In the latest installment of Let’s Talk, AMT Lab staff members Natalie Larsen and Maraika Lumholdt discuss recent failures in big tech, crypto , and the ticketing industry, as well as how AI continues to change the arts.

Listed in order of discussion are the articles referenced:

Congress to hold hearing on Ticketmaster problems after Taylor Swift debacle

Meta laying off more than 11,000 employees: Read Zuckerberg’s letter announcing the cuts

Wringing its hands over FTX's collapse, Washington hopes to prevent more crypto pain

This Copyright Lawsuit Could Shape the Future of Generative AI

Maraika Lumholdt: I think it's also something that's going to impact arts organizations more broadly, even those that are not in the traditional Taylor Swift kind of entertainment space, but other forms of live arts like theater. Many of them are using Ticketmaster to support their ticket selling practices. So depending on this outcome, of course, how they are currently operating will need to be reevaluated.

Maraika Lumhodlt : Welcome to another Let's Talk episode of Tech in the Arts, the podcast series on the arts management and technology laboratory. The goal of our Let's Talk series is to exchange ideas, bring awareness and stay on top of the trends. My name is Maraika Lumbholdt, host of Tech in the Arts, and I'm joined by our staff writer and lead researcher Natalie Larsen. To talk about current news from the month of November 2022. We will be covering some of the recent failures in big tech, crypto, and the ticketing industry, as well as how AI continues to change the arts.

Maraika Lumholdt: So my first story is one that hits near and dear to home for me, I am a big live music fan. And I know you're too I am for sure. So maybe you will also relate in the sense that I have personally been affected by Ticketmaster and some of the problems that they're being called out for right now. So I think everyone by this point has heard the backlash that specifically came about when Taylor Swift put tickets to her upcoming tour on sale. And this has caused the Senate to actually hold hearings on the problems related to Ticketmaster. So the hearing specifically is on their quote unquote, dominant market position. And this is all in regards to practices of theirs that could be centered monopolistic, and in violation of our antitrust laws. So Amy Klobuchar, senator from Minnesota, who's the Chair of the US Senate Antitrust panel has been quoted as saying that Ticketmaster is a prime example of how it's abusing its power it holds in the ticketing and entertainment industries, which is destroying any incentive, they have to innovate and improve, which ultimately ends up harming customers as well as artists that they're servicing.

Maraika Lumholdt: The news about this hearing is still pretty new. So we haven't seen a date for when it'll happen, or any witnesses that will be present at the hearing. But I know I've heard how Taylor Swift has stated that it's been really hard to watch her fans be so impacted negatively by Ticketmaster. And she came out and said that Ticketmaster told her and her team, that they'd be able to handle the kind of demand that it would be that it would put on their system for selling her tickets. So I guess that's one other huge voice in the entertainment industry that's coming out against what they did. And in the legislative side, a lot of Democratic senators have been calling for Ticketmaster to be broken up in anticipation of this trial, or this hearing, excuse me, and even ahead of this hearing coming to be and some have banded together to write a letter to the Attorney General, the US Attorney General, to state that they want the Department of Justice to get involved. So really major, major thing that's happening, it might seem like something trivial for someone not to be able to get a ticket to their favorite artists like Taylor Swift, but it's a symptom of something much bigger.

Natalie Larsen: Yeah, and this is nothing new. Ticketmaster has been kind of known for being for just not providing that great service and for charging all of these extra fees. And of course, you have Taylor Swift, who's currently one of the biggest stars on the planet, probably her new album is like massively popular. Everyone wants to see her. So of course, Ticketmaster has gained this and all this negative attention because even her own tour promotion company has said that they basically had no choice but to work with Ticketmaster, because they're kind of the only option they have. You said they promised them that they would be able to handle the volume of sales and vans dealt with just so many crashes on the website, terrible customer service. But they really didn't have any other option. Other than going to these secondhand tickets, selling sites where tickets were going for 1000s of dollars.

