How Disney Plus is winning by ripping up the streaming playbook

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Earlier this month, Netflix sent out an email announcing titles on its service for that week. The flurry of personalized (for the subscriber) titles included its teen romance hit To All the Boys: Always and Forever ; the Nickelodeon series iCarly ; and War Dogs , a Netflix original movie starring Bradley Cooper. There were also promos for recent Netflix originals: Bridgerton , Shonda Rhimes’ buzzy period drama; the teen film We Can Be Heroes ; and George Clooney’s sci-fi film The Midnight Sky . Disney also sent out an email that week announcing what it was touting on its streaming service, DisneyPlus. Most prominently featured was Cinderella , the 1997 TV adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical starring Brandy. Less space was given to a single episode—number six—of the Marvel series WandaVision , a DisneyPlus exclusive, and High School Musical: The Musical: Series , another Disney Plus show that debuted in 2019. As streaming services duke it out and woo subscribers—the latest, Paramount Plus , debuts on March 4—Disney is snubbing its nose at the streaming playbook pioneered most meaningfully (and aggressively) by Netflix. It is not promising a brand-new TV show or movie every single day of the year. It is not churning out splashy press releases announcing lavish deals with TV and filmmakers like Rhimes and Ryan Murphy. It isn’t catering to consumers by allowing them to binge an entire season of a show in one sitting. Want to watch WandaVision ? Read More …

This is how inclusive Netflix’s original programming really is

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Last month, Netflix released its first-ever inclusion report detailing where the company stands with having a diverse and equitable workplace. Now Netflix is keeping that same energy in analyzing its original TV shows and films. Today, Netflix published a study conducted by the University of Southern California Annenberg Inclusion Initiative that breaks down how Netflix’s original content from 2018 and 2019 performed across 22 inclusion indictors. While the streamer excelled in certain areas and showed growth over the year, it’s evident that there’s still a considerable amount of ground to cover toward parity in front of and behind the camera—particularly with more representation from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. “We’ve released this report in the interests of transparency,” said Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix. “Because without this kind of information it’s very hard to judge whether we’re improving or not. And the report makes clear that while Netflix has made advances in representation year-over-year, we still have a long way to go.” Here’s a snapshot of some key statistics from the study: 52% of all leads/co-leads (TV and film) were women and girls 31.9% of all leads/co-leads (TV and film) were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups 23.1% of film directors were women 16.9% of film directors were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups 29.8% of show creators were women 12.2% of show creators were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups In addition to the study, which Netflix has committed to releasing every two years through 2026, the streamer also announced the Netflix Fund for Creative Equity, a $100 million endowment that will be distributed globally over five years in an effort to build talent pipelines for underrepresented communities. Read More …

AI promises to make life easier. But it could also change what it means to be human

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The history of humans’ use of technology has always been a history of coevolution. Philosophers from Rousseau to Heidegger to Carl Schmitt have argued that technology is never a neutral tool for achieving human ends. Technological innovations—from the most rudimentary to the most sophisticated— reshape people as they use these innovations to control their environment. Artificial intelligence is a new and powerful tool, and it, too, is altering humanity. Writing and, later, the printing press made it possible to carefully record history and easily disseminate knowledge, but it eliminated centuries-old traditions of oral storytelling . Ubiquitous digital and phone cameras have changed how people experience and perceive events . Widely available GPS systems have meant that drivers rarely get lost, but a reliance on them has also atrophied their native capacity to orient themselves Read More …

‘This is bigger than just Timnit’: How Google tried to silence a critic and ignited a movement

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Timnit Gebru—a giant in the world of AI and then co-lead of Google’s AI ethics team—was pushed out of her job in December. Gebru had been fighting with the company over a research paper that she’d coauthored, which explored the risks of the AI models that the search giant uses to power its core products—the models are involved in almost every English query on Google , for instance. The paper called out the potential biases (racial, gender, Western, and more) of these language models, as well as the outsize carbon emissions required to compute them. Google wanted the paper retracted, or any Google-affiliated authors’ names taken off; Gebru said she would do so if Google would engage in a conversation about the decision. Instead, her team was told that she had resigned. After the company abruptly announced Gebru’s departure, Google AI chief Jeff Dean insinuated that her work was not up to snuff—despite Gebru’s credentials and history of groundbreaking research . The backlash was immediate. Thousands of Googlers and outside researchers leaped to her defense and charged Google with attempting to marginalize its critics , particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds. A champion of diversity and equity in the AI field, Gebru is a Black woman and was one of the few in Google’s research organization. “It wasn’t enough that they created a hostile work environment for people like me [and are building] products that are explicitly harmful to people in our community. It’s not enough that they don’t listen when you say something,” Gebru says. “Then they try to silence your scientific voice.” In the aftermath, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai pledged an investigation; the results were not publicly released, but a leaked email recently revealed that the company plans to change its research publishing process, tie executive compensation to diversity numbers, and institute a more stringent process for “sensitive employee exits.” In addition, the company appointed engineering VP Marian Croak to oversee the AI ethics team and report to Dean Read More …

This startup is building a modular, repairable laptop that actually looks good

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A new hardware startup is trying to make a name for itself by selling you fewer new devices. It’s called Framework , and its first product is a laptop that will let users replace or upgrade every component on their own, from the screen to the keyboard to the mainboard inside. That means customers won’t have to pay a premium for repairs when a part breaks, and won’t have to buy an entirely new laptop just to improve one particular component. Nirav Patel, Framework’s founder, says that the startup’s ultimate goal is to build an ecosystem of repairs and upgrades around its products so that users can easily breathe new life into their gadgets Read More …