle offered some insight into As Ever’s first product drop, which will include a raspberry spread, wildflower honey, dried flower sprinkles, various teas, and crepe and shortbread mixes. So far, it’s unclear when exactly As Ever’s products will be on sale, how much they’ll cost, and whether Markle plans to branch out from food and beverage into other types of lifestyle products. As fans of Markle await these details, fans of the drama are paying attention to several other stories overshadowing As Ever’s launch—including a legal dispute over its logo, concerns about the originality of its new name, and critiques around the tone of its marketing. Here’s everything you need to know about the drama surrounding As Ever. A logo mishap The strangest controversy that’s popped up around As Ever has to do with its logo. The brand’s emblem—a white-on-gold line drawing inside an elegant, elongated octagon—features a palm tree bookended by two symmetrical hummingbirds. An anonymous source told Vanity Fair that the brand chose the tree as a reference to Markle’s home in California, while the hummingbirds are a favorite of Markle’s husband, Prince Harry. But some outside viewers have been skeptical of the inspiration behind the design. Critics noted that the design looked oddly similar to the historic coat of arms used by Porreres, a small town in Majorca, Spain, since the 1400s. In an interview with The Sun in February, the mayor of Porreres, Francisca Mora Veny, said she was considering legal action against As Ever for the logo (though she went on to admit that she may not be able to afford such a challenge). “We don’t want our coat of arms to be perverted,” Veny said, adding, “The only difference with their logo and our coat of arms is that theirs shows two hummingbirds and ours are either swallows or pigeons—historians cannot agree.” In a further statement to the publication El País, she said, “It’s a total copy.” So far, it’s unclear whether Veny has reached out directly to Markle, or whether she plans to move forward with a legal dispute. New name, new challenges The change of brand name from “American Riviera Orchard” to “As Ever” has also drawn some unwanted attention to Markle’s business. In her Instagram announcement video, Markle shared that she originally chose “American Riviera” to represent her neighborhood, Santa Barbara, but she found that the title would limit her business to selling items that were manufactured and grown in the area. So, she explained in the video, she opted instead for “As Ever,” a name that she claimed was secured in 2022. Based on an application filed to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Markle’s team submitted a request for the As Ever trademark on September 17, 2024. Per the document, the application had been approved by the examining attorney but had not yet been published as of March 26. Since Markle announced the name change back in February, at least two businesses of the same name have come forward to express their surprise. The first is a New York-based clothing brand called As Ever, run by owner Mark Kolski since 2017. Kolski told Vanity Fair that he was surprised not to have received advance notice about Markle’s brand, but that he didn’t plan to make any changes to his own business or to take action against Markle. “If they had intentions of making clothes out of the gate then it could have been a problem,” Kolski said. “They’re choosing not to make clothing at this time, but that could change. I have no interest in having any public forum battle against this new venture. That’s not who I am.” Jen Corbett, owner of the company As Ever Photography, has taken a similar stance to Kolski. In an initial Instagram post reacting to Markle’s branding, she wrote, “When one of the most famous people in the world starts using your biz name of 12+ years (that you named in honor of your grandmother), seems like they could throw me a lil bone?” However, that post has since been deleted, and Corbett has posted a follow-up story to clarify that, “I had a bit of fun posting about Meghan Markle using my biz name, but I am in no way interested in hate mongering against her.” As Ever’s perception problem Aside from its branding, As Ever is also drawing some backlash for the tone of its marketing. On As Ever’s new website, a message to fans notes, “As Ever is more than a brand—it’s a love language.” And in her newsletter sent to fans this week, Markle explained that her raspberry spread’s “keepsake packaging” could be repurposed to hold “love notes” or “special treasures.” In response to that suggestion, Margaret Hartmann, senior editor at The New Yorker, quipped that Markle’s latest “big idea” is “rinsing and reusing jam jars.” It’s a jab that builds on commentary surrounding Markle’s Netflix show, With Love, Meghan, which was widely criticized for presenting an out-of-touch look at Markle’s privileged life in Montecito (one particularly harsh review from The Guardian labeled it “toe-curlingly unlovable.”) It’s difficult to cast a judgment on Markle’s new brand just yet, considering that its products haven’t even dropped (though the number of number of issues As Ever has faced with its branding so far does seem concerning for such a new company.) If As Ever’s luxe look is anything to go by, Markle’s raspberry spread isn’t going to retail for prices one might find in the grocery store—in which case, it doesn’t seem likely that the brand will do much to repair the image of inauthenticity that’s plagued Markle’s other ventures as of late. View the full article

