‘We’re all working for the algorithm now’

‘We’re all working for the algorithm now’

Taylor Crumpton at Time

The “rise of the creator economy has blurred the line between the personal and the performative,” says Taylor Crumpton. For “many creators, the more intimate the moment, the more lucrative the post. The financial incentive to share has turned the private self into an asset class.” Beneath the “glamour lies a system with few guardrails. There’s no standard pay rate, no guaranteed protections for minors, and almost no labor regulation.” The “cracks are showing.”

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‘Why Elon Musk needs Dungeons & Dragons to be racist’

Adam Serwer at The Atlantic

The fall of Constantinople “inspired a game, which inspired the world’s richest man to lash out because his favorite role-playing game wasn’t as racist and sexist as it used to be,” says Adam Serwer. Dungeons & Dragons is “more popular than ever, reaching far beyond its original audience of midwestern misfits and bookish nerds,” and “for some fans, that’s a problem.” Nostalgia “can be manipulated into a belief that hounding and excluding newcomers will restore an idealized past.”

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‘The global south does not need a new credit rating system’

Sim Tshabalala at the Financial Times

Reducing the “cost of capital to a level that more accurately reflects real risks in the developing world would make an important contribution,” says Sim Tshabalala. Some have “blamed high capital costs on the metrics used to evaluate the creditworthiness of global south infrastructure projects.” But having “two sets of credit rating systems is not the way forward.” It could “further fragment the already fragile international financial system by creating two competing and incompatible sets of assumptions.”

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‘Americans hate AI. Will the Democrats join them?’

Aaron Regunberg at The New Republic

AI billionaires “may soon become among the top villains in American society,” says Aaron Regunberg. This “could provide Democrats with the perfect wedge issue to ride back to power — if they can muster the political courage to take the people’s side.” Last week’s “election results demonstrated the first concrete proof of the potency of an anti-AI message, as the effects of AI data centers on utility bills played a significant role in several major Democratic victories.”

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