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Lights, camera, action. Get that popcorn ready, Future Party people. It’s Oscar weekend, which can only mean one thing: it's time to roll out the champagne carpet. Yeah, that’s a thing. Place your bets and let us know who will take home Hollywood’s most coveted award this Sunday. But don’t be shy with those bold predictions. As we’ve seen with past shows, anything is possible.
In other news… AI adds ‘mixologist’ to its resume, MrBeast cleans up Walmart, and avatars are the future of dating.
Top Trends
- YouTube → No Hard Feelings
- Twitter → Jennifer Lawrence
- Google → You
- Reddit → Bob Odenkirk
- TikTok → “Everything I Love” - Morgan Wallen
- Spotify → “I’m On Your Side” - Constant Smiles
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TECHNOLOGY
Axelrad pits humans against AI in a cocktail challenge
The Future. Texas bar Axelrad is testing whether human bartenders or ChatGPT is better at coming up with new, delicious cocktails. We won’t know the final score from customers until the end of the month, but the challenge is already showing new ways humans can lean on AI. It may also prove that the tech can be used as a fun tool for conjuring innovative cocktails at home, no matter the ingredients you have available.
BarBot
The battle between humans and AI is already being waged at a bar in Houston.
- This month, Axelrad has put up a “Humans vs. Machines” menu — four cocktails created by human bartenders and four similar ones entirely developed by ChatGPT.
- The four prompts were “a spicy mocktail,” “a berry cocktail,” “a fruity, frozen drink,” and “a legend of Zelda-inspired drink.”
Customers will be able to order half portions of each drink and then vote on which is the best — whichever wins gets their drinks a permanent spot on the bar’s menu.
The human touch
So, how’s the AI doing so far? Owner Adam Brackman says that ChatGPT goes a little heavy on adding all the liqueurs to every cocktail, makes them a bit too sugary, and lacks creativity overall. So, the human bartenders had to adjust the prompts to tone down these elements so that the drinks are… well… drinkable (Remember, AI doesn’t have taste buds).
But, the bar did already find some nice uses for AI, including naming new drinks or brainstorming ideas for themed cocktails. It’s all in good fun, but it’s clear that the experience of human interaction and the expertise of a great mixologist isn’t going anywhere.
CULTURE
MrBeast gets fans to clean up his merch
The Future. MrBeast’s chocolate bar brand, Feastables, is now available at Walmart… and they’re not being treated too well on the shelves. The influencer’s plea to fans to help clean things up has been met with passionate obedience from followers and head-scratching from almost everyone else. More than anything, it shows the power that digital stars have over their fanbase when a little money and attention are involved. Can it be harnessed for mass generosity?
Fancy Feast
MrBeast doesn’t want his Feastables treated like just any other candy bar, per Fast Company.
- After finding out that the new Walmart displays of his chocolate bars were a mess, the YouTuber called on his 18.8 million Twitter followers to help clean it up, noting that he was already in the process of putting a team together to do this.
- Unsurprisingly, his fans jumped at it, posting selfies of the re-organized shelves.
And, in a very MrBeast move, the Feastables brand turned the groundswell support into the “Shelfie Clean Up” campaign, where fan selfies tidying shelves up would be entered into a monthly $5,000 lottery.
Pay it forward
While MrBeast is extremely used to going viral (has he ever not gone viral?), reactions to a millionaire asking his not-millionaire fans to do free labor came with mixed reviews.
- Alex Turvy, memes and digital culture researcher at Tulane University, thought it was an abuse of online parasocial relationships, with just a little bit of a potential financial carrot to egg people on.
- David Craig, a clinical professor of communication at the University of Southern California, considered it more “for-profit online organizing” driven by fans who feel the tidying up is just giving back to the community they identify with.
Either way, MrBeast is throwing even more money to hopefully silence the critics — he tweeted, “To show how grateful I am to everyone that helped tidy things up, I’m going to donate $100,000 to charity. What charity should I donate to? Appreciate you all!”
TOGETHER WITH BRILLIANT
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Join 10M+ people and start crunching that knowledge today. (Oh yeah, and it’s free).
