Weekly Download #100: Can You Trust Anything You Watch Now?

Hey , it’s Sunday, October 12:

This week, the tech world basically set itself on fire.

OpenAI’s new Sora 2 video app broke records but also broke the internet—with Hollywood, creators, and the entire misinformation police all losing their minds.

Instagram wants to be your new TV, AI keeps eating everything in sight, and yes, there are new ways to accidentally leak your logins.

We have a lot to cover in our 100th edition of the Weekly Download, so let’s jump into it.

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How-To

How to Connect ChatGPT to Your Spotify Account

ChatGPT can now tap directly into your Spotify account to create custom playlists based on whatever random request you throw at it.

Connecting your Spotify account to your ChatGPT account is pretty straightforward. OpenAI made it painless. Here’s how to do it.

1. Launch the app

   Open ChatGPT (web or app, they both work)

2. Connect Spotify

   Start a new conversation and mention Spotify in your request.

3. Connect

   Click “Connect to Spotify” when the prompt appears

4. Log in to Spotify

   Log in to your Spotify account and authorize the connection

5. Make your request

   Start making requests. Be as specific or weird as you want

 Learn more here.

Fast Five

1.) Instagram explores dedicated TV app to challenge YouTube
Instagram is exploring creating a dedicated TV app to expand its video presence and compete with YouTube on your living room screen. [LINK]

2.) OpenAI's Sora app hits 1 million downloads in five days
OpenAI’s AI video-generation app, Sora, reached one million downloads in under five days, surpassing the initial launch pace of the ChatGPT app. [LINK]

3.) Discord users’ data swiped in a sneaky customer service hack
A Discord breach through a third-party service has exposed user data, including names, usernames, emails, and the last four digits of credit cards [LINK]

4.) Figure AI unveils humanoid robot for homes
In October, Figure AI introduced its new Figure 03 humanoid robot, a big step towards making robots a part of daily life at home. [LINK].

5.) OpenAI claims GPT-5 cuts political bias by 30%
Just because OpenAI says it reduced political bias doesn’t necessarily mean it's true, and independent fact-checkers want to put its claim to the test. [LINK]

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Workslop
(noun)

Definition: Low-quality, AI-generated content found in the workplace that appears to be good work but lacks substance. Workslop shifts the burden to downstream recipients who must interpret, correct, or redo the content, ultimately increasing workload. [LINK]

Usage: "I can spot workslop from a mile away now—it's that overly polished presentation that says nothing meaningful when you actually read through it."

The Big One

OpenAI's Sora 2 Turns Into a Hollywood Horror Show

Remember when we all freaked out about AI-generated photos? Well, buckle up—video just entered the chat.

OpenAI dropped Sora 2 last week, and the AI video generator app hit 1 million downloads in under five days, beating even ChatGPT's initial launch pace.

But what started as Silicon Valley's latest party trick has quickly turned into a full-blown Hollywood meltdown.

Here's what went down:

The Launch: OpenAI unveiled Sora 2 on September 30, billing it as its most advanced video generator yet. OpenAI recently lifted the floodgates to let anyone with an internet connection try it.

The Good: Early users were blown away. The videos are scarily realistic—we're talking complex scenes with multiple characters, accurate physics, and details that'll make you question reality.

The Bad: Then the copyright cops showed up. OpenAI's overly aggressive copyright filters started blocking everything—users couldn't generate videos with anything remotely resembling copyrighted material.

Want a video of someone in a superhero costume? Blocked. A character that vaguely looks like a celebrity? Nope. The restrictions got so bad that users say the quality has tanked since launch, with some claiming it's now "no better than VEO 3."

The Ugly: Hollywood is freaking out. Studios, talent agencies, and unions are pushing back hard.

The New York Times warns we've entered "the era of fakery" where visual proof means nothing. Misinformation researchers are sounding alarms about deepfakes, fraud, and political manipulation.

Oh, and a WIRED investigation found the AI perpetuates sexist, racist, and ableist stereotypes.

Sam Altman tried damage control, saying rights holders will have "more control" over their likeness, but nobody's buying it. The app that was supposed to democratize video creation has instead kicked off what might be the messiest AI controversy yet.

The kicker? Despite all the drama, it's still sitting at #1 in the App Store. Turns out people really want to make fake videos, even if they can't make good ones anymore.

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Extra Bytes

Chrome’s new feature is here to hush spammy website alerts [LINK]

OpenAI’s ChatGPT hits a jaw-dropping 410.8 million downloads [LINK]

YouTube is giving some banned creators a second chance [LINK]

AI could eliminate 100 million jobs from the US alone [LINK]

iFixit teardown reveals Meta Ray-Ban glasses are unrepairable [LINK]

1Password’s new tool stops AI chatbots from leaking your logins [LINK]

Tesla’s “standard” models are here, and they’re still expensive AF [LINK]

OpenAI now lets you chat with apps in ChatGPT [LINK]

Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass Ultimate price hike has gamers fuming [LINK]

Hero of the Week

This week’s moron hero of the week goes to Dr. Fred Ramsdell.

Immunologist Dr. Fred Ramsdell was so busy hiking off-grid in Wyoming that the Nobel Committee had to hunt him down for hours just to tell him he won the Prize in Medicine for discovering revolutionary T cells that could change cancer treatment forever.

Meanwhile, his co-winner thought the call from Sweden was spam and hung up to go back to sleep—absolute legends. [LINK]

Tools

JustPaid: Autonomous AI for billing, contracts, and collections [LINK].

Caesr AI: AI that controls real apps across web, desktop, and mobile [LINK]

Everyday: Productivity tool that gets tasks done across apps with plain English [LINK]

Chatquick AI: Turn your voice into an audiobook & podcast for writers. [LINK]

Thanks for reading!

Alright! Thanks for getting all the way to the end. Until next week…….

-Kevin

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