Maraika Lumholdt: Yeah, yeah, I saw I was unable to get tickets because I didn't get that pre sale code. So I just checked those resale sites. And I said tickets being sold for $12,000. That's for one ticket, which, of course, astronomical locks out the vast majority of fans who are trying to see their favorite artists. Right. And that's just unethical. Totally, totally. And I think it's important to note that Ticketmaster It has this power because they merged with Live Nation in 2010. So now they're Live Nation Entertainment as a company together. And at the time, of course, they had to prove that they were not going to be in violation of antitrust to allow that acquisition to go through. And they were required to sell off some aspects of their business. And they had certain rules they had to follow. That wouldn't prevent artists and their promotional teams to be cornered into having to choose them for certain venues. But even with those rules, they still own/control, I think it's 60 to 70% plus of venues, in terms of them being the only option for ticketing at those places. So, of course, that is some of the those are some of the facts that are coming under scrutiny with this current hearing.

Natalie Larsen: And even, it's not just we're not just hearing this type of scrutiny from the government, we're hearing from kind of a grassroots activist group called Break Up Ticketmaster who's been gaining more and more attention, obviously, in light of this whole Taylor Swift issue. But they're basically saying the same type of stuff. And they're also calling for Live Nation entertainment to be broken up. So they're a self described coalition of several different groups, including the Artist Rights Alliance, the Music Workers Alliance, and the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers.

Maraika Lumholdt: So I think for anyone listening, if you are concerned about this potential monopoly that Live Nation Entertainment has this coalition breakup, Ticketmaster has a link on their website where you can submit a letter or an email that will go to the Department of Justice to urge them to look into the matter. So they're hoping that that collective pressure will help it be addressed by the DOJ. Yeah, so this, of course, impacts the entertainment industry at a large scale, depending on what happens with these hearings. And if Live Nation Entertainment, the conglomerate will be forced to break up. But I think it's also something that's going to impact arts organizations more broadly, even those that are not in the traditional Taylor Swift kind of entertainment space. But other forms of live arts like theater. Many of them are using Ticketmaster to support their ticket selling practices. So depending on this outcome, of course, how they are currently operating will need to be reevaluated. And I imagine it'll have lots of ripple effects. Yeah, yeah. And I just saw there's a lawsuit now too, from fans suing Ticketmaster because of this. So all sorts of different attacks coming towards Live Nation Entertainment.

Natalie Larsen: Yeah. So there's a lot of pressure against these monopolistic companies. Speaking of pressure, let's talk about another company that's been all over the news.

Maraika Lumholdt: Do tell!

Natalie Larsen: This, of course, I'm sure everyone has seen--just multiple stories every day about Twitter and Elon Musk and some new controversy that's going on over there. But so far, Elon Musk has fired nearly half of Twitter's employees, companies like Stripe, Intel, Robinhood, Lyft, Amazon and of course, Meta have all laid off hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of employees.

Maraika Lumholdt: Yeah, I mean, I feel like every time I go on LinkedIn, now I see more and more people that are working in tech saying they're looking for jobs, and they've been laid off. It's it's staggering how many people it's impacting.

Natalie Larsen: It really is, according to an article from Wired, tfhe estimate of the total number of tech layoffs is somewhere in the six figures. That is huge. That's a lot of people that are now going to be looking for employment. And there isn't really a whole lot out there, at least when it comes to big tech companies. So one option that they have is, of course to join or to create their own startup company, which is something that we could see we could see a wave of new startups as a result of all these layoffs.

Natalie Larsen: There are I mean, these people are incredibly smart and talented, and they have valuable experience at a big tech company. So this may be a chance for them to explore a new venture or, or pursue an idea of theirs that they were unable to before. Of course, it's not really an easy time to to create a startup as investors are less inclined to fund a startup. But especially since tech and crypto markets have gone down. They're just being a lot more cautious and just asking for a lot more information up front rather than just giving away their venture capital.

Maraika Lumholdt: Yeah, yeah. So simultaneously, I could see how a wave of startups will come to be. But I imagine that the success rate will be going down considering some of the challenges and getting funding and advancing those startups to be more long term stable companies.

Natalie Larsen: Right. And it's not to say it's impossible, just harder. It has its own challenges currently just given the way things are going, but certainly not impossible. Maybe just some extra planning on on their part.

Maraika Lumholdt: Well, good luck to everyone endeavoring in that space.

