Happy Thursday, FutureParty people. We’re not sure if you’ve noticed lately, but a lot of people have been switching up their search engines. Reddit, for example, has been getting more traffic than ever, and the company knows it — so it looks like they’ll monetize the function soon. Let’s just hope the money doesn’t make the site go the way of other search engines…

In other news… AI comes for programmers, robots Rickroll people, and Meta sucks data.

Want to discover even more newsletters? Here are some of our favorites

• YouTube – “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart” - Taylor Swift

• X (Twitter) – Sister Jean

• Google – Jennifer Lopez

• Reddit – Work trip

• TikTok – “BABY I’M BACK” - The Kid LAROI

• Spotify – “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” - Shaboozey

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

AWS CEO says AI will do workers’ jobs for them

The Future. Because AI is well-suited to the rigid rules and repetitive structures of code, many are already using it to replace human labor. AWS’ CEO thinks that AI will make human programmers’ jobs nearly unrecognizable in two years, but will those jobs simply change — or disappear completely, leaving thousands without work?

Begin the countdown
AWS CEO Matt Garman said in an internal meeting that AI will take over programming within two years.

• Garman pitched this as an opportunity for human programmers to learn new skills and focus more on innovation and less on implementation.

• The CEO means that Al wouldn’t replace the workers but take over the “undifferentiated heavy lifting” of coding so that people don’t have to do it.

• But it’s hard to believe that when AWS has already laid off hundreds of employees earlier this year.

Promotion: unemployed
It’s hard to see this change leading anywhere other than massive layoffs. Similar to Garman, other CEOs have claimed that AI will turn everyone into programmers, or create one billion developers, or even eliminate human programmers within five years (and possibly politicians). And they all lead to the same place.

One billion unpaid AI programmers may be good as zero programming jobs, as far as humans are concerned.

75.3% of you voted No in yesterday’s poll: Does “digital switching” help you find more engaging content?

“The algorithm just gives you more of the same crap.”

“Yes and no. When I skip videos I don’t find interesting, my algorithm adjusts to show less of that type of content in the long run. But at the moment, it turns into a doomscroll spiral I can’t pull out of.”

“Once in a while, I’ll skim through videos just to while away the time. In doing so, I end up super glued and forget what I was doing.”

.A WORD FROM OUR FRIENDS AT NATIVE PATH.

Hydration, simplified

Staying hydrated in the summer heat shouldn’t be a hassle — that’s where NativePath Hydrate comes in.

Unlike other commercial hydration products, Native Hydrate contains high-quality amino acids proven to be the optimal way to hydrate, along with subtle (yet effective) amounts of electrolytes.

Most other hydration products include way more sodium than you need unless you’re working out for multiple hours every day. Native Hydrate contains the equivalent of a quarter teaspoon of salt for optimal hydration delivery without disrupting your health. Plus, it doesn’t undergo massive processing like most hydration supplements or have any added sugars.

With its unique blend of essential amino acids, branched-chain amino acids, electrolytes, and additional nutrients (like Calcium Carbonate, Choline Bitartrate, Riboflavin, Niacin, B6, Folate, B12, Biotin, Pantothenic Acid, Choline, and Zinc) Native Hydrate makes getting proper hydration easy and enjoyable all year long.

Stock up now and make hydration your top priority this year!

Media, Music, & Entertainment

• Anyone with a Disney+ account has apparently signed away their right to take the company to court for wrongdoing. [Read More]

• Chick-fil-A is apparently working with several production companies and traditional studios to debut a… streaming platform? [Read More]

• will.i.am is launching RAiDiO.FYI, an AI-powered radio station that turns listening to the radio into an interactive experience. [Read More]

Fashion & E-Commerce

• Say hello to the rise of “corpcore” as shoppers swap streetwear for tailored, business-friendly attire. [Read More]

• Alien: Romulus brought an iconic Reebok sneaker back to the big screen. [Read More]

• The Defense Department is building smart warehouses that aren’t too different from your typical Amazon e-commerce shipping center. [Read More]

Tech, Web3, & AI

• Stratton Studios is teeing up with PGA Tour and Chain Games to launch a web3 interactive golf game. [Read More]

• An “AI Scientist” developed by researchers from the University of Oxford and Sakana AI is inventing (and running) its own experiments. [Read More]

• Boeing is being hit with mandatory inspections from the FAA that will affect 158 planes registered in the US. [Read More]

Creator Economy

• Steven Bartlett, the man behind Europe’s top-ranked podcast Diary of a CEO, shares how his passion project turned into a media empire. [Read More]

• Meta has two new generative AI bots that crawl the web for its Llama AI models and other products that rely on internet content. [Read More] 

• Despite a presidential campaign run on memes, 50% of Gen Zers say they have “very little” trust in the presidency. [Read More]

.MEDIA.

AI assistants are Rickrolling people

The Future. Lindy, an AI-assistant startup, accidentally Rickrolled a client in a recent email. This mishap reveals the unexpected quirks of AI trained on web data. While this slipup from Lindy’s AI was mostly harmless and, honestly, kind of funny… it underscores the need for more vigilant monitoring and ethical guidelines in AI development.

Bait-and-switch
People are getting inadvertently Rickrolled by LLMs.

• Flo Crivello, founder of ChatGPT-powered LindyAI, built the app to help people with their work — in other words, a virtual AI assistant.

• This assistant can do things like answer emails, respond to tickets, and even send people things like YouTube tutorials.

• But when she was monitoring outputs, Crivello discovered that the assistant had sent a client an infamous Rick Astley music video instead of the YouTube tutorial it had promised.

“The way these models work is they try to predict the most likely next sequence of text,” Crivello said. “So it starts like, ‘Oh, I’m going to send you a video!’ So what’s most likely after that? YouTube.com. And then what’s most likely after that?”

The wild wild web
AI models trained on web data inadvertently incorporate internet humor and memes. And as LLMs increasingly absorb internet culture, companies will likely be forced to balance creativity with stricter content controls.

• Watch: CNN displays spectacular footage of the Northern Lights captured by NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick from the International Space Station.

• Read: WIRED covers the UAE’s Rain Enhancement Program, an ambitious cloud-seeding effort aimed at helping dry nations weather climate change.

• Listen: NPR discusses how edibles that allegedly contain psilocybin mushrooms are making people sick — and how they contain a lot more than psilocybin.

LATEST PODCAST EPISODE

Today, on an extra special bonus episode of Future Forecast, our hosts Boye and Chris sit down with Andrew Kenward, the President and COO of Almost Friday Media. Andrew was an agent at WME in the digital media department at WME before being brought into the Almost Friday universe in 2021. We chat with him about his career, his goals for the brand moving forward, and what it's like working in media today.