An upcoming biopic about the mysterious creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, starring both Casey Affleck and Pete Davidson, is causing controversy for its willingness to use artificial intelligence, not only to generate backgrounds and scene locations but also to adjust actor performances.

The film, Killing Satoshi, will be directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity and 2024’s Road House) but it was producer Ryan Kavanaugh who has been making headlines when he disclosed in a U.K. casting notice that the filmmakers reserve the right to “adjust” actor performances, including the right to “change, add to, take from, translate, reformat or reprocess” those performances, and that the actors themselves will be performing on a “markerless performative capture stage and not in any locations,” according to reporting by Variety. 

These revelations come at a time of heightened anxiety and uncertainty in the film and TV industry, particularly around the use of artificial intelligence to augment, or even fully replace, the work of creative professionals. Labor unions, copyright lawyers, and federal courts are scrambling to come to terms with the implications of generative AI’s incredible ability to repurpose existing creative material.

Consider, for example, this AI-generated encounter between Keanu Reeves’ characters Neo and John Wick and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic Terminator, created using Seedance 2.0, or this AI-generated clip of Jack Black doing a comedic turn as Darth Vader from Star Wars, created using Google’s Veo 4, and you’ll quickly grasp the transformative and disruptive power of these technologies. 

In response to the public anxiety around the choice to lean into AI use in the making of Killing Satoshi, producer Ryan Kavanaugh had this to say to Variety: 

We were very cautious, sensitive and overly protective of our actors to make sure we only use performance capture AI which means that we will not have any AI-generated actors that do not exist. AI is a tool we’re using to make the filmmaking process more efficient while maintaining all department heads’ jobs, all actor jobs and hopefully helping to grow the industry in a positive way.

Though currently still just in production, Killing Satoshi will be one of the first movies to test these boundaries, so anyone interested in the intersection of AI and creative work should pay close attention to its reception.

In the latest escalation of their efforts to push back against opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Homeland Security is issuing hundreds of subpoenas to the largest social media companies, including Google, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Discord and Reddit, seeking to learn the personal information behind accounts that have either criticized ICE or alerted the general public to the locations of ICE agents, according to reporting conducted by the New York Times. 

Under the conditions of anonymity, four government officials and tech employees with privileged access to these DHS subpoena requests spoke to the Times, revealing that Google, Meta, and Reddit have complied with at least some of these government requests for private information. 

When pressed for comment by The New York Times, Meta, Reddit, and Discord declined to comment, while a Google spokeswoman offered this statement: 

When we receive a subpoena, our review process is designed to protect user privacy while meeting our legal obligations. We inform users when their accounts have been subpoenaed, unless under legal order not to or in an exceptional circumstance. We review every legal demand and push back against those that are overbroad.

DHS told the Times that the agency had “broad administrative subpoena authority,” but declined to answer questions about these social media requests, while their lawyers have argued that the information is necessary to protect the safety of ICE agents operating in the field. In practice, however, the subpoenas have often been withdrawn before they could be presented to a judge, placing the onus on the accused to seek restitution in court. 

This legal battle is just the latest in a larger confrontation between the powers of technology and the long-established rights to privacy and free expression, and understandably, it has drawn the attention of civil liberties advocates. In Minneapolis and Chicago, for example, ICE agents have warned protesters that they would be recorded and identified with facial recognition technology, while border czar Tom Homan has publicly called for a database of people “arrested for interference, impeding, and assault.”

The ACLU has stepped in, offering legal representation for people whose social media accounts have been subpoenaed by the Department of Homeland Security, while Steve Loney, senior supervising attorney for the ACLU of Pennsylvania, issued this warning: “The government is taking more liberties than they used to. It’s a whole other level of frequency and lack of accountability.”

Just when you thought the outcry against dating app culture couldn’t get any louder, an old app returns to remind us that there truly is no floor.

Enter Score, an app that was first launched back in 2024 by a financial services company looking to promote greater openness about personal finances. To qualify for Score membership, users had to prove they had a credit score of 675 or above, and that gimmick somehow garnered them north of 50,000 active users.

According to a recent interview with TechCrunch, Score founder Luke Bailey is eager to relaunch the app. There is already a Score website where you can sign up for the waiting list and discover their new tagline: “Dating For People With Good Credit.”

In the new-and-improved Score, inclusivity is the focus. The app will offer two membership tiers: a general-access membership for everyone and a higher tier for members who are willing to verify their credit scores. Doing so unlocks more quality-of-life features, including the ability to send video introductions or message people who haven’t already swiped to talk to you. 

Score is teaming up with Equifax to handle both credit and ID verification, prompting tech-savvy critics to raise privacy concerns. But according to a press release, Bailey doesn’t believe there’s anything inherently superficial about using a credit score as a proxy for dating value.

“We look at credit not as a measure of wealth, but as a reflection of consistency and reliability. Most dating platforms measure attrition,” says Bailey in the press release. “We measure reliability alongside compatibility.” The general idea being that someone who doesn’t shirk their regular credit card payments is also less likely to ghost their dating app matches.

The timing of the Score launch is also inauspicious, as younger Americans are simultaneously experiencing a credit crunch and a weakening job market comparable to the 2008 financial crisis, with average credit scores falling at a faster rate than at any time since 2009. The bet that Score is making is that, in a search for financial stability, users might re-prioritize the credit-worthiness of their potential partners, but it’s just as likely that young people will view this move as yet another crass attempt to harvest user data under the guise of offering a worthwhile service. 

Finally, the app’s underlying thesis deserves some scrutiny. Are credit-worthy people also inherently more reliable in dating? Does a missed credit card payment suggest a flaky personality, or someone likely to forget to return a phone call or remember a birthday? We suspect the market will supply the answer to those questions.