Spotify has reportedly pulled tens of thousands of tracks from generative AI company Boomy. It's said to have removed seven percent of the songs created by the startup's systems, which underscores the swift proliferation of AI-generated content on music streaming platforms.

Universal Music reportedly told Spotify and other major services that it detected suspicious streaming activity on Boomy's songs. In other words, there were suspicions that bots were being used to boost listener figures and generate ill-gotten revenue for uploaders. Spotify pays royalties to artists and rights holders on a per-listen basis.

“Artificial streaming is a longstanding, industry-wide issue that Spotify is working to stamp out across our service,” Spotify, which confirmed that it had taken down some Boomy tracks, told Insider. "When we identify or are alerted to potential cases of stream manipulation, we mitigate their impact by taking action that may include the removal of streaming numbers and the withholding of royalties. This allows us to protect royalty payouts for honest, hardworking artists."

Universal Music's chief digital officer Michael Nash told the Financial Times, which first reported on Spotify removing Boomy's tracks, that his company is "always encouraged when we see our partners exercise vigilance around the monitoring or activity on their platforms."

AI-generated music hit the headlines last month after a song that appeared to include vocals from Drake and The Weeknd went viral. Universal Music Group, which represents both artists, claimed that using the duo's voices to train generative AI systems constituted “a breach of our agreements and a violation of copyright law." Both Spotify and Apple Music removed the song from their libraries.

Music industry figures have been sounding the alarm bells about the overarching impact of AI-generated tracks, as well as people using bots to drive up listener figures and siphon money out of the kitties that streaming services use to pay royalties.

Boomy, which opened its doors in 2021, enables people to generate songs based on text inputs. Over the weekend, the company said that "curated delivery to Spotify of new releases by Boomy artists has been re-enabled."

Boomy says its users "have created 14,554,448 songs" or just under 14 percent of "the world's recorded music." Its website states that users can create original songs in seconds, then upload them "to streaming platforms and get paid when people listen."

"[Y]ou will probably see follower count drop," Twitter owner Elon Musk has warned the website's users, because the company is purging accounts that has "had no activity at all" for several years. Musk's announcement was quite vague, so we'll have to wait for Twitter to announce more specific rules, such as how long "several years" actually is.

His announcement also comes after he reportedly threatened to reassign NPR's handle on the website due to inactivity. According to the media organization, the executive sent one of its reporters an unprompted email that reads: "So is NPR going to start posting on Twitter again, or should we reassign @NPR to another company?" NPR left the social network after it was labeled "state-affiliated media" along with state-run outlets like Russia's RT. Musk apparently told NPR in their email exchange that Twitter's policy is to "recycle handles that are definitively dormant" and that "same policy applies to all accounts." It's worth noting that it's been less than a month since NPR quit Twitter and that it definitely hasn't been "several years" yet. 

At the moment, though, the website has yet to update its inactive account policy page, which only states that users need to log in every 30 days to keep their account active. That part of the policy is pretty new, because Twitter had only required users to log in every six months as recently as April 19th. Twitter's policy still also states that it "cannot release inactive usernames at this time," but Musk hinted in a follow-up tweet that the company will be changing that rule. "[I]t is important to free up abandoned handles," he wrote. 

When urged to rethink his decision, because killing inactive accounts will also delete tweets by deceased users, Musk responded that their accounts will be archived. What that means exactly remains to be seen. 

You'll soon see Hollywood's treatment of one of the most important (and dangerous) moments in scientific history. Universal has released a trailer for Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan's biopic of the physicist who played a key role in developing and testing the first atomic bomb. The clip underscores the ethical issues surrounding the Manhattan Project and its work. While the team is hopeful that nuclear weapons will end World War II and usher in a new era of peace, they're also worried abut sparking an apocalyptic arms race — the movie doesn't end with the detonation.

