Since the video was posted earlier this month, millions of TikTok users have watched as a young Chinese man in a blue T-shirt sits beside a traditional tea set and speaks directly to the camera in accented English: “Let’s expose luxury’s biggest secret.”
He stands and lifts what looks like an Hermès Birkin bag, one of the world’s most exclusive and expensive handbags, before gesturing toward the shelves filled with more bags behind him. “You recognize them: Hermès, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci—all crafted in our workshops.” He ends by urging viewers to buy directly from his factory.
Video “exposés” like this—where a sales agent breaks down the material cost of luxury goods, from handbags to perfumes to appliances—are everywhere on TikTok right now. And whether or not their claims are true, these videos and their virality speak to a new, serious push by Chinese manufacturers to connect directly with American consumers. Read the full story.
—Caiwei Chen
How AI is interacting with our creative human processes
The rapid proliferation of AI in our lives introduces new challenges around authorship, authenticity, and ethics in work and art. But it also offers a particularly human problem in narrative: How can we make sense of these machines, not just use them?
Three new books examine what we gain and lose when we let machines create, and pose the question: how do the words we choose and stories we tell about technology affect the role we allow it to take on (or even take over) in our creative lives? Read the full story.
—Rebecca Ackermann