Our phones are making us unhappy, but I’m not sure cutting myself off from humanity’s universe of information with a dumbphone is the answer. It’s kind of like how we know walking is healthier than driving, but it’s a moot point when the average person lives 27 miles from their workplace. However, maybe our smartphones don’t need a lobotomy. Maybe they just need to respect our boundaries. This is an idea explored in a new concept called Aperture, by the London studio Special Projects. It’s a case that crops your smartphone into a small square of your screen when you flip your case over, revealing a series of smart widgets. By the same firm that developed ideas like discrete, skin-pressed messages for Blackberry and a Paper Phone for Google, Aperture was inspired when Adrian Westaway, cofounder and director of technology and magic at Special Projects, flipped his iPhone case backward and saw a little window left open where the cameras were supposed to be. Senior designer Matteo Bandi ran with this idea in UI renderings, imagining a system in your full-feature smartphone could deliver a tiny version of just a few apps you need. These widgets might be a camera, step-by-step instructions pulled from a recipe, or even a compass pointing you toward your destination. It’s a smartphone’s function without the fluff. Most of these experiences are even presented in stoic black and white—slicing back the candy colors behind another dopamine hit. But the demo still finds a few moments of whimsy, largely through its little smiling mascots. (The mascots really come to life when, sitting at a table with friends, the faces from each phone look at one another and hop into a cozy ball.) “We’re trying to find the right balance between being helpful and not preachy,” says Clara Gaggero Westaway, cofounder and creative director at Special Projects. “It’s like, we don’t want to take technology away, but how can we help people to use technology in a way that makes them have a better life?” Aperture is clever but admittedly not entirely original. Special Projects points to all sorts of precedent within the industry playing with this same idea. UX designers have been exploring the concept for more than a decade now, from a very charming birdhouse alarm clock, to an Apple patent for a smart iPad case that reveals just part of the screen, to the current Samsung Smart View case that allows you to see the time, answer a call, and skip the track of a song. But Aperture is framed a bit differently than any of these approaches. Part of that sensation might simply come down to the fact that Aperture wouldn’t be as slickly integrated as Samsung’s Smart View that easily folds open and closed. Instead, the team imagines you literally take your case off and turn it around, opting into and out of the experience. “One of the words that I think is quite key is friction,” says Gaggero Westaway. “You cannot use it compulsively. You almost have to have a conscious behavior to say, ‘Okay, [now] I’m gonna take it off and doomscroll again.” At face value, we have products that get close to Aperture’s core idea. The Apple Watch’s original pitch was to be a product that kept you from looking at your phone, and its screen size isn’t so different from what an Aperture case would be. But Special Projects bristles just a bit at the idea of selling technology to amend your relationship with technology. “There’s also something weird about it feeling like you’ve made a new object,” Westaway says. “Like you can have two things in your hands that you’ve always had, and then you just [put them together]. And now it’s reshaped.” The other thing that Aperture reveals is what exactly makes our phones feel toxic these days. Tools to help with cooking and navigation feel additive to our experience. Screen time, in these senses, feels positive to our well-being. It’s when trying to picture something like an Instagram or TikTok feed squeezing into that little window that my stomach lurches just a bit, and the mechanisms of addiction reveal themselves. Instead of a mini social feed, Special Projects imagined that Aperture would instead offer a break from social media. So if you’re using Instagram when you flip your case around, Aperture will present a focus timer for you to do anything else but be on your phone. “We sort of arbitrarily translated [Instagram as a] timer as an escape. I think that will be a space for us to explore,” Bandi says, noting there are many ways to frame dedicated time to do something else. Aperture would be a challenging concept to bring to market, especially on iPhones, which have more rigid limitations than Androids. But a Special Projects client has expressed interest, and promised funding, to help commercialize the idea (probably in the form of a case you can buy). And with the advent of generative AI, it becomes easier to imagine how some of Aperture’s mini app interpretations, like its recipes, could feasibly work. But for now, Special Projects is putting Aperture’s earliest incarnations into the wild to solicit feedback, and understand what customers might want in such a product before realizing it for market. “We were just putting this out as a thought piece, and were absolutely not going to try and commercialize it. Then this [funding] opportunity came up,” Westaway says. “Rather than disappear for a year, we thought we could have an exploratory approach.” View the full article