The adaptation of Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin's American Prometheus book stars Cillian Murphy (Peaky Blinders) as its namesake scientist, with Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer's wife Katherine. Matt Damon plays Manhattan Project directo Gen. Leslie Groves Jr., while Robert Downey Jr. plays US Atomic Energy Commission co-founder Lewis Strauss. Rami Malek, Matthew Modine and Alden Ehrenreich also star.

Nolan's reputation and the top-tier cast will be the draws for many. However, this is also a rare movie that explores the role science played in WWII, not to mention in setting the stage for the Cold War and nuclear energy. The production of the movie is also notable. This is the first movie to feature sections of IMAX black-and-white film footage, so it may be worth heading to a supporting theater to get the full experience.

For the last few years, you’ve been able to say “Stop” to tell Google Assistant to end an alarm early without the need to preface your command with “Hey Google.” It’s a handy feature Google first debuted on Assistant-enabled smart displays and speakers before later rolling it out to Pixel smartphones. And for the most part, it works like a charm, though one person recently discovered a fun quirk of the feature that involves the Pixies classic “Where Is My Mind?”

In a Reddit post spotted by Android Police, Pixel user “asevarte” recounts how their morning alarm would go off and sometimes turn off moments later for seemingly no reason. “Maybe once every other week or so, I would wake up 30 minutes later on my backup alarm, with no indication as to why the first shut itself off,” they told the Google Pixel subreddit.

Earlier this week, asevarte decided to wake up early to get to the bottom of the issue. Thankfully, it didn’t take long to find the culprit. Their alarm was set to play a Spotify playlist that features “Where Is My Mind?” If you’re a Pixies fan, you know exactly where this is going. The Surfer Rosa cut opens with bassist and vocalist Kim Deal singing “Ooh” before frontman Black Francis says, “Stop,” and the song, following a brief pause, then continues. The section caused Google Assistant to prematurely end asevarte’s alarm. They had the playlist set to shuffle, which is what made identifying the bug tricky.

Android Police recorded a video of the oversight in action, and sure enough, playing “Where Is My Mind?” ends an alarm early. Interestingly, other songs that feature a prominent “stop,” such as “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen, don’t appear to trigger Assistant’s Quick Phrases feature in the same way that “Where Is My Mind?” does. Android Police speculates the reason for that could be that in those other songs “stop” is backed by instrumentals. That lines up with complaints Assistant users have had over the years that the feature doesn’t work when they try to use it while their smart display, speaker or Pixel device is playing music.

If you’re curious about what the Pixies think of all this. The band’s official Twitter account caught the original Android Police story. “Sorry about that!” the account tweeted.

Starting today, it should be easier to find what you're looking for on Steam. When you type something in the main search field on the Steam web store or desktop or mobile apps, the suggestions will include tags, developers, publishers and franchises if it seems like there's a good match.

For instance, type in "Sony" and you may see the PlayStation Studios publisher page among the suggestions. Punch in "free" and the quick results could include the free-to-play tag and the Freedom Games publisher page. If you want to see all the Final Fantasy or Star Wars games on Steam, you should be able to access those franchise pages more quickly from the search panel.

Valve has rolled out another handy update to search, which should now be more forgiving of typos. That should come in useful if you're looking for a game but can't quite remember how to spell it or you simply mistype a word. Steam will know what you're looking for if you type "Call of Doo," for one thing. While these updates are overdue and welcome, they could help Valve empty out more of your wallet when the Steam summer sale rolls around.

Sony and Microsoft also made useful updates to their game storefronts recently. Xbox's PC app now enables you to look for games based on accessibility features and estimated playtimes. Last month, Sony added accessibility tags to PS4 and PS5 games on the PlayStation Store.

Luddites had the right of things all the way back in the 1800s. When textile factory owners in early 19th century England used the industrialization of their industry as an excuse to underpay and overwork employees in dangerous, dehumanizing conditions, the secret organization of workers set about smashing the machines of the capitalists who exploited them. Today, the Writers’ Guild of America faces a similar threat from those in control of a new transformative technology, generative AI, and it’s part of the reason they’re currently on strike for better working conditions.