TECHNOLOGY
Gen Z can let avatars go on dates for them now
The Future. Gen Z-focused dating app Snack is jumping into the AI craze by allowing users to create and train avatars that can chat with one another to determine if the real people behind them would be a good match. In other words, it’s a dating app’s algorithm brought to life. While Snack’s new feature may be just a big swing to break through the noise, it could foreshadow a coming age where the “meet cute” is outsourced to 1s and 0s.
Are our AIs compatible?
Snack wants to do the dating for you.
- Snack allows users to create and train AI avatars by answering questions about themselves.
- The avatar then goes out into the world of the app’s algorithm to start chatting with other users’ avatars.
- If the avatars think you two are a good match, it’ll let you know so you can scope out the other person and start chatting for real.
The ultimate goal is for avatars to start going out on dates in the metaverse all on their own before two people decide to meet IRL, which sounds like a futuristic version of getting set up by friends.
Let’s just hope Snack lets you review the conversations to ensure the date didn’t go off the rails.
Future Forecast
For those of you who like to stay a step ahead, here are a few things we’re excited about right now - SXSW edition:
- AI in Media & Advertising. How could we not put our own event on this list? On Friday, March 10th, TFP and Seedtag are hosting a panel with some of the most exciting thought leaders in the AI & advertising space.
- Bloody mary mornings. Keeping with an advertising theme, GSD&M’s Backyard is one of the most fun, possibly underrated, events at SXSW. It’s where we saw Lizzo for the first time back in 2017. It’s so much fun and has the right mix of music, marys, bfast, tacos and Shiners to cure your hangover and fuel you for another day.
- *BONUS* TFP SXSW Event Grid. We shared it earlier this week, but in case you missed it, check out the stellar event grid our amazing experiences team has curated for you. Come see us, say hi and toast to the future!
Highlights
The best curated daily stories from around the web
How the Oscars supercharge viewership
Not only is nabbing an Oscar nomination a big deal, but it means a lot when it comes to getting more eyeballs on your movie. Case in point, Samba TV reports that 2.4 million households checked out Top Gun: Maverick on Paramount+ following the January 24 nominations announcement, Elvis scored an additional 1.8 million on HBO Max, and Everything Everywhere All at Once nabbed another 1.1 million (over a third of its overall streams) on Paramount+. And when it comes to theaters, Women Talking saw a whopping 325% increase in ticket sales. That is serious business.
Read more → deadline
Crypto collapses Silvergate bank
Another day, another victim of the crypto collapse. The bank’s holding company, Silvergate Capital Corporation, announced that “in light of recent industry and regulatory developments,” it’s shutting down the bank and returning deposits. This comes as no surprise considering two of its top clients were FTX and Genesis. The bank lost a billion dollars last quarter, and customers withdrew just over $8 billion. Call it a run on the bank and a run away from crypto…
Read more → theverge
Bach wants to organize parties for you
If you’re struggling to wrangle bachelorette party plans in the unwieldy group text, a new app called Bach may be right for you. Now ready to party with $9 million from a Series A funding round led by Pritzker Group, the app is available for iOS and Android to help ideate, plan, and book any big group experience. Best yet, once all the details are imputed into the itinerary, the app will break down expenses for each person. Gone are the days of one person putting it all on the credit card and sending passive-aggressive Venmo requests for months afterward.
Read more → techcrunch
There's just too much plastic in the ocean
How much are we talking about? 170 trillion total pieces (mostly invisible to the naked eye) and counting. That comes from research compiled by The 5 Gyres Institute that “evaluated data on ocean plastic pollution from 1979 to 2019, collected from 11,777 stations across the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific, Indian, and Mediterranean marine areas” — with the biggest increase happening since 2005. Lead researcher Marcus Eriksen said that cleanup alone at this point is “futile if we continue to produce plastic at the current rate” Instead, it’s time to deal with the problem at the source.
Read more → fastcompany
Even institutional investors are peeping Reddit
Plenty has been written about how retail investors congregating on Reddit drove much of the stock market narrative of recent years. But a report from Brunswick Group found that 58% of institutional investors are in on the action too. The report surveyed 257 US and European investors that work for hedge funds, banks, and pension funds, who admit to checking the subreddits like r/WallStreetBets, r/cryptocurrency, and r/investing before making decisions. We guess Reddit is at the center of the financial ecosystem now.
Read more → insider
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Edited by Nick Comney. Publishing by Sara Kitnick.