In today’s dynamic, diverse, and rapidly changing workforce, organizations’ success is dependent upon creating an environment where different perspectives come together. That’s how we produce the best ideas. Despite the recent attacks on them, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion principles provide a crucial foundation for thriving companies. If companies want to experience the benefits of broad ideas, they need to attract talented employees from different backgrounds. And once they’ve hired those top talents, they need to make sure that they don’t exclude anyone from participating in discussions and sharing their honest views. Many arguments support why successful organizations need to be able to capture the best from as wide a range of people as possible. Here are a few of the main ones. 1. Results in greater creativity and innovation By bringing a wide range of perspectives, experiences, and ideas to the table, organizations ensure that they have a large enough reservoir that they need to come up with fresh approaches and new, groundbreaking solutions. In my book, Emotional Intelligence Game Changers: 101 Simple Ways to Win at Work + Life, I delve into how to create a culture of creativity. In an organization, employees need to be able to bounce new and diverse ideas off each other. They also need to trust that the company will value their uniqueness and contributions. In a diverse and rapidly changing landscape, organizations that limit their circle to people of similar backgrounds risk stagnation. They’re also likely to fail in their quest to recruit and keep talented people who are necessary for ongoing growth and success. 2. Boosts connection and collaboration When all employees feel free and empowered to share their thoughts and ideas, it builds a culture of connection and collaboration. As a result, teamwork skills begin to develop among diverse groups, breaking down barriers and increasing understanding of and respect for those who are different from us. The effect of this is increased motivation and commitment to work toward shared goals. CultureCon’s latest showed that when employees feel their voices are genuinely valued, they are 3.5 times more likely to report higher job satisfaction. 3. Increases the organization’s ability to attract and retain top talent Being known as an organization that supports DEI principles is attractive to people who are looking for a place to work where they will be treated fairly and equitably. These individuals are looking for places where they can thrive and get the opportunity to work with other talented people. When they find a place where companies appreciate and recognize them, they are more motivated to remain with the organization. CultureCon’s research found that 63% of employees are more likely to stay at a company that actively prioritizes DEI. 4. Improves job satisfaction and well-being When staff witness a genuine commitment to ensuring that they value, hear, and appreciate everyone, an atmosphere of trust and loyalty spreads through the organization. This leads to reduced turnover and enhanced job satisfaction, which makes people feel excited to be part of the organization. The result is greater productivity and overall organizational success. 5. Enhances the organizational brand and reputation Having a strong commitment to diversity, inclusion, and social responsibility has far-reaching effects beyond the organization itself. The reputation that it builds will make the organization stand out as a leader. It will also attract new loyal customers, and secure more business opportunities. Customers and clients will search out organizations that they trust will develop fair, equitable, and diverse workplaces. DEI might be under attack, but organizations that continue to invest in it will reap the rewards in the long run. An inclusive, supportive workplace that encourages a broad range of ideas to flourish will result in creativity, innovation, and a positive work culture. And in the long term, those are the organizations that will last. View the full article

Claim comes as MPs hear evidence in wake of substation fire that led to hundreds of cancelled flightsView the full article

Penalty against DWS imposed by German prosecutors follows €19mn settlement with US authorities in 2023View the full article

