• How much jail time will Sam Bankman-Fried actually serve?

    FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison for his role in the fraud and conspiracy scandal that took place at the crypto exchange. That was far less than the 40 to 50 years prosecutors were lobbying for, but about five times the sentence his own lawyer had requested. But will Bankman-Fried serve all that time? Almost certainly not. His lawyers plan to appeal the conviction and the sentence. However, if that fails, legal experts say that while SBF will see his...

  • Olivia Colman calling out Hollywood's pay gap reveals a frustrating truth about salary negotiations for women at work

    A somber fact to reckon with as we near the end of women’s history month is that even today females working full time make only 84 cents on average for every dollar a white male makes. The wage gap increases for women of color. This even applies to Hollywood, and even at the highest levels. Many actresses have spoken out about this over the years. Olivia Colman, multi-hyphen award winner (including an Oscar, Emmy, BAFTA, and Golden Globes), entered the conversation on a recent appearance on...

  • That viral AI-generated influencer is based on a real person. And she's fine with the ads

    The content creator behind a viral video storm over AI-generated influencers has confirmed that she indeed did authorize the company Arcads to use her likeness in a generative video tool that was then deployed to create a video advertising hygienic wipes. Earlier this week, a video went viral showing a woman ranting about “stanky body odor” while sitting in the front seat of a car. But the cause of its virality wasn’t the message (which was, essentially, to promote personal hygiene); it was...

  • Using ChatGPT for homework is correlated with memory loss and bad grades

    The world is all abuzz about ChatGPT and the transformative powers it offers, but a new study published in the International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education warns that generative AI may not be a great tool for students. Study author Muhammad Abbas, an associate professor at the FAST School of Management at the National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences in Pakistan, told PsyPost that his inspiration for the research was based on his experiences as a professor....

  • Meta's policy on LGBTQ+ safety, hate speech is a troubling pattern of inaction

    For years, groups of celebrities, human-rights organizations, even regular old users have asked Meta to take LGBTQ+ worries about safety more seriously. These requests go back at least a decade and stretch to as recently as January, when Facebook’s oversight board called out its failure to uphold rules meant to curb anti-trans hate speech. The fundamental problem, the board noted, “is not with the policies, but their enforcement.” Its conclusion: Meta “is not living up to the ideals it has...

  • Mental health care underutilization is a revenue problem

    From the beginning of my career, I knew I wanted to help others. And for the people asking why I didn’t become a care provider, I did, in my own way. I’m a mom with three kids, a business leader, and a proud pet parent to Stella the bulldog, who is snoring through her midday nap as I write this. I believe supporting other humans matters, and I take immense pride in looking after the people I care about. However, I still believe now what I believed when I accepted my first job out of college...

  • MIT researchers propose a new way to measure climate change: outdoor days

    Minnesota officially just had its warmest winter on record. Some residents probably enjoyed the break from shoveling snow, but many Midwesterners found it ominous to comfortably jog outdoors in late January. It could turn out to be a fluke—just a particularly strong El Niño—or it could be a harbinger of things to come, particularly after the hottest global summer on record. Either way, a professor at MIT wants more people to start thinking about climate change in terms of how it will radically...

  • Creators Guild of America kicks off an accreditation service for digital creators

    Americans, in case you haven’t heard, are obsessed with short-form videos. The average TikTok user in the U.S. spends 97 minutes per day on the platform. YouTube users, meanwhile, spend a little under 90 minutes on the video sharing site; Instagram users dedicate over 30 minutes a day to scrolling the Meta-owned network. Despite all that success, a significant percentage of the people who help make platforms’ most popular videos remain firmly hidden in the background (for example, video...

  • The rise of dupe culture: This app scours the internet for fancy furniture knockoffs

    Online shoppers these days love themselves a good dupe—internet slang for a “duplicate” product that looks just like a pricier name-brand article of clothing, bottle of perfume, or other luxury good. To date, videos hashtagged #dupe have racked up nearly 6 billion views on TikTok, where it’s becoming more common to see influencers do paid ads for brands you haven’t heard of before, but the products are dead ringers for items you know. However, this system leaves buyers at the mercy of B-list...

  • GameStop could be gone in less than 5 years, says analyst

    Wall Street has been skeptical about meme stock favorite GameStop for a few years, but one of the leading analysts in the video game space now says he expects the company to be nothing but a memory before the year 2030. “GameStop has a likely runway of no more than five years,” wrote Michael Pachter of Wedbush in a note to investors Wednesday. “The demise of GameStop is outside the 12-month window we use for our price target, but we expect the company’s demise at some point later this...

  • The IRS has almost 1 million unclaimed tax refunds just sitting around. Are you still owed money from 2020?

    It is surreal to think that this time four years ago the world was shutting down and the COVID-19 pandemic was just beginning: 2020 was an unprecedented year when people were forced to change the normal mode of operation. Because of the collective trauma we were facing, some everyday things—such as doing your taxes—may have fallen through the cracks. Now the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is reminding those who have not filed their 2020 taxes that the May 17 extension to do so is quickly...

  • This year's hottest wellness trend? Community

    With stress levels on the rise and the prevalence of chronic conditions increasing, people are seeking a holistic approach to their physical, mental, and emotional health. Yes, we still care about what we put in and on our bodies, but a wave of wellness innovators is is going beyond that, providing products and services that make us feel better in a different, fuller way: They’re fostering communities that center on well-being and stave off loneliness. After all, the Harvard longevity study...