Natalie Larsen: Yes. Another sort of major story involving a a big kind of crypto company that's made the headlines recently is FTX. Of course, I'm sure everyone has heard by now about their bankruptcy filing, and the resignation of their former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried as well as an investigation launched against Bankman-Fried for quote, skirting rules on safeguarding consumer deposits and relationships with trading affiliates. And the general misuse of FTX is fun funds. So NPR reported that Sam Bankman-Fried has actually been very vocal about his downfall, which is not something you typically see from disgraced tech executives. His lawyers have also been advising him to kind of stay quiet. But he has been doing the opposite of that he was recently interviewed by George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, where he admitted to getting distracted and cocky and in his own words, "Not spending any time or effort trying to manage risk on FTX." So he's really trying to get out there and tell his story and seems like redeem himself almost in a way.

Maraika Lumholdt: Yeah. Such an interesting approach. Because when I compare that to more, I don't know traditional economic scandals, like I'm thinking of Enron, or you know, those massive financial failures that have led to legislation. Yeah, he's taking it in a very different direction. He's like the new generation of finance executives, right.

Natalie Larsen : Yeah. So 30 years old, he went from having billions of dollars to I think, According to NPR, or according to his interview, I think it's where I heard it, having only one working credit card. That is, it's just wild to see that kind of change overnight. But so this whole story as well has led to lawmakers in Washington stepping in and trying at least discussing creating some sort of a regulatory framework for crypto as well as big tech companies. NPR reported that the House Financial Services Committee, the Senate Banking Committee, and the Senate Agriculture Committee, have promised to hold hearings. But there is still no clear path to comprehensive crypto legislation. And that's a direct quote from that article. Additionally, FTX has received several inquiries from federal prosecutors, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities Exchange Commission. So they are really being watched right now and their new CEO is having to kind of deal with all of that the Securities and Exchange Commission or just SEC for short, has claimed that, quote, most cryptocurrencies are securities, like stocks, and they should be subject to the same rules. So they're really trying to push for crypto companies to be more transparent with investors about the risks of digital assets, because of the current lack of legislation, federal regulation on those, of course. So there's several kinds of bills that are and ideas that are being floated around in the government right now.

Maraika Lumholdt: Didn't Sam Bankman-Fried to actually support that legislation?

Natalie Larsen: He did! He did. And there is a tweet floating around there, or at least a screenshot of the tweet saying from him basically promoting this bill, and, and yeah, just showing his support for it.

Maraika Lumholdt: Well, the tables have turned on him.

Natalie Larsen: So of course, FTX is collapse has lawmakers kind of scrambling right now to try and create and pass legislation that would provide more oversight to the crypto industry, but this will not be an easy task, and it could take some time. And it's worth noting as well, that while this is a bipartisan issue, and it has As bipartisan support, but Sam Bankman-Fried was a notably large donor to the Democratic Party having given about 37 million during the 2022 campaign cycle.

Maraika Lumholdt: Yeah, I feel like every time we talk, there's another issue that pushes regulation closer and closer in terms of cryptocurrencies and FTAs, other digital, new digital assets that we've been talking about? And every time I'm like, Well, this be the one that's finally gonna get something through. I know, knows, as you said, it's gonna take a long time. But certainly the case for it keeps building and building and wave of all these different scandals,

Natalie Larsen: Right. And with regard to big tech, there are also two big tech antitrust bills that are currently in Congress waiting to be passed. These are the American innovation and choice online Act or the AICO, which would prohibit companies from "prioritizing their own products on their platforms over competitors." And the Open App Markets Act, or the OAMA which would, quote, force Apple and Google to open up their app stores to rival marketplaces. Of course, we're also seeing a push for big tech regulation overseas notice, most notably in the EU, which has come out with the Digital Services Act and is going to be applying that to large tech corporations. Starting February 17. They've already warned Elon Musk about Twitter that it must, he must make it compliant with the DSA by February 17, or risk incurring just huge, huge fines, of course. So we invited our executive director and publisher, Dr. Brett Crawford, to share some of her thoughts on these stories. Dr. Crawford, thank you so much for joining us today. Could you walk us through some of the opportunities this challenging time in the tech industry presents, particularly for artists and arts organizations?