It’s telling that the plot premise of the first episode for the new Apple show The Studio—episode three drops today—revolves entirely around the notion of a Kool-Aid movie. Created by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the entire show revolves around the elevation of Rogen’s character Matt Remick to studio head, a job he got only because he committed to getting into bed with the brand IP of a 98-year-old beverage. How the premiere episode subsequently ties in Martin Scorcese and a film about Jonestown to the Kool-Aid brand is both hilariously absurd and somehow absolutely believable. Speaking of believable, watch the scene in which filmmaker Nick Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Captain Underpants, Neighbors) pitches Remick his Kool-Aid script idea and tell me it couldn’t be hitting theaters next summer. There is a scene in the first episode that undoubtedly had marketers of all stripes howling with laughter and cringing with recognition. It takes place in a boardroom of the fictional film studio Continental Studios, in which newly promoted Remick tells the studio’s head of marketing (played by Kathryn Hahn) that they will be making a movie based on Kool-Aid brand IP. “Let’s fucking go!” exclaims Hahn’s character, holding a giant Stanley cup. “I could sell the fuck out of that!” Kathryn HahnChase Sui Wonders We then get a very short, yet incredibly accurate, summary of the current tension in Hollywood when it comes to brand IP. Remick details why Barbie was successful. “It had Greta Gerwig, a writer-director behind it,” he says. “It had a filmmaker’s vision. That’s what we’re going to do with Kool-Aid. We’re going to make the auteur-driven, Oscar-winning Kool-Aid film.” Hahn’s character groans. “Oh fuck me, you want to make a fucking fancy Kool-Aid movie?” she says. “Why? Nobody even fucking watches the Oscars anymore. Did Mario Bros win an Oscar? No, it didn’t. But you know what it did win? $1.3 billion.” Rogen said last week on the podcast Armchair Expert that prior to writing the show, he and Goldberg interviewed just about every studio head, and their heads of marketing. As profanely hysterical as this show is, its depiction of the relationship between Hollywood, marketing, and brands is rooted in an immediately recognizable reality. I spoke to sources that include execs and creatives who work across brands and entertainment, studio marketers, and yes, Kool-Aid parent Kraft Heinz, to see just how recognizable it really is. Here are three things The Studio gets right. The Marketer Kathryn Hahn is both brilliant and brilliantly over-the-top, but her character’s role in the studio decision making process is illustrated perfectly. The modern studio marketer is now a part of the project approval process for films, given the ongoing challenges of getting our attention and convincing us to actually go to the movie theaters. But just as Remick initially ignores her advice, the marketers are also at the mercy of those above them in the studio food chain. In his Armchair Expert interview, Rogen said (starting around 50-minute mark), even though the marketer is on the greenlight committee, “Often they get directly overruled,” he said. “They would say, ‘We should not make this movie! We cannot sell it!’ And then they’re told (by studio execs) ‘Guess what, we made it anyway and if it fails you’re the one who’s going to get fired.’ That was just a really funny dynamic to have in the show.” Of course, sometimes that dynamic works incredibly well. Back in 2023, I spoke to Universal’s CMO Michael Moses about Cocaine Bear, which went on to make $88 million worldwide on a $35 million budget. Moses’ department helped boost the hype around that film by making fun social posts like the bear snorting the chalk lines of the football field, and creating a 8-bit, Pac-Man-style online game called The Rise of Pablo Escobear. Rogen told the podcast that the studio marketers he spoke to view themselves as more creative than the executives. “They’re like, ‘We actually make stuff. We create things. We’re making commercials, content, posters, we’re thinking of little ads, while these guys (execs) are just sitting in rooms and giving notes,” said Rogen. Studio marketers I spoke to on background told me that the show has been a hot topic in their office hallways. They said that the balance between how recognizable and farcical it is, is a ton of fun, and they love Hahn’s sweatily trendy marketer and her willingness to tell the truth. Bryan Cranston The Brand Tension Patient zero of Hollywood’s latest Great Brand IP Experiment is obviously Barbie, and the iconic doll subsequently catches some hilariously vulgar strays in The Studio. While the hype around brands and Hollywood is very real, there is really a small number of companies like Superconnector Studios, ACE Content, and Modern Arts that have been able to bridge the two in a meaningful and consistent way. Modern Arts cofounder and cochief creative officer Zac Ryder says The Studio’s first episode nails how hungry Hollywood is for IP that it believes audiences already know and love. “And I think it nails how hungry brands are to be part of pop culture in a real way,” says Ryder. “Now more than ever, they need each other if they’re going to survive. There’s a sense of desperation to the episode, which I think is spot on.” In the wake of Barbie’s success back in 2023, Mattel announced plans for more IP-driven film projects that sound straight out of The Studio—like a Polly Pocket movie directed by Lena Dunham, or a Barney movie produced by Daniel Kaluuya. Dunham dropped out of the former last year, but Mattel confirmed to Fast