On March 7, 2023, WGA members voted to approve the 2023 Pattern of Demands by a count of 5,553 voting yes to 90 no’s. On Tuesday morning, more than 11,000 members of the Writers Guild of America shut Hollywood down for the first time since 2007 when they last had to fight for their livelihoods.

“Though we negotiated intent on making a fair deal … the studios’ responses to our proposals have been wholly insufficient, given the existential crisis writers are facing,” read a statement from WGA leadership to CNN on Wednesday. “They have closed the door on their labor force and opened the door to writing as an entirely freelance profession. No such deal could ever be contemplated by this membership.”

As such, the guild is demanding significant increases to the industry’s minimum compensation “to address the devaluation of writing in all areas of television, new media and features” as well as standardize the amount writers are paid writing for streaming or theatrically released features, among a host of other long-deferred needs. The guild is also looking towards the future in its negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) in efforts to prevent the studios’ from using AI and their own words) to put WGA writers out of work.

“It is not the tool itself, it's not an objection to the tool,” WGA member and writer behind Sinister,Doctor Strange and The Black Phone, C. Robert Cargill told Engadget regarding generative AI systems. “What we have asked of the studios is that they do not generate any material themselves that they have not been handed by writers.”

This is because writing contracts in Hollywood are very specific about the circumstances of how credit is attributed because residual payments are paid out based on them, Cargill explains. For example, writing the first draft of a feature pays at a higher rate than the subsequent rewrites and the amount of residuals the first screenwriter receives depends on what percentage of their original script made it into the final product.

“The fear here is very simple,” Cargill said, and one that is already being realized in the wake of the strike’s launch. “Which is, they get an idea and they put it into one of the generative programs… and then it kicks out something that looks like a script. Then what they do is they hand it over to a writer and say, ‘we're going to pay you your rewrite wage to go ahead and make it sound more like a human wrote it and to fix any of the problems.”

This would essentially preclude human — more importantly, unionized — writers from earring the highest pay rate while forcing them to still perform the highest pay grade work. “What Hollywood can be doing is cutting us out of that very lucrative first step of generating the initial script and story ideas,” he said.

The guild is also, rightfully, concerned with the potential for their existing writing content be used to train future iterations of generative AIs. “I had a fan reach out to me because he was playing around with [ChatGPT] a few weeks ago and wanted to get a couple ideas to a horror story,” Cargill recalled. “He says, ‘Give me some horror prompts based on, I want to write a horror movie that is a mystery thriller, I want it to be creepy and kind of like Sinister.’”

“What it spit back out was the plot to Sinister,” Cargill, who wrote Sinister. “A family moves into a house and finds a videotape of the murder of the family that previously lived there, and the only thing that was changed from my movie is ours happened on film and not video — and that's how it changed it.”

Cargill’s concern is that “by using our previous scripts, what the studios will be doing is essentially getting lines of our dialogue and our jokes sent back into the industry — but without our attribution, without our credit, without our pay.”

He elaborates that the guild is not seeking a full ban on generative AI’s use and that screen are welcome to use it if they want. In the same way that “you don't have to use a computer with spellcheck. You can write your script on yellow line paper by hand if you want — Quentin Tarantino still does that.”

“You don't you don't have to use the technology,” he continued. “But if you want to you can but what we want is to make sure studios aren't using that to replace that and then pay us lower rates just to rewrite what a computer sent back.”

The WGA did not respond to multiple written requests for comment. The AMPTP issued the following response:

We’re creative companies and we value the work of creatives. The best stories are original, insightful and often come from people's own experiences. AI raises hard, important creative and legal questions for everyone. For example, writers want to be able to use this technology as part of their creative process, without changing how credits are determined, which is complicated given AI material can't be copyrighted. So it's something that requires a lot more discussion, which we've committed to doing. Also, it’s important to note that the current WGA Agreement already defines a “writer” to exclude any “corporate or impersonal purveyor” of literary material, meaning that only a “person” can be considered a writer and enjoy the terms and conditions of the Basic Agreement. For example, AI-generated material would not be eligible for writing credit.

