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U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will travel to Madrid this weekend for negotiations with his Chinese counterparts over tariffs and national security issues related to the ownership of social media platform TikTok. Bessent is slated to meet Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Madrid to discuss national security and economic issues, a Treasury news release states. This will be the fourth round of discussions between U.S. and Chinese counterparts after meetings in London, Geneva, and Stockholm. The two governments have agreed to several 90-day pauses on a series of increasing reciprocal tariffs, staving off an all-out trade war. During the last round of discussions in Stockholm, Bessent described his talks with the Chinese as very fulsome.” We just need to de-risk with certain strategic industrieswhether its the rare earths, semiconductors, medicinesand we talked about what we could do together to get into balance within the relationship, Bessent said at the time. China remains one of the biggest challenges for the Trump administration after it has struck deals over elevated tariff rates with other key trading partners, such as Britain, Japan, and the European Union. The U.S. and China delegations are also expected to continue discussions about ownership of TikTok. Congress approved a U.S. ban on the popular video-sharing platform unless its parent company, ByteDance, sold its controlling stake. President Donald Trump said last month that he will keep extending the sale deadline until theres a buyer. But Trump has so far extended the deadline three times during his second termwith the next deadline coming up Wednesday. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late February and early March found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they werent sure. The Treasury Department also says Bessent will meet Spanish government counterparts to discuss the relationship between Spain and the United States. After his Spain trip, Bessent is expected to travel to the U.K. to join Trump for his official state visit with Britains King Charles at Windsor Castle. By Fatima Hussein, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
A decade ago, few predicted that TikTok scrolling and YouTube creator videos would surpass cable TV and Hollywood as Americas top leisure activity. These, and a handful of other social media platforms, transformed content consumption to favor user-generated entertainmentbut those very platforms are now showing signs of fatigue. Gen Z spends over half their screen time on social content. But with one-way content, passive scrolling, and ad overload overwhelming users, what once felt participatory now feels mundane. The solution isnt more content; its deeper interaction and more creativity. The next generation of platforms will achieve that goal by pairing human creativity with generative AI. Creators will be able to generate great stories, rich characters, and new worlds with the help of AI toolsno expensive software or special skills required. And users wont just consume that creative content; theyll be able to dive into it, change it, and make it their own. This wont be just another way of getting content for a passive feed; instead, it replaces the experience entirely. Unlike algorithms that serve you what worked yesterday, AI-native entertainment reacts to you in real time. It invites you in. Instead of scrolling past someone elses creativity, youre generating your own. This unlocks a future of co-creation and a future of entertainment. This is whats next and how to prepare. HOW HYPER-INTERACTIVITY ELIMINATES DOOMSCROLLING Social media transformed entertainment by making it personal. Platform algorithms curated a feed based on your clicks and interests. But despite all the time spent on the platform, no creativity is necessaryyour participation only goes as far as passively scrolling, giving a like or adding a comment. Doomscrolling has replaced discovery. Today, that structure is starting to crack. The more people scroll, the more they report feelings of anxiety and disconnection. At the same time, platforms are doubling down on monetization, increasing ad loads even as user engagement quality declines. The result is a paradox: More content, but less satisfaction. And thats not just a user problem; its a business one. With an AI-empowered feed, humans are at the center of creation to not only consume creative content, but to remix and create something new. This new format evolves with the user, whether they want to take the story in a different direction or add in a new setting. Its AI entertainment that requires a human at the center of creativity, not just consumption. HOW THE CREATOR AUDIENCE IS REDEFINING ENTERTAINMENT The audience demanding a fundamental innovation in online entertainment is Gen Z, a generation raised not on linear storytelling but on interactive worlds. Theyve built elaborate games in Roblox, shaped lore in Discord communities, and remixed themselves into every TikTok trend. Nearly 70% of Gen Z say they want to socialize in game worlds. And 65% already consider themselves content creators. They dont want permissionthey want agency. And generative AI delivers exactly that: The power to generate characters, scripts, stories, and entire universes from scratch. What used to take a film crew, and a studio budget now just takes a creative idea and a prompt. For this generation, fans and creators arent separate roles, theyre the same. This is a new era of media, one that learns, adapts, and evolves with its community. WHY YOU SHOULD BE CREATING WITH YOUR AUDIENCE As were shifting from a passive consumption experience into a creative world, we need to take cues from how AI-native platforms are already operating and invite the user to create. Regardless of whether youre an entertainment company, well-established brand, influential creator, or legacy social media platform, we must start to give audiences the tools to create, not just consume. That shift will be uncomfortable for many and disrupt industries as we know them. Legacy systems werent built for real-time participation. This active co-creation shifts brands and platforms from being the star of the show to supporting actors. Moving forward, the brands and platforms that thrive will need to have co-creation in mind. By developing creative playgrounds, audiences dont just watch, but rather build, remix and shape the story in real time effectively ending doomscrolling and lean-back entertainment and shaping a new wave of AI-native media. Karandeep Anand is the CEO of Character.AI.
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E-Commerce
Google, OpenAI, DeepSeek, and Anthropic vary widely in how they identify hate speech, according to new research. The study, from researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication and published in Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics, is the first large-scale comparative analysis of AI content moderation systemsused by tech companies and social media platformsthat looks at how consistent they are in evaluating hate speech. Research shows online hate speech both increases political polarization and damages mental health. The University of Pennsylvania study found different systems produce different outcomes for the same content, undermining consistency and predictability, and leading to moderation decisions that appear arbitrary or unfair. Private technology companies have become the de facto arbiters of what speech is permissible in the digital public square, yet they do so without any consistent standard, said Yphtach Lelkes, associate professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and the study’s co-author. Lelkes and doctoral student Neil Fasching analyzed seven leading models, some designed specifically for content classification, while others were more general. They include two from OpenAI and two from Mistral, along with Claude 3.5 Sonnet, DeepSeek V3, and Google Perspective API. Their analysis included 1.3 million synthetic sentences that made statements about 125 distinct groupsincluding both neutral terms and slurs, on characteristics ranging from religion, to disabilities, to age. Each sentence included all or some, a group, and a hate speech phrase. Results revealed systematic differences in how models establish decision boundaries around harmful content, highlighting significant implications for automated content moderation. Key study takeaways Among the models, one demonstrated high predictability for how it would classify similar content, another produced different results for similar content, while others did not over-flag nor under-detect content as hate speech. “These differences highlight the challenge of balancing detection accuracy with avoiding over-moderation, researchers said. The models were more similar when they evaluated group statements regarding sexual orientation, race, and gender, and more inconsistent when it came to education level, personal interest, and economic class. Researchers concluded that “systems generally recognize hate speech targeting traditional protected classes more readily than content targeting other groups.” Finally, the study found that Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Mistrals specialized content classification system treated slurs as harmful across the board, while other models prioritized context and intentwith little middle ground between the two. Meanwhile, a recent survey from Vanderbilt University’s non-partisan think tank, The Future of Free Speech, concluded there was “low public support for allowing AI tools to generate content that might offend or insult.”
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E-Commerce
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