The Curse of the Creator Economy | The Chatbots Are Now Talking to Each Other | Xi Jinping bumps up the share prices of firms he visits | The Palestinian cause has been damaged by factionalism, argues a former prime minister

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� � � � � � You Might Like � � � � � � � � � The Curse of the Creator Economy - WIRED    Journalist Taylor Lorenz isn’t the first to declare legacy media a dead industry walking. But few voice it with the conviction that she does—and an even more vigorous claim that they know its successor. The future of media, she says, lies in social media influencers and the “creator economy.” Let’s see how the peerless scrivener of influencers describes this revolution—her term—in which an online rabble is storming the tech/media Bastille with blogs, TikToks, DigiTours, and product placements. “It has radically upended how we’ve understood and interacted with our world. It has demolished traditional barriers and empowered millions who were previously marginalized. It has created vast new sectors of our economy while devastating legacy institutions. It is often dismissed by traditionalists as a vacant fad when it in fact it is the greatest and most disruptive change in modern capitalism.” In fact? More than private equity, the rise of the tech platforms influencers build on, or the US Supreme Court’s multiple rulings giving corporations individual rights while weakening the rights actual individuals have to hold companies to account? That’s a huge heap of things to justify, and Lorenz doesn’t really try to do it in her new book, Extremely Online. Her long-awaited tome on online influencers and creators—who have genuinely made a difference, though the “empowering millions” part is debatable—is a surprisingly conventional business book. She accurately calls it a “social history of social media.” This is a logical approach, springing from her excellent reporting for The Atlantic, The New York Times, and her current legacy-media employer, The Washington Post. Continued here The Chatbots Are Now Talking to Each Other - WIRED    Lena Anderson isn’t a soccer fan, but she does spend a lot of time ferrying her kids between soccer practices and competitive games. “I may not pull out a foam finger and painted face, but soccer does have a place in my life,” says the soccer mom—who also happens to be completely made up. Anderson is a fictional personality played by artificial intelligence software like that powering ChatGPT. Anderson doesn’t let her imaginary status get in the way of her opinions, though, and comes complete with a detailed backstory. In a wide-ranging conversation with a human interlocutor, the bot says that it has a 7-year-old son who is a fan of the New England Revolution and loves going to home games at Gillette Stadium in Massachusetts. Anderson claims to think the sport is a wonderful way for kids to stay active and make new friends. Continued here Don't like ads? Go ad-free with TradeBriefs Premium Xi Jinping bumps up the share prices of firms he visits - The Economist    In imperial times, to gather unfiltered information and tap into the public mood, emperors slipped into civilian clothing and travelled around incognito. China’s Communist rulers are fond of inspection tours, too. But unlike the emperors’ hugger-mugger trips, modern equivalents are highly publicised affairs, intended to show that the visitors are caring and down-to-earth. State media often show China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, visiting schools, offices and factories, surrounded by onlookers beaming with adoration. It might be expected that Mr Xi’s inspections of firms would generate such a positive buzz that their business would benefit. But a paper by researchers in Japan, led by Ito Asei of the University of Tokyo, paints a more complex picture of the Xi effect. It is based on a study of leaders’ visits to companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges during the rule of Mr Xi and his predecessor, Hu Jintao, who was the party’s chief from 2002 to 2012. The researchers measured profits on investments in shares of the visited firms and compared them with returns that would have been expected had a visit not occurred (“cumulative abnormal returns”, in stockmarket jargon). They focused on a 15-day period around each inspection. Between 2012 and 2022 Mr Xi visited 53 listed firms while his prime minister, Li Keqiang (who stepped down this year after holding the job for a decade), toured 43 of them. Continued here The Palestinian cause has been damaged by factionalism, argues a former prime minister - The Economist    THE HAMAS-LED attack on Israel was a case of the expected happening unexpectedly, and on an unprecedented scale. The preplanning was obvious, and the execution not only caught Israel off guard but disoriented it in ways it had arguably never experienced in the long history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. With Hamas eager to own the operation, much of the analysis has so far focused on its possible motives. To be sure, Hamas is a political movement, and speculation about its political motives and aspirations is understandable. But underlying its decision to escalate are a host of grievances, and not taking these seriously threatens to lead to much more disastrous consequences than have been seen so far. Those and other grievances are not felt by Hamas alone; they are legitimate, widely held Palestinian grievances. For who, among Palestinians, can be expected to be indifferent to the hardship and indignity of living under a highly capricious and oppressive occupation that has only been getting more deeply entrenched under the heavy weight of Israel’s expansionist colonial enterprise? Continued here

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