Company earlier this month the film is still in development. The Barney project is very much in progress, written by Ayo Edebiri and co-developed and produced by A24. This sounds straight from the Remick playbook. Ryder says a lot of studio execs still think of brands as a blank check. “That a brand will just go along with anything for an opportunity to be involved in a project,” he says. “The connection between Kool-Aid and the Jonestown massacre is an insanely far fetched, hilarious example. But I do think there’s some truth to it.” However, as evidenced in the dramatically slowing pace of brand IP projects being announced since the initial Barbie afterglow, that attitude towards brands has evolved. “There are a lot more executives and producers in the business who see the value a brand can bring to the table, especially when it comes to marketing and understanding an audience,” says Ryder. Ryder says there are insights for brand marketers watching The Studio. “Make sure you aren’t just getting your brand involved in a project because you want to tell people about your movie at a cocktail party,” he says. “Be very clear and very intentional with what you want the brand to get out of the deal. Also, know what you bring to the table. In many ways, the studios need you more than you need them.” Martin Scorsese The Kool-Aid Movie While Martin Scorcese’s repurposed Jonestown film is so very clearly miles over the line, Stoller’s treatment is entirely believable. Superconnector Studios cofounder Jae Goodman says that its believability extends beyond the fictional world of The Studio. “Despite the hilarity of the brand’s role in the studio, no chance any reasonable brand manager stays officially connected to the studio once the Jonestown idea appears,” says Goodman. “If the storyline veers away from Scorcese’s Jonestown, then I think there’s an opportunity down the line to do an actual Seth-and-Evan-led Kool Aid movie.” One thing that nagged me while watching this episode was just how visible and upfront Kool-Aid was in all the jokes. The iconic Kool-Aid Man character even makes an appearance in a quick TIKTok dance diversion created by Hahn’s marketing team. Could the real Kool-Aid brand actually be involved here? Sources close with the brand and its parent Kraft Heinz say that Rogen and Goldberg did approach the brand, including sharing scripts and rough edits, in the hopes Kool-Aid would be officially involved. Obviously, the Jonestown plotline and jokes got in the way of that. But sources also said that Kraft Heinz has been in discussions with Apple to explore potential paths forward. While the show’s portrayal of Kool-Aid may not always align with its brand ethos, the company recognizes the value in having its brands in the cultural zeitgeist. It’s refreshing to see that a brand has enough self-awareness and confidence to not freak out over its portrayal in a subversive comedy. I’ve got a feeling that Kool-Aid isn’t the last IRL brand to get name-checked and more as the show goes on. As much as Mattel must be doing its best Lloyd Christmas impression while watching the show, do you think the folks at Kraft Heinz are cautiously optimistic for where all this could lead? Mr. Kool-Aid has a catchphrase for that. View the full article

Why are AI chatbots so intelligent—capable of understanding complex ideas, crafting surprisingly good short stories, and intuitively grasping what users mean? The truth is, we don’t fully know. Large language models “think” in ways that don’t look very human. Their outputs are formed from billions of mathematical signals bouncing through layers of neural networks powered by computers of unprecedented power and speed, and most of that activity remains invisible or inscrutable to AI researchers. This opacity presents obvious challenges, since the best way to control something is to understand how it works. Scientists had a firm grasp of nuclear physics before the first bomb or power plant was built. The same can’t be said for generative AI models. Researchers working in the AI safety subfield of “mechanistic interpretability” who spend their days studying the complex sequences of mathematical functions that lead to an LLM outputting its next word or pixel, are still playing catch-up. The good news is that they’re making real progress. Case in point: the release of a pair of new research papers from Anthropic that contain fresh insights into LLMs’ internal “thinking.” Just as the parameters inside neural networks are based on “neurons” in the brain, the Anthropic researchers looked to neuroscience for ways of studying AI. Anthropic research scientist Joshua Batson tells Fast Company that his team developed a research tool—a sort of “AI microscope”—that can follow the data patterns and information flows within an LLM, observing how it links words and concepts en route to an answer. A year ago, the researchers could see only specific features of these patterns and flows, but they’ve now begun to observe how one idea leads to another through a sequence of reasoning. “We’re trying to connect that all together and basically walk through step-by-step when you put a prompt into a model why it says the next word,” Batson says. “And since the model’s [answers] happen