I didn’t set out intending for Patch Notes to cover AI every week, it’s just unavoidable when trying to make sense of both the present and the oncoming freight train of the future. There are simply too many “this is the world we live in now” moments, including a deepfaked Biden robocall urging voters not to vote to a rise in AI-powered scams on dating apps. This Twitter/X post sums it up well:
this is such an interesting time to be alive. we concreted the internet as our second equal and primary reality but it's full of ghosts now
we try to talk to them and they pass right through
it's a haunted world of dead things who look real but don't really see usThe NYTimes on the seeming disparity between strong economic data and consumer sentiment:
The terms “consumer sentiment” and “consumer confidence” are sometimes used interchangeably, but in fact, they reflect two distinct, longstanding monthly surveys often cited by economists. First, there’s the University of Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment and, second, the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Survey.
[…]The Michigan survey puts a lot of weight on voter assessment of pocketbook conditions, like whether it’s a good time to buy major household items. The Conference Board, meanwhile, asks consumers for their appraisal of the employment and business outlook but nothing that really gets directly at things like consumer prices.
Two pieces on the increasing divergence between young men and women:
This picture from Brent Donnelly on how the fears in the 90’s of Japan mirrors the fear of China now puts some perspective on things.
It’s wild to imagine thinking we were possibly going to war with Japan (again!) in 1991, but it was written during the heights of the Japanese asset bubble when fears of Japanese fiscal dominance were running rampant. Famously, at its peak, the estimated value of the land around the Tokyo Imperial Palace (comparable to Central Park in NYC) was more than the entire real estate value of California. Many fans of the cyberpunk genre realize that the gleaming neon megacities were obviously aesthetically inspired by the likes of Tokyo and the Kowloon Walled City, but aren’t aware that the underlying tone was driven by fears of Japan:
The sets of Blade Runner are visual examples of the economic fear of the 1980s, and specifically the fear of an America that has become more Japanese than American. Holographic geisha advertise products while main character Rick Deckard eats ramen, as opposed to a more traditionally American fast food like hamburgers.
The edge of the former Kowloon Walled City (source) China is not Japan (for many reasons), but hopefully we’ll look back in thirty years at today’s magazine covers and be equally confused.
The Transcript on Swifties tipping well:
"If you look at stadiums, year-on-year, we're up 37%, just trips to stadiums. When you zoom in, and now we'll talk directly about Taylor, it's incredible. Nashville, our rides were up 25% when she came to town. If you look in Cincinnati, rides to the hotel, because a lot of people are visiting from out of town, were up 60%...There's a crazy stat that blows my mind. I think it actually speaks very highly of Taylor Swift fans. They tend to Tip three times higher than average." - Lyft CEO David Risher
The first inaugural Thinky Awards, featuring “thinky” games from 2023 (h/t Daniel). The nominees have been announced already, but the winners will be announced in a couple days. Lots of cool games I’ve never seen before, including some pen and paper puzzles and free games like Neurocracy, “an interactive narrative experience” using a fake, futurisitic Wikipedia. “It is both a crowdsourced alternate reality game and an epistolary hypertext novel, opening with a high-profile assassination that you must investigate.”