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AI girlfriends are here – but there’s a dark side to virtual companions | Arwa Mahdawi

Love in the time of ChatGPTIt is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a computer must be in want of an AI girlfriend. Certainly a lot of enterprising individuals seem to think there’s a lucrative market for digital romance. OpenAI recently launched its GPT Store, where paid ChatGPT users can buy and sell customized chatbots (think Apple’s app store, but for chatbots) – and the offerings include a large selection of digital girlfriends.“AI girlfriend bots are already flooding OpenAI’s GPT…

Taylor Swift rules the airwaves! But that’s bad news for music | Arwa Mahdawi

The US may be a republic, but it still has a queen. Her name is Taylor Swift and her reign is only just getting started.The 33-year-old recently became the first woman, and only the third artist ever, to have four albums in the Top 10 of the US album chart simultaneously. The sun never sets on Swift’s empire: club nights that play only Swift songs have popped up in the UK and Australia, while her Eras tour is on track to be the most lucrative ever; it is expected to crack $1bn in revenue.But her concerts aren’t putting…

‘Let the fun begin!’ Why did romance writer Susan Meachen fake her own death? | Arwa Mahdawi

‘All publicity is good publicity,” Susan Meachen thought to herself as she prepared to stage her suicide. In September 2020, Meachen, the self-published author of what she described as “perfectly flawed” romance novels, logged on to Facebook, pretended to be her daughter and wrote a post declaring herself dead. Meachen’s “daughter” continued to post numerous times after that. She suggested that Meachen was “bullied in the book world to the point of suicide” and encouraged people to buy Meachen’s “final” book. Then, plot…

Was Taylor Swift wrong to use the word ‘fat’ in a video? That’s how I used to feel whenever I weighed myself | Arwa Mahdawi

Want to watch Taylor Swift magically lose fat overnight? No, of course you don’t – you’re not a weirdo. But if you are just a little curious about what I am talking about, then have a look at Swift’s music video for the single Anti-Hero from her new album, Midnights. There is a scene in it in which the musician steps on some scales and looks up sadly as her doppelganger shakes her head in disgust. This visual would be unremarkable were it not for the fact that it was hastily swapped in a week ago, just days after the…

Springsteen tickets are going for a whopping $4,000 – what else are we paying dynamic prices for? | Arwa Mahdawi

If you want to see Bruce Springsteen play in the US, it may cost you. Some of the tickets for the Boss’s forthcoming tour are going for over $4,000 (£3,300) on Ticketmaster – prices that have triggered a backlash and angry headlines. Do you get hand-fed gold-coated caviar and have your feet massaged by a supermodel for that money? Not exactly. The reason the tickets cost so much is because of “dynamic pricing”. Ticketmaster has said most Springsteen tickets cost under $200, but 11% are part of a variable pricing strategy…