This week, Senior Editor Jessica Conditt joins to discuss what went wrong with Redfall, Microsoft’s latest Xbox exclusive that launched to middling reviews. Jess says it’s good enough for Game Pass, but that’s pretty disappointing for a game from Arkane, the studio behind Dishonored and Prey. Also, they chat about Star Wars: Jedi Survivor and its horrendous PC port, and weigh in on how AI and streaming affects the WGA strike. Stay tuned at the end for an interview with Nida Manzoor, the director of Polite Society, who talks about how she lives with tech.

Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!

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Topics

• Jess Conditt’s review of Redfall, a surprise disappointment from Arkane – 1:17

• Also released recently, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor – 16:01

• AI is a factor in the WGA strike – 23:07

• U.S. proposes tax on power used to mine crypto – 29:29

• Report claims Elon Musk threatened to reassign NPR's Twitter account – 31:16

• AI Updates: Microsoft opens Bing AI testing to all, Google AI researcher George Hinton warns the world on rapid AI adoption – 35:55

• Working on – 43:36

• Pop culture picks – 47:23

• Devindra’s interview with ‘Polite Society’ director Nida Manzoor – 53:57

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Credits
Hosts: Jessica Conditt and Devindra Hardawar
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien
Livestream producers: Julio Barrientos
Graphic artist: Luke Brooks and Joel Chokkattu

The Strong National Museum of Play has revealed this year's inductees into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. There are four games in the class of 2023: The Last of Us, Wii Sports, Barbie Fashion Designer and Computer Space. They were selected based on a number of criteria, including their influence and popularity over time.

The Last of Us is the most recent one of the bunch. Naughty Dog's post-apocalyptic action adventure has rarely been out of the limelight over the last 10 years. A TV series based on the game debuted on HBO in January and it was an enormous hit with critics and audiences. A remake of the original game hit PS5 in September and PC in March, though the latter had a buggy launch, unfortunately. 

Going backwards from there, Wii Sports arrived in 2006. Partly because it was bundled in with the massively successful Wii and partly because everyone was playing it, the ever-entertaining sports sim went on to become one of the biggest-selling games of all time. Last year, Nintendo recaptured the magic fairly well on Switch with Nintendo Switch Sports (for the record, my Mii's nickname is Party Gramps).

Back in 1996, Mattel and Digital Domain released Barbie Fashion Designer. It allowed players to design clothing that they could print and dress their real-life Barbie dolls with. The game was a hit, selling half a million copies in two months.

“Barbie Fashion Designer became a jumping-off point for the girls’ games movement and shook up the software and gaming scene," Kristy Hisert, collections manager at The Strong, said. "It also sparked important questions and debate. What does it mean to be a game for girls? Should there even be games ‘for girls’? What are the implications of these games? What are the consequences of gendering games?”

The final member of the class of 2023 is the first ever commercially available video game. Computer Space was an arcade title based on 1962's Spacewar!, which was primarily found on the DEC PDP-1 minicomputer in computer labs. The success of 1971's Computer Space spurred creators Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney to found a little-known company called Atari.

These four titles are well-deserving inductees into the World Video Game Hall of Fame. This year's other finalists were Age of Empires, Angry Birds, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, FIFA International Soccer, Goldeneye 007, NBA 2K, Quake and Wizardry. The Strong, which is in Rochester, New York, will showcase the 2023 inductees (and presumably the ones from previousyears) on a permanent basis in a new World Video Game Hall of Fame space, which will open on June 30th.

Paramount+ is still growing quickly even as its competitors recover. Paramount has revealed that its streaming service has over 60 million subscribers, having added 4.1 million in the first quarter. For context, the platform had 43 million users at the end of last spring — that's a nearly 40 percent jump in several months. Not surprisingly, the media giant is giving credit to its slate of originals and exclusives.

