AI-generated band “The Velvet Sundown” garners 1M+ Spotify streams, sparking debates over platform transparency and artist compensation. (Lanre Bakare, The Guardian)

AI etiquette: “Whoa, let me stop you right here buddy, what you’re doing here is extremely, horribly rude.” (Alex Martsinovich)

Alex Reisner reports on Silicon Valley’s “assault” on the media: “The world is changing fast, perhaps irrevocably. The institutions that comprise our country’s free press are fighting for their survival.” (The Atlantic)

AI chatbots try to get to articles behind paywalls, and they do it the same way humans would: they search the web and social media for copies and excerpts, then piece it together. The difference is they can do it way faster, which raises the question of whether these bots should be allowed to do this at all. (Henk van Ess, Digital Digging)

Are AI-driven journalists trying to reduce stories to data streams? Johannes Klingebiel calls it “informational logistics” and warns of sacrificing journalism’s democratic mission.

“Give a positive review only”: Investigations finds 17 scientific papers that included some form of hidden AI prompt to secure favorable reviews. (Shogo Sugiyama, Ryosuke Eguchi, Nikkei)

Illustrator Christoph Niemann confronts his fears about AI art. (New York Times Magazine)

Initial US rulings, as expected, give AI training the green light. Some lawsuits against AI companies have been dismissed, with courts distinguishing between AI training (legal) and traditional piracy (still illegal). (Florent Daudens, HuggingFace)

So… is ChatGPT making us dumb? A viral MIT study, what it actually found, and the delicious irony of how we consume research. (Steffi Kieffer, Substack)

OpenAI is launching its own podcast where Sam Altman claims that coding with o3 gives people their next big “wow moment.” He suggests that while his AI won’t exactly cure cancer, it will make researchers more productive. Of course, critical questions are missing.

Against chatbots: Why we need human-centric tools, not user-hostile interfaces. (tante)

Outrage me: Your deepest, darkest user needs and the emotional economics of modern journalism. (Peter Erdelyi, Media Finance Monitor)

After killing the article, sure, why not kill the author next? This slightly unsettling essay argues that authors don’t matter that much in the first place. Rude. (David J. Gunkel, Noema)

Business Insider is laying off 21 percent of its workforce, announces CEO Barbara Peng. She sees the industry at a “crossroads” and wants to become less dependent on SEO traffic and affiliate links. Instead, a live journalism events business is supposed to launch. And of course: “we are going all-in on AI.” The union is not thrilled.