Teaching Brainrot

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Happy Friday, FutureParty people! Over the past week, Hollywood’s gone haywire for a screenplay titled Alignment that was written by industry-newcomer Natan Dotan. It sold in a bidding war for $1.25 million to Fifth Season, with an additional $2.75 million on the table for Dotan if the movie gets made. Whoa. The script is described as a fast-paced, grounded thriller that follows “a board member at a booming AI company who wrestles with corporate politics and warped incentives as he tries to prevent his colleagues’ willful ignorance from causing a global catastrophe,” per THR. Essentially, an inside look at the world’s newest nightmare. No wonder it got people talking.

DAILY TOP TRENDS

Google’s AI Music Generator Was Too Risky To Release

Google’s DeepMind unit created an artist-mimicking AI music generator, codenamed “Orca,” that allegedly worked so well the tech giant couldn’t release it for fear of legal fallout.

Why It Hits: It’s no secret that AI systems have been trained on vast amounts of copyrighted data. It’s what makes them so powerful… and a disaster when it comes to the law. Knowing that Google is already capable of building a system that can mimic an artist may inspire the creative community to push for wide-ranging protections before Pandora’s box is opened.

Between the Code: Google’s Orca could potentially do as much damage to the music industry as real Orcas can do to small boats… at least, according to four people involved in the project who anonymously told Insider.

• DeepMind and YouTube collaborated on the tool, which explains where all the premium copyrighted data came from.

• The tool allowed users to generate an entire song by simply prompting it with a specific artist, a genre, and some lyrics… and the results were, according to a source, “mind-blowing.”

• Google floated the idea of releasing it publicly to a few music labels, dangling the carrot of a revenue-sharing agreement with artists whose work Orca was trained on.

• The labels swiftly shut the plan down, saying, “You’ll be hearing from our lawyers” (or, at least, we can safely assume).

• Recognizing that the tool could pose a “huge legal risk,” Google backtracked.

Final Note: Although Orca was never released, it did provide the basis for DeepMind’s other AI music generator, Lyria. Announced last year, Lyria could only generate part of a song in the style of a few artists who partnered with Google on the tech. 

So, why did Google (and specifically YouTube) consider releasing this tool even though it could so clearly hurt their standing with artists and labels? Turns out, OpenAI’s blatant scraping of YouTube content prompted Google execs to ask, “Hey, if they’re doing it to us, why not do it to ourselves?” Move fast and break things is still clearly the law of Silicon Valley.

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Gen Alpha Gets A Meme Education

“Brainrot” content — videos steeped in the absurd memes that have become a favorite of Gen Alpha — are starting to be retrofitted into study materials that can hopefully keep kids’ attention.

The Big Picture: Smartphones and internet culture have starved young people’s attention spans. While some fight back with proposed device bans in the classroom and other anti-tech measures, others are experimenting with leaning into them to win the hearts and, more importantly, minds of the youth.

Behind the Jokes: Skibidi Toilet, Baby Gronk, Pibby Glitch, Freddy Fazbear… these are just some of the memes that could pop up in your kid’s school syllabus.

• Context: Kids use PDF-to-brainrot tools to turn memes into vertical videos featuring ASMR montages, such as people cutting soap, scooping ice cream, or gameplay from Minecraft and Subway Surfers.

• Tools: Platforms like Coconote, StudyRot, Study Fetch, and Memenome are giving educators the ability to turn their lesson plans, study guides, and other materials into brainrot videos, even changing text into Gen Alpha slang.

• Teaching: The videos are popping up all over TikTok… although it’s a bit unclear if they come from genuine educators or paid influencers.

The Future: Techcrunch notes that the chaotic videos may oddly calm students because of how brains are becoming more and more wired for multitasking. It’s the same idea behind kids watching TV while on their phones and looking at something on their computers. The information overload becomes second nature. While brainrot may not be for every student (or even most students), some teachers may give it a shot if it can reach enough of them to make a statistical difference in test scores.

DEEP DIVES

• Watch: Bloomberg chats with Endeavor and TKO CEO Ari Emanuel about his bullishness on the combat-sports economy and taking Endeavor private again.

• Listen: WSJ explores how recycled copper has become a key component of the transition to electric energy.

• Read: Two Harvard students detail to NYT how they made their own facial recognition glasses.

96.1% of you voted Yes in yesterday’s poll: Do you think people are paying for status more than the art itself?

“This has always been the case. Commercialism and art cannot coexist without the former corrupting the latter.”

“The art in duct-taping a banana to a wall is getting someone to pay 6.2 mil for it.”

“This banana is a perfect example of what the term ‘F U money’ means.”

“Isn’t that the point of purchasing art?”

“High-priced ‘art’ = money laundering.”

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

🛍️ Amazon is rolling out a livestream shopping extravaganza on Black Friday with the help of talent like Martha Stewart and Eva Mendes.

🎥 Legendary and Sony are ending their distribution deal at the end of the year, potentially paving the way for the former to grow into its own full-fledged studio.

🕹️ Tetris and The Hundreds have teamed up on what may be the smallest arcade game ever.

→ Technology

🖥️ The Department of Justice may seek for Google to offload Android on top of selling Chrome.

📱 Apple is offering Indonesia a $100 million investment in exchange for lifting its ban on the iPhone 16.

₿ SEC chair Gary Gensler — an antagonist of the crypto community — is stepping down from the role in January.

→ Fashion / E-commerce

📦 The EU may open up an antitrust investigation into Amazon over allegedly favoring its own branded products on its platform.

💰 Speaking of in-house brands, Walmart saw strong earnings last quarter because of its own product segment.

🚢 US companies are stocking up on Chinese supplies in the run-up to potential tariffs next year.