67 very spooky days

How would you feel if you looked down at a restaurant menu to see you could order a medium-rare zebra steak? What about a lion burger?

Yeah… We aren’t sure either.

But it isn’t inconceivable, as technology has made cell-cultivated meat possible and startups get — uh — creative with their offerings.

The first cell-cultivated chicken in the US received USDA approval this summer. Now, food startups are trying to mimic some far more exotic meats, per Vox:

• Vow created a woolly mammoth meatball by inserting a copy of the creature’s DNA sequence, along with elephant genetic data, into sheep cells and cultivating those cells into the final, spherical product.
• Primeval Foods says it’s working on a “wide range” of wild meats, including lion and zebra.
• Paleo makes cultivated strains of the protein heme (AKA the stuff that makes meat taste like meat) bioidentical to that of the prehistoric mammoth.

There are 150+ cultivated-meat companies, as of 2022.

For now, most of these startups are in the nascent stages of development, and their products aren’t yet available to curious consumers.

While these meats are cruelty-free…

… some worry it could normalize or promote the consumption of exotic species. (It might be for the best that no one is craving endangered tigers.)

And the jury is out on the environmental impact: One Oxford University study suggests cultured meat could lower greenhouse gas emissions, while another (not yet peer-reviewed) study from UC Davis claims the opposite.

As with any new tech, there’s a lot left to figure out.

Including the fact that for now…

… these meats are too expensive for the average consumer.

Lab-grown meat costs ~$17 per pound, compared to the ~$2 it takes to produce a pound of beef.

The kicker: No one has tasted the mammoth meatball since we have no idea if humans are allergic to it.

Adobe’s MAX event in LA has been showing off its latest, greatest, and even future AI advancements this week and, well, it’s been pretty impressive.

We were present in a room full of video editors who gasped at a new time-saving AI tool that identifies and removes filler words like “um.”

Here’s what else we learned

Since Firefly — Adobe’s AI-powered text-to-image model trained on its stock imagery — debuted in March, it’s been used to generate 3B+ images, per Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen.

At Adobe MAX, the company revealed Firefly Image 2, plus new and updated tools, including:

• Firefly Vector Model: Illustrator users can enter text prompts to get editable vector icons, images, and repeatable patterns.
• Retype: Enables Illustrator users to turn static text into editable text by identifying similar fonts.
• Generative Match: Allows users to upload a reference prompt and photo that AI can use to generate content with a consistent look.

Adobe also offered sneak peaks at potential future products, including:

• Project Stardust: An editor that lets users move or remove objects by clicking them. (Check out this video.)
• Project See Through: A tool to remove glass reflections.
• Project Fast Fill: Generative fill for video.

What does this mean for creatives?

Adobe repeatedly stressed that its AI tools would save designers, editors, marketers, and other content creators time by removing tedious tasks, and empower non-designers to explore.

The question that remains across industries — and one brought to the forefront of the writers’ and actors’ guild strikes — is whether companies will embrace the time saved for more creativity and productivity, or attempt to cut pay, hours, or even replace their human employees with machines.

A recent Deloitte survey of executives found that 73% worked at organizations where employees’ tasks had shifted due to AI. Among those orgs, 85% retained employees with affected roles, and 67% retrained or upskilled them — so here’s hoping we get more of a Star Trek, less of a Skynet future.

BTW: If you’re not a Photoshop or Illustrator whiz, you can still check out Adobe’s AI tools via Adobe Express, it’s online newbie-friendly editor.