one word at a time, if you can break it down and just say, ‘Well, why did it say this word instead of that word?’ then you can kind of unpack the whole thing.” AI thinks differently—even when it comes to simple math The research reinforces the idea that AI systems approach problems very differently than human beings do. LLMs aren’t explicitly taught tasks like arithmetic. Rather, they’re shown correct answers and left to develop their own probabilistic path toward that conclusion. Batson and his team studied a simple example of this math—asking an 18-layer test LLM to add the numbers 36 and 59—and found the AI’s “process” was very different from the average human’s calculation. Rather than performing a human-like step-by-step, the test model used two kinds of logic to arrive at the answer: It approximated the answer (is it in the 90s?) and it estimated the last digit of the answer. By combining the probabilities of various answers, Claude was able to arrive at the correct sum. “It definitely learned a different strategy for doing the math than the one that you or I were taught in school,” Batson says. Thinking in universal concepts The researchers also studied whether LLMs, which often analyze and generate content in many languages, necessarily “think” in the language of the words given to it in the user’s prompt. “Is it using just English [words] when it’s doing English stuff and French parts when it’s doing French stuff and Chinese parts when it’s doing Chinese stuff?” Batson asks. “Or are there some parts of the model that are actually thinking in terms of universal concepts regardless of what language it’s working in?” The researchers found that LLMs do both. They asked Claude to translate simple sentences into multiple languages and tracked overlapping tokens it used during processing. Those shared tokens—that is, snippets of meaning—represented core, language-agnostic ideas like “smallness” or “oppositeness.” And using those two tokens in combination resulted in the representation of another universal concept meaning “largeness” (the opposite of small being large). The model uses these universal concepts before it ever translates them into a given language for the user. This suggests that Claude can learn a concept like “smallness” in one language and then apply that knowledge when speaking another language with no additional training, Batson says. Studying how the model shares what it knows across contexts is important to understanding the way it reasons about questions in many different domains. LLMs can plan and improvise Claude isn’t just thinking about the next logical word to generate, it also has the ability to think “ahead.” When prompted by the research team to write poetry, Claude indeed incorporated rhyme schemes into its processing patterns. For example, after a line ended with “grab it,” Claude selected words in the following line that would nicely set up the use of “rabbit” as a conclusion. “Someone on my team found that right at the end of this line, after ‘grab it,’ before it even started writing the next line, it was thinking about a rabbit,” Batson says. The researchers then intervened at that very point in the process, inserting either a new rhyme scheme or a new ending word, and Claude shifted its plan accordingly, picking a new verbal path to get to a rhyme that made sense. Batson says the poetry observation is one of his favorites because it gives a relatively clean look at a specific part of the LLM reasoning through a problem, and because it proves that his team’s observation tools (e.g., the AI microscope) work. The poetry study highlights just how much work remains to be done. The element of the LLM that’s activated by the poetry-related generation is very small relative to the full universe of tasks the model can do. Industry researchers are taking snapshots, in the way a neuroscientist might study the way one area of the human hippocampus converts short-term memories into long-term ones. “Exploring that crazy space is like a bit of an adventure every time, and so we actually just needed tools to even see how things were connected and try ideas and move around,” Batson says. “So we kind of have this investigation phase after we’ve built the microscope and we’re looking at something [and saying] ‘Oh, okay, what is that part?’ and ‘What’s that part?’ and ‘What’s this thing over here?’” But assuming that AI companies continue funding and prioritizing mechanistic interpretability research, the snapshots will pan wider and begin to interconnect, giving a broader understanding of why LLMs do what they do. A better understanding of those patterns could give the industry a better understanding of the real risks the systems might pose, as well as better ways to “steer” the systems toward safe and benevolent behavior. Batson points out that we may develop more trust for AI systems over time by gaining more experience with their outputs. He adds, however, that he’d be “a heck of a lot more comfortable if we also understand what’s going on [inside].” View the full article

