Meta-Fee for Ad-Free in Europe; Tech Will Mean 3.5 Day Work Week-Dimon; Tom Hanks Blasts AI Dental Plan Hoax; Tesla Wins Autopilot Arbitration Case

In July, a court ruled that Facebook (as well as other platforms) must get consent of European Union users to access their personal data. That court said that site operators have to prove that users willingly gave permission, possibly by allowing them to reject ad tracking. Now, Facebook is looking to fees to make up the loss in ad revenue. Engadget.com reports that Meta may charge $14 a month in Europe as a subscription fee unless users opt in to targeted ads. For both Instagram and Facebook, the fee would be $17 a month for ad-free access to both on a desktop! Those fees are just a hair less than Netflix charges for its regular monthly plan! As we have said before, we can all expect to be ‘fee-charged’ into near poverty at this rate…and all these platforms already have an incredibly vast trove of data on each and every one of us!

It sounds almost too good to be true, a 3 and a half day workweek. Well, that’s what Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s CEO sees on the road up ahead. According to SFGate.com, Dimon spoke of suck a work week in a Senate committee hearing. He also predicted that people would regularly live to 100 and wouldn’t get cancer because of technology. The banker noted that technology has always replaced jobs. Don’t get over-excited about the 3 and a half day workweek just yet…Dimon predicted that for your kids or grandkids! Dimon didn’t dwell on it, but it is true that Some AI systems require what The Verge called “a vast tasker underclass,” underpaid workers who perform tedious and sometimes disturbing work to train the technology. Dimon did say that JPMorgan Chase is already using some forms of AI, and said if AI replaces jobs at the firm, he hopes they can ‘redeploy’ the workers. In other words, good luck!

Tom Hanks posted a warning on Instagram about an AI-generated version of him being used to promote “some dental plan” without his consent. “There’s a video out there promoting some dental plan with an AI version of me,” he captioned the image on Instagram. “I have nothing to do with it.” If you want to know one of the reasons the actors in SAG-AFTRA are striking, here is one of the biggest ones! Earlier this year, Hanks acknowledged that in the future, an AI-generated version of himself could appear in films he wouldn’t normally choose. “Without a doubt people will be able to tell [that it’s AI], but the question is will they care?” he asked on the Adam Buxton podcast in April. “There are some people that won’t care, that won’t make that delineation.”

A federal judge in California ruled over the weekend that a group of Tesla owners cannot pursue in court claims that the company falsely advertised its automated features. Instead, they will have to face individual arbitration. TechCrunch.com notes that this doesn’t mean that Tesla will win on the defendability of its advanced driver assistance programs, just that the customers can’t bring a class action in court. Big businesses adore binding arbitration, where the odds favor them winning on issues. It’s subtile, but because the retired judges that work as arbitrators are paid by the business side, those jurists know if they decide too often in favor of individuals, they won’t get used again and have the money stream cut off. It’s a shameful system supposedly put in place to save court resources…but mainly serves as a quicker, cheaper way for companies to avoid being found liable in court. 

I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.