INBOXIFY ORIGINAL's [16/June/2023]

Good Morning, Esteemed Viewers! As the sun rises, we bring you a fresh edition of our newsletter, packed with exciting content, valuable insights, and a dose of inspiration to brighten your day. Enjoy the read and have a fantastic day ahead!

WORK

AI is coming for you, knowledge workers

Check on your friends with high-paying jobs you can’t quite explain: They might be the first to be replaced by AI. McKinsey & Co. released a report this week on how generative AI (think ChatGPT and Midjourney) will change the world’s workforce.

The findings: After examining 2,100 tasks across 850 jobs around the globe, the report concluded that generative AI could add as much as $4.4 trillion worth of value to the global economy. How? By automating tasks and revving up productivity like we’ve never seen before, especially for workers in customer operations, marketing and sales, software engineering, and research and development fields.

The report expects generative AI to take over tasks that take up 60%–70% of people’s working hours. In an ideal world, this means more time for the fun parts of your job, or four-day workweeks. But in this world, it could mean your future coworkers are large language models.

Big picture: Don’t start cleaning out your cubicle—the government is taking steps to start regulating AI. Well, not the US government (yet). The EU voted yesterday to advance draft legislation that would impose some of the first comprehensive rules on artificial intelligence.

WORLD

Tour de headlines

Donald Trump was arraigned in a Miami courthouse. The former president turned himself in to authorities yesterday and pled not guilty to charges that he illegally hoarded classified documents after he left the White House and blocked the government’s attempts to get them back. The indictment is the first time that a former president has been charged with federal crimes and marks the second time that Trump has been charged with crimes this year. Still the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination, Trump later proclaimed his innocence in a speech from his golf course in New Jersey.

The hits keep coming to SF real estate: The owners of the Westfield San Francisco Centre mall in one of the city’s main tourist areas handed over the keys to lenders with $558 million in outstanding mortgage debt. Westfield said its management of the property had become untenable because of “challenging operating conditions” in downtown SF, including lower foot traffic and sales declines. This was the same mall that Nordstrom packed up and left one month ago over similar challenges.

A baby AI startup lands a historic investment. Mistral AI, a French startup founded by former Meta and Google AI researchers, raised ~$113 million in Europe’s biggest seed round ever, the FT reported. But, wait for it…the startup is four weeks old and its first employees began working just a few days ago. You may call it another sign that AI is a bubble waiting to pop, but investors don’t want to risk sitting on the sidelines: Even amid a broader investment drought, AI-related startups in the US have landed $25 billion in funding so far this year.

MUSIC

AI will gift us one last Beatles record

A new Beatles track will drop this year with artificial intelligence joining the Fab Four on Abbey Road.

Yesterday, Paul McCartney told the BBC that AI helped him use a demo recording of John Lennon singing an unpublished song to create a last hurrah from the iconic band, which broke up more than 50 years ago.

Sir Paul did not reveal the name of the soon-to-be-released song, but fans are speculating that it’ll be “Now And Then,” one of the songs that Lennon recorded in the late ’70s on a cassette labeled “For Paul” that Yoko Ono gave to McCartney after her husband’s death.

So, how does this tech bring Lennon’s voice back to life?

• McCartney said the AI was trained to recognize his bandmate’s voice and then used to separate it from background noise and instruments.

• The method was pioneered during the production of Peter Jackson’s 2021 Get Back docuseries, which chronicles the making of the final Beatles album, Let It Be, through the use of archival footage and audio.

The same AI trick has already made some Beatlemaniacs bawl their eyes out: McCartney performed a “virtual duet” with his late pal Lennon during his US tour last summer.

ENVIRONMENT

The kids are not alright with climate change

Gen Z came to court to slay yesterday as the trial kicked off in a landmark lawsuit filed by young people in Montana who claim inaction on climate change has violated their right to “a clean and healthful environment,” which is guaranteed by the state’s constitution.

The lawsuit, lodged by 16 young Montanans in March 2020, marks the first time a US youth climate case has made it to open court. The group representing the plaintiffs has filed one in all 50 states, but most have been dismissed before making it to trial—though a high-profile case against the federal government also recently got the green light to proceed toward a trial.

During the two-week trial, the plaintiffs, age 5 through 22, will argue that because of the state’s fossil fuel-friendly stance (Montana is a major coal exporter), they’ve been harmed by the side effects of a warming planet like heat, drought, and wildfire smoke. The state will retort its contributions to the problem were minor.

Looking ahead…a win for the young people probably won’t lead to any immediate changes in Montana’s energy policy. And it would most likely be appealed. But the case could still provide an important precedent for how courts handle similar claims.

AROUND THE WEB

• Twitter got sued by music publishers claiming 1,700 copyrighted songs are widely available on the platform. The suit seeks $250+ million in damages.

• A jury awarded $25.6 million to an ex-Starbucks regional manager who claimed she was fired for being white in the aftermath of the arrest of two Black men at a Philadelphia location.

• Diablo IV scored more than $666 million in global sales in just five days. Activision Blizzard revealed the news about the game becoming the fastest selling ever for its Blizzard subsidiary one day after a judge temporarily blocked Microsoft’s planned purchase of the company.

• The Southern Baptist Convention refused to allow a pair of congregations with women pastors back into the fold, including the California megachurch Saddleback Church.

• Netflix wants to get you off your couch for a change: It’s opening a pop-up restaurant in LA with chefs from hits like Nailed It! and Chef’s Table.