Happy Tuesday, fam. Well, 50 Cent is probably not too happy after his X account was hacked and used to hawk a memecoin. The sale of $GUNIT was only up for 30 minutes, but the fraudster made out with over $300 million in sales before 50 Cent was able to shut it down. Ouch.

In other news… AI steals freelancers’ jobs, a new agency wants to make Oscar movies go viral, and Rick Rubin throws a music festival in Tuscany.

Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe

• YouTube – Nosferatu

• X (Twitter) – Deadpool & Wolverine

• Google – Presidential debate

• Reddit – Tamayo Perry

• TikTok – “Way down We Go” - KALEO

• Spotify – “us.” - Gracie Abrams, Taylor Swift

.ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

Freelancers face stiff competition from AI

The Future. Despite only being around for about two years, AI systems like ChatGPT and Midjourney are already taking away a significant number of jobs from freelancers — an issue affecting 38% of Americans. If AI becomes even more widespread, low-skilled, task-driven work may soon only be the purview of chatbots.

Gigs for gigabytes
Finding a sustainable amount of freelance work is getting a lot harder thanks to AI, according to research collated by WSJ.

• Researchers from universities like Harvard and the University of Hong Kong found that in work where AI does a suitable job — copywriting, illustrating, marketing, coding — job postings on sites like Fiverr and Upwork have dropped as much as 21%.

• But it’s not like people are happy with the work — employers are turning around and asking humans to edit, tweak, or revise AI generations.

• To add insult to injury, these revision jobs are being offered for far lower than freelancers’ typical rates, and the turnaround times for the work are way faster.

Ironically, there is a silver lining, though. For the jobs where AI can’t replace humans but does make them more productive (like IT and data science), total pay is going up about 40%, says Upwork.

The secret to human success may be proving that you’re indispensable.

54.4% of you voted No in yesterday’s poll: Do you think your state is effective at protecting the land’s natural beauty and resources?

“Not unless there’s a profit involved.”

“I live in Ohio where finite resources like farmland and clean water are given to the highest bidder (i.e. Intel), and fracking is totally a thing. There was just a whole project done with the Department of Transportation that cut down thousands of trees near the highways.”

“I think most of the counties in the south of my state are way less developed to handle the climate issues than where I’m at, and they have some pretty national parks.”

.A WORD FROM OUR FRIENDS AT GORGIE.

Summer energy in a can

Wanna energize your summer day? Drink GORGIE.

GORGIE is the best energy boost out there with a perfect blend of clean ingredients. With zero sugar, 5 calories, 150mg of green tea caffeine, and tons of flavor, GORGIE is packed with the good stuff.

It comes in six sparkling flavors: Watermelon Crush, Peach Tea, Paradise Punch, Citrus Burst, Mango Tango, and Electric Berry.

Whether you’re chilling at the park, by the pool, or on the couch, treat yourself to GORGIE for 20% off.

Use the code GORGIETFP20 at checkout.

Media, Music, & Entertainment

• Renowned music producer Rick Rubin threw a secret music festival in Tuscany that was headlined by artists like Arcade Fire, James Blake, and Rhye. [Read More]

• The Lego Group has signed with WME to help build out their ambitions in entertainment. [Read More]

• Margot Robbie, her husband/LuckyChap producing partner Tom Ackerley, and three friends have launched a new gin brand called Papa Salt. [Read More]

Fashion & E-Commerce

• SHEIN, which was valued at $66 billion last year, has officially filed to go public on the London Stock Exchange. [Read More]

• Shopify is rolling out a chatbot for merchants, dubbed “Sidekick,” which can make QR codes and generate business reports. [Read More]

• A$AP Rocky’s American Sabotage kicked off its first-ever fashion show during Paris Fashion Week. [Read More]

Tech, Web3, & AI

• Apple is considering integrating Meta’s Llama AI system into Apple Intelligence, giving users another LLM aside from OpenAI’s ChatGPT. [Read More]

• OpenAI and Anthropic are allegedly bypassing established internet rules by scraping the content of websites that have specifically set up software to block such behavior. [Read More]

• A family in Florida has sued NASA after a piece of debris that fell off the International Space Station crashed through their roof. [Read More]

Creator Economy

• BuzzFeed is having a hard time offloading Hot Ones producer First We Feast due to a high $70 million price tag. [Read More]

• Bindery Books, a digital book publishing startup, has signed a deal with Atlas Literary and Independent Artist Group to bring BookTok favorites to the big screen. [Read More]

• X plans to limit livestreaming to Premium subscribers in another gambit to boost signups. [Read More]

.ENTERTAINMENT.

Genuine Impression wants to make Oscar films go viral

The Future. A new Hollywood PR firm wants to help international and documentary films find their footing during Oscar season through strictly digital and social media campaigns. Considering how current moviegoing trends have seemingly shut out those types of films from the zeitgeist (with notable exceptions), bringing Oscar campaigning into the modern age could help these titles find unexpected life at the box office.

Social strategy
Can under-the-radar Oscar hopefuls find an audience during the heat of awards season? That’s what Genuine Impression is banking on.

• Veteran award-strategists Dor Dotson and Matt Delman are merging their respective Genuine Article and 3rd Impression firms to launch a new agency solely dedicated to helping craft digital campaigns for independent films.

• The duo partnered after launching successful campaigns for Oscar-nominated titles like The Mole Agent, RRR, and To Kill a Tiger.

Dotson and Delman’s plan to leverage social media and targeted digital ad spends to market movies seems obvious in the age of the creator economy. But the world of Oscar campaigning is still a bit of a dinosaur, relying on exclusive For Your Consideration screenings, billboards in LA and NYC, magazine spreads, and celebrity cheerleaders.

And times are changing — the Academy’s membership is now younger and more diverse, and independent-minded companies have embraced streaming as a necessary platform for global recognition, especially as Netflix has doubled down on local language productions.

In other words, campaigning has moved online, so arthouse cinema needs to go viral if it wants to stay culturally relevant.

• Listen: Rapid Response chats with Autodesk CMO Dara Treseder about all the trends to look forward to coming out of Cannes Lions.

• Watch: Elon Musk gives a tour of SpaceX’s new Starfactory, which hopes to mass-produce the Starship.

• Read: MIT Technology Review looks into the future of AI-generated video, with OpenAI’s Sora being just the beginning.

We call this one “Dread.”

LATEST PODCAST EPISODE

Today, on an extra special bonus episode of Future Forecast, our hosts Boye and Chris sit down with Larry Fitzgibbon, the co-founder and CEO of Tastemade. Tastemade is an independent media company that creates award-winning video content and original programming in the food, travel, and home & design space.