Claude In The Machine

PRESENTED BY TIME-LINE

We’re less than two weeks away from the election, and it’s no surprise that people are a bit more stressed than usual. So, the meditation app Calm is parachuting in, offering a free care package of “Surviving Election Season” content. Who knows, maybe it can help lower our collective temperature… or at least remind us to breathe a little.

DAILY TOP TRENDS

Claude, Take The Wheels

AI startup Anthropic debuted a version of its Claude chatbot that can literally take over your computer and complete tasks you ask it to — like searching the web or inputting text like a human behind a mouse and keyboard.

Why It Hits: AI agents are becoming all the rage in the industry, allowing the tech to complete tasks on behalf of humans. But it’s that exact use case that puts fears of worker displacement into sharp focus.

Between The Code: Jared Kaplan, the chief science officer at Anthropic, showed Wired what Claude is now capable of.

• In pre-recorded demos, it was able to plan an outing at the Golden Gate Bridge through Google Chrome, and it built a website to promote itself by prompting itself to generate code that it then inputted into a platform called Visual Studio Code.

• Claude is allegedly far more capable than any other AI agent… but can still only accurately use a computer’s operating system 14.9% of the time (humans have an average of 75%), so Anthropic is limiting certain abilities, like using your credit card.

• Still, several companies are already starting to leverage the new version of Claude, including Canva, Asana, and Notion.

The Future: Anthropic has a lot of competition in the race to build highly capable AI agents. According to Wired, Microsoft is testing an agent that works on Windows computers, and Amazon is testing a version that works on its shopping platform. The goal, of course, is to free people from having to do mundane tasks on the computer so they’re free to do deeper work. But, don’t be surprised if some firms simply leverage Claude as a human replacement that a manager supervises. It’s the new quality control.

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Streamers Program Dinner And A Show

Top streaming services are teaming up with grocery giants and on-demand delivery platforms to cook up a new kind of bundle for subscribers.

The Big Picture: Streamers are plagued by ever-rising rates of churn — people subscribing and unsubscribing month to month — so Hollywood’s latest strategy is mixing what’s considered an expendable expense, entertainment, with a non-expandable one, needing to eat.

Behind The Scenes: Everyone but Netflix is hoping that hunger pains lead to subscriber gains.

• Disney struck a deal with Kroger to add any of its ad-supported services to a Kroger Boost membership for free.

• Warner Bros. Discovery partnered with DoorDash to give DashPass members free access to the ad-tier of Max.

• NBCUniversal did the same thing with its Peacock platform with Instacart+ subscribers.

• And Paramount bundled Paramount+ with Walmart+ to get as many people as possible watching the Taylor Sheridan universe of shows.

Final Order: Mixing food subscriptions with streaming subscriptions isn’t necessarily a novel idea — it’s the whole premise behind Amazon Prime, which makes Prime Video a cherry on top of free shipping and discounts to Whole Foods. By getting the munchies, streamers may keep customers, find new ones, and share data for ad-targeting. And as streamers roll out the ability to purchase things directly from ads, prepare for some serious food-brand sponsorship deals to get you hungry while watching your favorite show.

DEEP DIVES

• Read: NYT talks with former OpenAI researcher Suchir Balaji, who was part of the team that helped put together the training data for ChatGPT, on how the firm broke copyright law.

• Watch: A new PSA featuring deepfakes of celebrities like Michael Douglas and Amy Schumer shows how the software could upend the coming election.

• Listen: Strictly Business highlights several conversations with marketing heads from companies like Disney, Nvidia, and Ford about how to break through the advertising noise.

68.5% of you voted Yes in yesterday’s poll: Are you into absurd humor?

“I have an odd sense of humor so it can be categorized as absurd.”

“Slapstick, falls, dark humor! Inappropriate behavior! ✅✅ Animals talking and doing crazy things... crack me up!”

“From Dumb and Dumber to Rick and Morty, I love it all.”

“I’m a little dark so I love dark and weird humor.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join our Poll Of The Day newsletter so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

QUICK HITS

→ Entertainment / Media

🎥 Film and TV production in Los Angeles has hit a historic low as projects move to states and countries that provide better tax credits.

🎞️ Tribeca Film Festival has struck a deal with streaming platforms Kanopy and Kinema to ensure that as many festival films as possible get distribution.

🏡 Airbnb has created the Beetlejuice house in Hillsborough, New Jersey, as part of its Icon program.

→ Technology

💰 Disney isn’t letting people subscribe to Disney+ or Hulu through Apple’s App Store as the Mouse House sours on the app store fees.

📉 Speaking of Apple, the company is majorly pulling back production on the Vision Pro due to soft sales.

📰 Yahoo and McAfee are partnering to detect images that may be digitally manipulated by AI on Yahoo News.

→ Fashion / E-commerce

📦 Amazon is closing up shop on its same-day delivery service from brick-and-mortar stores.

🦾 Sotheby’s is set to sell the first artwork made by a humanoid robot — a portrait of computer scientist Alan Turing.

🍚 Rice-scented fragrances are all the rage right now. Tasty.