Dr. Brett Crawford: Natalie and Maraika, it is so great to be back here. We are indeed witnessing unusual times in tech. I mean, a lot of what we're seeing in 2022 is the rebalancing from what was essentially an imbalance created by the pandemic. Chip demand computer demand all skyrocketed in 2020, because people needed tech for work in life. The growth was extreme. When you you know, other reports have been that the chip demands and competing or demand is down, right? Changes rebalance to what is actually needed in the marketplace. And I think it's you're right, the marketplace is harsh, and it's hard. And I have also heard that there are hundreds of thousands of people who are laid off. And I've also heard that, you know, this may be the biggest moment in our country's history, really, since World War Two, where we're going to see a lot of innovation and growth because of this change. But you know, it is a it's a time that would make me excited and very uncomfortable with my career was in a large tech company.

Dr. Brett Crawford: So regarding FTX, you know, I agree with everything you discussed, I enjoyed your explanation of the difference and how FTX is former CEO is discussing the failure. I mean, it shows in my opinion, how emerging technology businesses have a model of encouraging learning from failure. And the key of learning from failure is saying, Hey, I failed. The problem is that this has detrimentally affected those engaging with the company, particularly with FTX in a very high risk marketplace that he didn't acknowledge. Even he admits to that, as you said. So I really think at this point, you know, or arts organizations, as well as the big tech companies need to recognize that most likely public policy is going to start addressing oversight in the tech marketplace that has been missing, perhaps for decades. So I in fact, you asked me, I think specifically what do these times mean for artists and organizations? The most important lesson in my mind is for everyone to stay on top of tech news and public policy change.

Dr. Brett Crawford: We saw this happen when the EU enacted GDPR US companies who worked internationally, in other words, all of them online, they had to comply with the EU's policy and arts organizations had to take the time to adjust their web presence to comply. Both the EU and the US have pending legislation I mean that are going to affect social media cryptocurrency and can over privacy in Twitter was a game changer not only in sort of the social media model, but in its ability to create political action and social change. Many nonprofits, artists, other social change makers invested deeply in their work on the platform. And it served their mission in their work. And then in one short month, how quickly things have changed. Since then, artists and organizations have either been leaving the platform discussing leaving the platform, evaluating what to do. But I think the ecosystem that we all need to have sort of a diversified presence on the web, and a clear communication plan to those who are following us. You know, truly, what are the appropriate platforms for an organization's mission and their goals? What are the appropriate platforms for the goals of an artist, if they are planning on changing their work on a particular platform, they also need to clearly engage with their followers about the change how they're doing it, why they're doing it. And recognize that leaving or going silent, really only create silence, intentional change with a plan as needed. These are interesting and often difficult times. So these are times though, I must say that is a research operation at the center of arts management and technology. I really love the work that we do. I love the fact that here at amp lab, I know that the team is engaged and ready to support artists and organizations as they navigate these turbulent times. And then our research is really trying to ensure that everybody knows what's happening, and hopefully have choices in how to adapt. You know, that's about all I have to say in terms of advice, good luck out, there would be the other piece of advice. So thanks, again for asking me to join you.

Natalie Larsen: Thank you, Brett, always a pleasure to talk to you and to hear about your insights into these issues.

Maraika Lumholdt: So I'm just thinking about how, again, whatever comes to be in terms of current legislation proposed will impact the arts. I think a trend that we've reported on in the past few years is crypto philanthropy and how crypto can be used as a form of donation to nonprofits. So I think that that's something that's definitely still gaining traction, I wouldn't go so far as to say it's widespread, but some organizations are accepting donations via cryptocurrencies. So if new regulations are put in place that makes it more difficult for people to obtain or spend cryptocurrencies, or that reduce the number of cryptocurrencies in the markets there, of course, that will have ramifications for those sources of donations and nonprofits will have to reevaluate their fundraising strategies.

Natalie Larsen: Yeah, absolutely. So any artists or arts organizations that are currently involved in in selling or creation or anything having to do with NFT's are going to be subject to new guidelines set by the federal government, or even by a state statute perhaps?