The service had help from shows like the final season of Star Trek: Picard, Tulsa King and the Yellowstone spinoff 1923. Paramount+ also touts access to recent movies like Top Gun: Maverick. And yes, the NFL playoffs kept customers tuning in. The Showtime bundle also helped draw in people eager to watch titles like Yellowjackets.

There were other successes. Paramount's free-to-watch Pluto TV service topped 80 million monthly active users thanks to a 35 percent year-to-year jump in viewing hours. The company's increasing reliance on streaming also became clear through financial figures. While overall subscription revenue climbed 50 percent compared to a year earlier, the money flowing from Paramount+ surged 65 percent.

To some extent, Paramount+ is taking advantage of its rivals' misfortunes. While Netflix has bounced back from last year's rare losses, it still added a modest 1.7 million new subscribers in its first quarter. That's partly due to saturation — at 232.5 million total customers, Netflix doesn't have as much room to grow. Still, this suggests that studio-owned streaming services can fare well against incumbents.

Don't expect Paramount+ to change its strategy much as a result. The service is still leaning on Star Trek shows like Strange New Worlds, not to mention sports exclusives like the UEFA Champions League. That flurry of new content may come at a cost, as Paramount+ recently hiked prices. If viewers are willing to stay, though, the investment could easily pay off.

Like a delirious cross between Scott Pilgrim and Bend It Like Beckham, Nida Manzoor's debut feature Polite Society isn't your usual coming of age flick. It centers on Ria Khan (Priya Kansara), a British Pakistani teen who dreams of becoming a stunt woman, but finds herself at a loss when her sister decides to marry a handsome young doctor. To help save her sister, she has to overcome the groom’s overbearing mother, a wonderfully sinister Nimra Bucha, and make her way through a series of knock down, drag out fights. It's the only film where you'll find wuxia wire work, a surprisingly aggressive recreation ofa classic Bollywood dance sequence and sisterly bonding all in one place.

Manzoor started out as a television writer and director, most recently with the critically acclaimed (and also kick-ass) Peacock series We Are Lady Parts. I had a chance to chat with her as Polite Society hit US theaters last week, and I had one major question in mind: How does she live with tech?

Like any modern artist, Manzoor relies on gadgets for work and play, but she leans on her love of music the most. "I'm always building playlists," she said, "I've been relying on Spotify to hook me up with new stuff, and the algorithm knows me better than I know myself at this point." She listens to tunes mostly on a pair of "low key" JBL headphones, but given all of her traveling for film promotion these days, I recommended a pair of AirPods Pro or AirPods Max to help drown out the plane noise.

Polite Society's score, composed by her brother Shez Manzoor and Tom Howe (Ted Lasso), exemplifies the film's cross-cultural sensibilities. It flips between a dhol drum, bombastic orchestral compositions, and hard rocking electric guitar as easily as Priya Kansara delivers a flying kick to the head. (And where else will you find such an inspired recreation of Maar Daala from Devdas?)

Focus Features

So sure, Manzoor is a proven music nerd. But what if she could only use one of her existing devices for the rest of her life? (Just imagine a global catastrophe leads us to a Mad Max situation, where only the old gadgets survive.) As a writer, she chose the obvious: Her laptop. "Anything that has letters on it and I can write some jokes, then I'm happy," she said. Like Station Eleven, we could always use someone who can document the downfall of civilization as a stage play.

When it comes to older tech that she misses the most, Manzoor laments the loss of flip phones. "You can get off the phone, flip, and it's kind of a nice punctuation at the end of the call," she said. She also has a fondness for the old modem sounds that connected you to the internet, before broadband and fast cellular networks made it seamless. "There's the simple beauty of being able to only use it at this time, and this way," she said. (That's not too surprising to hear, since criticism of We Are Lady Parts effectivelydrove Manzoor off of social media.)

Looking ahead, Manzoor is hoping for the day when we can download skills to our brains like Neo in The Matrix. Yes, she wants to learn Kung Fu, but without the months of training her actors went through. That'snot something we can do yet with brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), but if the technology keeps progressing, it may happen sooner than you think.