Diego Lasarte

@newyorker

[The New Yorker @NewYorker]

A24’s new research partnership with DeepMind has sparked controversy within the film community—but its interest in A.I. predates this alliance. In 2025, Alex Barasch reported on the studio’s aims to use the technology for everything from audience discovery to story ideation.

Scott Belsky, the head of A24 Labs, has speculated about use cases including “a deep conversation with an LLM to debate a character’s mindset” and “pre-visualizing characters, costumes, and particular scenes.” Another top executive told Barasch, “There’s talent toe-dipping into it, and we want Scott to be a guide for them.” A.I., he mused, could help the studio target “microcommunities”: “You can maybe make something that’s valuable for a thousand people, because the cost is cheap enough that it doesn’t have to reach ten million people.”
https://t.co/kqudjkyGk9

[The New Yorker @NewYorker]

Tim Pughsley built a sports-betting website that moved billions, then the I.R.S. got involved. In the age of FanDuel and DraftKings, where is the line between legal and illegal gambling? https://t.co/LYQGGSPDkV

[Eric Lach @ericlach]

A ticker tape parade in a world with no stock tickers. Even if offices still used paper you couldn’t shred it and toss it out the window in jubilee because the office windows don’t open

[Ishaan Tharoor @ishaantharoor]

My latest weekly column in the @NewYorker, which has been dubbed "Global Notes"—so long WorldView:

On the day the World Cup begins, I wrote about the undeniable gloom that surrounds it, and how the Trump-shaped shadow over the tournament can still be dispelled.

[The New Yorker @NewYorker]

“Before the pandemic, the N.Y.P.D. would crack down on big group rides. But, during COVID, I feel like the cops were just kind of, like, Let the kids blow off steam,” the photographer Brian Finke said. “It was a time period where the city just let the riders do their thing.” Finke’s work documents cyclists breaking through the constraints of New York’s crowded landscape, taking viewers on a tour of the different types of riding that the city offers. See more of his work: https://t.co/aFL7jaHkHy

[The New Yorker @NewYorker]

Brian Finke’s photographs document riders breaking through the constraints of the city’s crowded landscape—and showing off while they do. https://t.co/wO3r5Ox7yC

[The New Yorker @NewYorker]

After J.F.K.’s assassination, a neophyte lawyer named John Feerick was summoned to Washington to draft the provision. Now everyone wants him to weigh in on booting Trump from office. https://t.co/UT2rXuAxVd