Maraika Lumholdt: Yeah, so as usual, we recommend the arts managers all be aware of new policies, and rulings that are coming out of these scenarios. You're talking about generative AI. And I think AI is gaining a lot of popularity amongst businesses, professionals, anyone who's regularly creating content, whether that's marketing or communications, software, design, different forms of entertainment, as well as investors who are interested in supporting this. So generative a AI in particular, which sometimes is called foundation models, large language AI models, image AI models, generate models, I've seen a lot of different names. These provide some specific use cases for users of it, it can automatically generate content so it can write articles or blog posts or social media posts. In terms of the art world, there's actually an art contest a few months ago that someone one with generative AI. Jason Allen is the person that won this art contest and they use generative AI to make their art piece they use Midjourney in particular. But there are a lot of different AI software that can be used like DALL-E2, WOMBO, I think DALL-E is one that we see a lot on social media with with the DALL-E. But that I think is is an interesting example of how it's used in the art world. I think it's more commonly being used over and things like marketing. There's a software called Jasper which can make blogs, social media posts, copy for a website, sales emails, ads, like truly limitless in terms of marketing and communications, and they're already coming News that are using AI and their advertising like Heinz, and good talked about that a couple episodes ago, Stitch Fix, Nestle, Mattel, the list goes on. So certainly gaining practical use and commercial use right generating a profit because of AI.

Maraika Lumholdt: It's interesting to think about the pros and cons of how this tool is being used. I think on the pro side, it can definitely maximize Search Engine Optimization or SEO, SEO requires pretty tight content and quality of content to help a company or an individual or whoever it is gain traction in the organic search space to get their rankings higher on Google and other search engines. So AI can certainly help that when we think of how it can and generative AI in particular, how it can help write that content and optimize a website that way. It can also help create more personalized pitches for writers in PR to be more effective in terms of getting a message across and reaching a target and getting new sources to pick up on articles that are being written by PR professionals. And it can help create more original content so less risk of you know stealing or plagiarizing work. Fewer copyright issues, lower reliance on stock images. However, a lot of controversy and cons around generative AI too. I think, of course, there's a lot of legal and ethical issues. You can make deepfakes with generative AI, you can make a video or an image of something that never actually happened and convince a whole lot of people that it did.

Natalie Larsen: Yeah, which is super creepy and very Black Mirror-esque.

Maraika Lumholdt: Very Black Mirror. Yeah, that's the one that probably scares me the most. And then I think on the more strict in the legal side, it raises a lot of questions of ownership. So if there's an AI generated work, does it belong to the creator who, you know, told the AI to create something, or the creators whose works were used to train the AI program, that were inputs in what the AI generated?

Natalie Larsen: As we're seeing this kind of new lawsuit develop?

Maraika Lumholdt Yeah, yeah. So Github co-pilot is is the focus of this specific lawsuit. So a coder filed a suit against GitHub, and they said that, quote, they're infringing copyright because it does not provide attribution when co pilot reproduces open source code covered by a license requiring it. So in this example, copilot is the specific product from GitHub. And that helps you write code. So it allows coders to start writing a code and then they will suggest what lines of code to input based on what the coder has written. And so it allows for a lot of time to be saved. And, you know, large chunks of code to be written much more quickly, because it can help fill in as you go. It was trained on collections of code that were stored on OpenAI. And so the coder who's named Matthew Butterick, who filed that suit, notice that some of those codes that copilot uses will be reproductions of recognizable snippets of code that are taken from public code repositories, such as OpenAI.

Maraika Lumholdt: So in that case, it's an interesting concept because technically, that AI is, you know, using inputs and creating something new. But this coder notice that they're pretty much taking something verbatim from what exists in the open source database like OpenAI. Yeah. Yeah. So likely, I will say that it's probably just one of many lawsuits that are yet to come with generative AI as it just gets more and more use cases and again, becomes more accessible. I think, a few years ago, we knew I was there, but it wasn't necessarily something that any company or even individuals now could be using it in these broader purposes. So a question that we will leave you all to ponder as generative AI, it gets more in the spotlight in terms of legal action. We asked you all what would the impact of a ruling in favor of this defendant this coder be for artists whose work is used to train generative AI models? Let us know in the comments.

Natalie Larsen: We will do our best to keep you posted on any developments. Thank you for listening to tech in the arts. Be on the lookout for new episodes coming to you very soon. If you found this episode, informative, educational or inspirational, be sure to send this to another arts or technology aficionado in your life. You can let us know what you think of this podcast by visiting our website amp lab.org. That's amt-lab.org or you can email us at amtlabcmu@gmail.com. You can follow us on Instagram at Tech In the Arts or Facebook and LinkedIn at Arts Management and Technology Lab. We'll see you for the next episode