Good morning, Quartz readers!
Here’s what you need to know
Mitsubishi is shutting down in China. Electric vehicles and popular local brands have made the Japanese car somewhat of a dinosaur in the country.
Donald Trump was banned from doing business in New York. Before his civil fraud trial could even begin, a judge ruled that there was enough evidence of tax fraud to revoke his business licenses.
Lululemon and Peloton are becoming workout buddies. The fitness apparel company is getting out of the fitness hardware business and partnering with Peloton.
The Hollywood writers strike is over. Viewers everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief as the Writers Guild of America accepted a deal it called “exceptional,” ending five months that once again proved that without writers, everything grinds to a halt. More details below.
Welcome back, Hollywood writers
Get your remotes ready—the Hollywood writers strike against industry studios is ending after five long months.
The Writer’s Guild of America West announced its walkout is ending, after its leadership agreed to an “exceptional” new deal. Now we just have to wait for members to sign on the dotted line and then write us some content we desperately need, as Only Murders in the Building’s latest season is about to come to an end, and then that feels like pretty much it for awhile. Though we should point out that writing and producing new content takes time, and actors, as of this writing, are still on strike. In the meantime, let’s look at a few numbers:
11,500: Members needed to ratify the contract
12.5%: Increase in pay for writers over the three years of the deal, with an immediate 5% bump once ratified
$233 million: Estimated value of the new agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers
Julia Malleck has more, including what the studios ultimately agreed to regarding AI, which was one of the big sticking points over the original union contracts.
Can AI bias ever be fixed?
It’s been more than a year since Google introduced the Monk Skin Tone (MST) Scale to tame internet bias—at least as far as skin color goes—but new research by Sony AI says it’s not really doing much to help.
The whole idea was that the MST (a collaboration between Google and Harvard sociologist Ellis Monk) took an existing six-color scale and expanded it to 10 colors. The problem is—AI classifiers are predicting characteristics based on skin tone (light to dark) and skin hue (shades of color, like red to yellow).
Sony thinks it has the answer, Faustine Ngila reports.
Green help wanted
Green jobs exist, but people with green skills don’t—or not enough of them, anyway, and the gap will only widen in coming years. That means employers in industries like climate tech will be hungry to find the right people to hire for the great transition to clean energy, so it could be time to start greening up your skills.
Quartz’s most popular
🧑‍⚕️ Rich countries are importing a solution to their nursing shortages—and poor countries are paying the price
✏️ AI companies are hiring creative writers—and here’s what they’re looking for
🔕 Apple may be quiet on AI, but it’s also the biggest buyer of AI companies
🤖 Luddites saw the problem of AI coming from two centuries away
🥤 Coke is launching a new drink “co-created” with AI
🎲 Young hackers are sticking up Las Vegas casinos for hefty ransoms
Surprising discoveries
Archaeologists discovered the remains of a 2,000-year-old cosmetics shop. We do not know at this time what their customer loyalty points system was like.
But don’t try to create new images of these 2,000-year-old men. Bing’s AI image generator mysteriously won’t allow users to make pictures from prompts of “Julius Caesar” or “Marcus Aurelius” (though just “Caesar” and “Aurelius” seem to work fine).
Find a fairy circle. It may seem magical to us, but the fairy circle is just a way plants organize themselves in difficult conditions—and now there’s an atlas to help you keep track of them all.
Stuffed cabbage is the new trendy dish. Honestly, it never should have gone away.
The Great British Bake Off hit peak viewership in 2016. But it’s hoping some tweaks this season can put the still massively popular baking competition—even low-performing seasons outrank popular reality shows like Love Island and The Bachelor—back on its cake stand. Find out what makes this little show so huge in our latest Quartz Weekly Obsession.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Send any news, comments, bakewell tarts, and definitions of bakewell tarts to talk@qz.com. Reader support makes Quartz available to all—become a member. Today’s Daily Brief was brought to you by Susan Howson.