When it comes to wealth, most of us think about money. You measure your financial wealth by looking at your assets and your debts. But there are other areas in your life where you can be wealthy, including time. Would you consider yourself time-affluent or are you living the life of a time pauper? “Time wealth is all about freedom to choose how you spend your time, who you spend it with, where you spend it, and when you trade it for other things,” says Sahil Bloom, author of The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life. Building time wealth is about awareness and action, says Bloom. Be aware that time is your most precious asset and the one thing that you can never get back. Then act in relation to that awareness by treating time accordingly. “Do not allow it to simply exist where you are a passive taker of time,” says Bloom. “Create time for the things that you care about.” Time and energy While you could make more money, you can’t make more time. You can, however, prioritize energy-creating tasks that unlock more time in your day. “Outcomes follow energy,” he explains. “The things that you are pulled towards—the things that you have a natural attraction towards—tend to be the things where you end up generating the best outcomes.” For example, when you’re working on something that interests you, investing a unit of energy could generate 10, 100, or 1,000 times the outcome over something that feels like drudgery. In effect, you unlock time by generating the same output with fewer units of input. You now have more units of input, or energy, that are freed up to do other things. Identifying energy-creating tasks goes back to awareness and action. For the awareness piece, Bloom recommends creating an energy calendar. Looking at your schedule, color code your activities according to the energy they created or drained. If a task lifts you up and makes you feel energized during or after the activity, mark it green. If it was neutral, mark it yellow. And if you physically felt depleted from the activity, mark it red. After a week, you will have a clear visual perspective of the types of activities that create energy versus drain energy from your life. Let energy drive your schedule Awareness is the starting point for making slight, subtle changes over longer periods of time. While Bloom says you probably won’t be able to eliminate all the energy-draining activities from your life—that’s a bit of a pipe dream—slowly reposition your calendar. For example, prioritize energy-creators at the start of your day to ensure you get the most done. Home in on them and making them a bigger part of your life. Also, adjust the energy-draining things to make them less depleting. For example, Bloom worked in a high intensity finance role in 2019 and 2020. Phone calls and video meetings, which consisted of at least five hours of his day, were a huge energy drainer for him. “The first reaction when you hear something like this is to think, ‘Well, I can’t change that. That’s a huge part of my job,’” he says. “But if you scrape a layer deeper, you can ask the question, ‘Are there adjustments I can make to the way that I’m doing this that would make it neutral or energy creating?’” Focus on what drains your energy Bloom decided he could take some of the calls while on a walk, which created energy because he was outside, moving around. “Also, I can’t multitask when I’m walking, so I’m more focused, more present on the call,” he says. “I took half of my phone calls and made them into walking calls. I was still doing the exact same work, but I was doing it in a way that was significantly more energy creating, which led to significantly better outcomes.” Another way to let energy drive your schedule is by batching activities to leverage the different levels. For example, confine some of the energy drainers to a single block, so you aren’t hitting speed bumps throughout the day. Another suggestion is to put two energy creating activities around an energy draining activity. “Manage them more effectively, so that you can get through to the other side more efficiently and in a happier date of mind,” says Bloom. Prioritizing what matters The entire point of considering time a state of wealth is to recognize that it is your most precious asset, and you need to intentionally design our time now. In fact, Bloom argues that the most dangerous word in the dictionary is “later.” “We say it to ourselves all the time,” he says. “I’ll spend more time with my kids later. I’ll prioritize my relationship with my partner and friends later. I’ll find my purpose later. ‘Later’ becomes another word for ‘never,’ because those things won’t exist in the same way. Later, your kid won’t be five years old. Later, your partner and friends won’t be there for you if you’re not there for them now. You won’t magically wake up with purpose later.” Investing time now will pay off in dividends later, creating time wealth that can be richer than money can buy. View the full article

