🍿 Collaborative sci-fi

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👋 Every worker has rights… even a chonky rodent. That’s why PETA is suggesting that Punxsutawney Phil — the groundhog who predicts whether winter is wrapping up or crawling on — be replaced with a vegan “weather reveal cake.” A cake with blue filling would mean six more weeks of winter, while pink would indicate early spring. We think true justice would entail Phil getting to eat a slice of cake.

🎧 On the pod: Can Starbucks reinvent itself?

NEWS FLASH

A woman holding a credit card and speaking on the phone in front of a laptop.

💰 Wealthy Gen Zers are making off with stolen online merch: Cue the weary head shakes and talk of “kids these days.” America has a digital shoplifting problem, especially with wealthy, young customers: 55% of Gen Zers earning $100k+ annually said they’ve stolen from online merchants in the last year, according to a recent Socure survey. Millennials are by no means innocent, with 49% admitting to pocketing digital goods. How do you steal when you can’t shove an item in your backpack, you ask? By claiming a package was never delivered or disputing a credit card charge. If you think this is keeping them up at night, you’d be very wrong: 46% said they see their actions as “consumer advocacy.”

📚 Can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em: While Amazon holds a ~75% share of the ebook market, Bookshop.org, which launched in 2020 to help bookstores sell books online amid the pandemic, is getting in the mix with a new ebook reader app. As with paper books, customers will buy ebooks from bookstores, which can offer recommendations and reading lists. The app also allows readers to share quotes from their books to social media, which their followers can buy and also start reading. So, go throw your Kindle in the ocean, we guess?

🤖 Coming soon? OpenAI announced ChatGPT Gov, a new product designed for US government agencies. Over 90k federal employees have generated 18m+ ChatGPT prompts since January 2024, per OpenAI, but security has remained a top concern. Unlike its other enterprise products, ChatGPT Gov will allow users to feed the bot “non-public, sensitive information” while operating inside their own cloud. Though it’s not live yet, OpenAI says user testing of ChatGPT Gov could begin “within a month.”

MORE NEWS TO KNOW

Fancy people keep buying fancy cars: Sales of $80k+ vehicles increased 37% in December compared to the year prior, according to Kelley Blue Book data. The category includes cars like Land Rover’s Range Rover, Cadillac’s Escalade, and Tesla’s Cybertruck.
If you’re already having a bad day, maybe skip this one? The American dream might be dead — if you ask today’s Americans, anyway. Only 27% say the age-old dream still holds true, down from 50% in 2010, according to an ABC News and Ipsos poll.
2025 might be spicy: McCormick named ají amarillo as its flavor of the year. The company predicts the South American spice’s appearance on menus will increase by 44% in the coming years.

PRO PROMPTS

Shining examples of skillful commands

If you keep feeding AI questions and it keeps churning out crud, then you probably need to up the specificity.

See our AI Prompt Engineering QuickStart Guide with Tina Huang for concrete samples of bad, passable, and excellent directions, like:

Weak: “Help me learn Python.”
Mid: “Teach me Python data structures.”
Golden: “You’re a senior Python instructor. Create a step-by-step learning plan for data structures, including…”

Get the guide on getting to the point.

Perfect your prompts

THE BIG IDEA

Is the next big sci-fi franchise on blockchain?

It’s no secret that Hollywood has been struggling lately. Between Q2 of 2022 and 2024, after the writers’ and actors’ guild strikes, US TV and film production declined 40%, leaving many industry creatives to worry about the sustainability of their careers.

Is the answer blockchain and AI? Rarely, but let’s consider it.

Incention…

… is a new blockchain storytelling platform backed by a16z crypto and hyped by screenwriter-director David S. Goyer (Blade, The Dark Knight, “Foundation”), who’s using it to debut his new sci-fi concept, “Emergence,” about a universe where mysterious relics magically appear via a white hole.

The idea is that other creators can contribute content — stories, podcasts, comics, music, art, etc. — that fits into the “Emergence” world, thus collaboratively building the IP.

This isn’t an entirely new concept

The SCP Foundation is a long-running online project in which hundreds of authors have penned stories about the objects and entities the foundation — a fictional organization that studies paranormal phenomena — investigates.

What’s the difference? Tech — and maybe money.

Atlas, Incention’s generative AI tool, can help aggregate ideas, brainstorm stories, generate videos, and post to social media.
Incention is built on blockchain to track who owns what content and how they should be compensated.

AI adoption was a key part of the Hollywood guild strikes, but Goyer told Variety he sees himself in between AI doomsayers and adopters, seeking useful applications that don’t “necessarily put people out of a job.”

Incention’s manifesto similarly decries outdated, sluggish Hollywood models that ignore creative communities, as well as AI slop. It envisions itself as a platform where people create while AI handles more mundane tasks.

OK, but will any of this work?

First, we’d want to know:

How much creators will earn. It’s hard to imagine it’d be comparable to what an animator, composer, or other pro would make on a studio project.
The extent of AI’s role in creation, including those videos Incention mentioned.
How content will be curated.

Another barrier: Will anyone even take to these new franchises? Sure, people spend hours making fan fiction and art for free on websites like Archive of Our Own, but those are within beloved franchises or well-established communities, like SCP or Reddit’s r/nosleep.

Can a vague sandbox inspire — and reward — fresh creativity? Guess we’ll find out.

🔗

NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

Until midnight, per the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and its Doomsday Clock.

Founded in 1947, the Doomsday Clock is meant to predict how close humankind is to destroying itself, with midnight serving as a metaphor for an apocalyptic event. Back then, it was set to seven minutes.

If you listened to The Hustle Daily Show’s episode detailing the top stats of 2024, we wondered if the Doomsday Clock, set to 90 seconds in 2024, would move even closer to midnight — and it has.

While that single second may seem mild, the Bulletin notes that we’re so “perilously close to the precipice” that every second counts. What’s with all the modern doom and gloom? The Bulletin cited nuclear risk, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, climate change, disease, AI, tensions between various countries, and disruptive technologies.

We’ll be sure to report on next year’s update — if there is a next year.

AROUND THE WEB

📅 On this day: In 1936, the US Baseball Hall of Fame elected its first members: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson, and Walter Johnson.

🍿 Useful: Wired’s picks for the 40 best movies on Netflix right now.

🏆 ICYMI: The Webby Awards deadline has been extended. Submit your best work by next Friday, Feb. 7.

🌧️ That’s cool: Historical weather records for your perusal.

🐱 Aww: What’s in your pocket?

HOT TAKES

Wait… did you catch that stat about Gen Zers pocketing online purchases?

Now we’ve gotta know: Have you committed an online shopping crime?

Confess

And come back tomorrow to see the results.

SHOWER THOUGHT

People who live west of their jobs have to commute both ways with the sun in their eyes. SOURCE

Today’s email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Sara Friedman.
Editing by: Ben “Replace everything with cake” Berkley.

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