On the evening of January 7, the Eaton Fire hit Altadena, destroying more than 10,000 commercial and residential homes and displacing thousands of families. Just a little over two months later, and this historically Black community is facing a new threat. Shortly after the fire, a private developer paid $550,000 in cash for the first vacant lot left behind from the wildfires, about $100,000 above asking price. In the days since, at least 13 more properties have sold, at least half of them by offshore private developers. But community leaders are working to beat back the tide. Last month, a Pasadena-based housing justice nonprofit purchased a burned lot in the neighborhood, marking the first Altadena property that has been removed from the market and protected in a community land bank. Jasmin Shupper, a Pasadena resident and founder of Greenline Housing Foundation, worked with land use attorney Remy De La Peza to purchase the lot using a $500,000 grant from The Pasadena Foundation. The pair is speaking with other residents about purchasing their fire-burned properties and is offering Greenline as an alternative buyer for any property owners who need to sell but would like to keep the land in the community’s hands. Greenline has positioned itself to act as a land bank, holding the property to eventually transfer it for community use. It’s a way for people to protect the land from acquisition costs that rise on a speculative market while community members decide how to best use the property as Altadena reimagines its future. “Most of the buyers were LLCs or corporate entities, a number of them were multipurchase buyers, which means they’re purchasing three or four lots,” Peza says. “That’s an investment strategy purchase.” It’s unfolding exactly as she and other community members feared when the fires hit, Peza says. Meanwhile, she says, philanthropic groups have raised millions for recovery since the Eaton Fire, but few of those dollars are flowing toward community land bank initiatives. She and Shupper are constantly being asked to speak with potential funders who ask how they can help. While they have been very clear that what they need is help acquiring the land, the money has not come in. “We cannot compete with these developers,” says Peza. “We need philanthropy donors to step up, or Altadena will end up permanently in the hands of corporations.” While state officials have put forward some legislation to protect the community from private investors, including bills SB 782 and SB 658, Peza says it’s not enough. One of the challenges with state legislation is that the community is still beholden to the state legislative cycle and calendar. None of the bills that were put forward were passed through the urgency process; even if they pass, they won’t be put into legislation until the fall. Peza notes that Altadena does not have the same legislative limitations at the county level; rather than having its own city government, as most municipalities do, Altadena is managed by the Los Angeles County supervisors. “Technically, local policy can be passed at any point, and there is more that we need to be demanding,” Peza says. “We need to be focusing on the county level and making sure the county supervisor is taking care of us.” Why Altadena residents are vulnerable to outside investors Peza believes Altadena is particularly vulnerable to displacement through disaster capitalism because it has a high concentration of Black and Brown residents. There’s also a high number of seniors who are not as connected on social media, where the majority of resources are being shared. One main factor pushing residents to consider selling is the isolation this disaster has caused. Altadena mirrored an idyllic movie-like community before the fires, she says, where neighbors knew and cared for each other. Now residents have been forced to go to shelters, stay with people in other parts of California, or simply leave the state altogether. “When you don’t have your team rallying together, it’s hard. People can’t just go next door and ask their neighbor, ‘Hey, what are you doing? Are you thinking about selling?’ like they used to,” Peza says. “That social network and capital has been lost.” With its older population and multigenerational owners, many in Altadena also lack home insurance. Once a homeowner pays off their mortgage, home insurance is not necessarily required. With insurance rates spiking in recent years, many people in this community have forgone their home insurance and are left with nothing except the land. Their only option is to sell. “At this rate, Altadena cannot wait,” says Peza. For residents who lost their homes and don’t plan to rebuild, but do want the future land use to remain in the community, Greenline’s leaders say its land bank is available to purchase those lots. Through their land bank model, Greenline is offering a community-centered alternative to selling to private purchasers. After the purchase, Greenline will work with residents, local housing organizations, and community stakeholders to determine the shared needs and desires for the land. “It is important that the community knows that there is an organization that is here for them, and that is committed to ensuring the wonderful community of Altadena is protected and restored,” Shupper says. “We hope this is the first of many such purchases and that it will be a beacon of hope for the community.” This story was originally published by Next City, a nonprofit news outlet covering solutions for equitable cities. Sign up for Next City’s newsletter for its latest articles and events. 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