Category: Business

• For years, auto insurers asked hesitant customers to allow them to track their driving.
• The companies have found ways around customer resistance by relying on driving data from other apps.
• Insurance rates, meanwhile, have hit a 50-year high.

Auto insurers have spent years appealing to customers to allow them to track their driving.

Though many surveillance-wary customers have declined, insurers have found a loophole: Monitor people's driving through quiet deals with other apps.

Auto-insurance companies can then use that data to determine how risky a driver is and how much they should pay for insurance.

Car-insurance rates this year have soared to 50-year highs, surpassing inflation and leading to higher premiums and deductibles, Business Insider previously reported.

In a world where everything from a driver's age to local climate events can be used to assess insurance rates, it might sound nice to have one's risk assessed on something you can actually control.

But most families don't realize that some phone apps they use in the background, such as Life360, MyRadar, or GasBuddy, are handing their driving data over to insurers, The New York Times reported.

These apps all rely on driving-analysis technology operated by Arity, an Allstate company that collects data to determine a driving score that can be sold to insurers to "help create future transportation solutions that are smarter and safer," according to Allstate's website, which says Arity has collected "more than a trillion miles of driving data."

The opt-in consent on the apps is vague about what information is shared, the Times reported, so many customers had no idea they were sharing driving data with insurers.

"People today are generating massive amounts of data, and we believe this data has significant potential value for businesses across transportation. Consumers stand to gain big too," Arity's website says, adding that customers can have "greater control to receive rates based on how safely they drive."

In a comment to Business Insider, Arity said that it "partners with mobile app publishers to provide value features, like Crash Detection and fuel efficiency to users who opt-in for those services."

"For the use of personalized auto insurance pricing, consumers must clearly and explicitly opt-in to have Arity create and send a summary of their driving data via the Arity IQ network and consumers can request a copy of this driving report once they opt-in to share their driving data for a personalized insurance quote," the company continued.

In a statement to BI, a Life360 spokesperson said the Times article was "inaccurate and misleading."

"Life360 does not share personally identifiable driving data with insurance companies to influence our members' insurance premiums unless a member explicitly requests that we do so. We require specific, opt-in consent before sharing a member's personal driving data for personalized insurance quotes," the spokesperson said. "There may be companies that share data with insurance companies without the driver's full knowledge or affirmative consent, but Life360 is not one of those."

Update June 12, 2024: This story has been updated to include a comment from Arity and Life360.

• My family of four splurged on a seven-night Caribbean cruise aboard the Disney Fantasy.
• We stayed in an inexpensive class of stateroom, but paid $7,000+ to cruise during spring break.
• We didn't watch our onboard spending and money spent on excursions, which quickly added up. 

My family of four – my husband, two teens, and myself – sailed on the Disney Fantasy this spring. Our cruise was seven nights and left from Port Canaveral, Florida, near Orlando.

Our ship stopped in Grand Cayman, Falmouth, Jamaica, Cozumel, Mexico, and Disney's island, Castaway Cay. This was our first time sailing on the Fantasy and our ninth Disney cruise.

Our trip cost just over $10,000. Perhaps surprisingly, this is on par with the higher end of what a family can expect to spend on a seven-night Caribbean cruise: about $270 to $2,600 a person.

Here's a rough look at what we spent:

Cruise: $7,300 (includes interior room, meals, and entertainment)

Excursions: $1,160

Spa: $846

Alcohol: $334

WiFi: $490

Bingo: $152

Here's the value we felt we got and what we might do differently next time.

We got the cheapest room type but would've saved by sailing at a different time of year

Even though we stayed in the cheapest stateroom category — interior cabins — our cruise was still pricey because we sailed during spring break.

We could've saved $3,000 on the cruise if we'd went in September, which is during hurricane season and while school is in session for our kids. In the end, we couldn't justify our sons missing that week of school.

Sadly, there's not much getting around this cost in the next few years. It's hard for us to travel during cheaper times since cruises almost always cost more during spring break, summertime, and over the winter holidays when most kids are out of school.

I don't regret our WiFi or bingo budgets

We bought an intermediate WiFi package for $490 and spent $152 on bingo.

We don't usually spend money on WiFi while cruising, but decided to get a package since this was a longer sailing. This allowed my kids to play their online games at night and me to keep an eye on my inbox.

No one was glued to their device, and even though this was quite a chunk of change, I'd consider it again for a longer cruise like this one.

The bingo turned out to be an OK investment since we won $145 and almost broke even. We usually play at least one round of bingo and usually don't win much, but my kids enjoy it, and it's something we do as a family.

Still, excursions, spa treatments, and drinks added up

We booked excursions in Grand Cayman, Jamaica, and Cozumel, and my husband and I had a couple's massage on the beach at Castaway Cay.

We didn't book super elaborate excursions, but costs added up for four people. Even so, I don't regret any of the experiences or the time spent with my family.

We could've cut back on our excursions budget by not booking directly with Disney Cruise Line or finding a spot to snorkel on our own, but I liked the ease and security of booking directly with the cruise line.

We've heard a lot of horror stories lately about cruise-ship passengers getting left behind in ports, and we always figure our odds are better if we're on an excursion arranged by the ship.

Next time, we might cut back on drinks and spa treatments

Since we're limited by when we can travel, we're honing in on alcohol and spa treatments as areas we can spend less money on.

We're not huge drinkers, but my husband and I enjoy having a glass of wine with our dinner and a couple of cocktails on deck or while lounging on the beach at Castaway Cay.

On future trips, we may cut back. When we looked at our bill, we saw that some of the wine we ordered was as much as $18.50 per glass!

And, as much as we loved the massages on the beach, they cost $289 a person (including automatic gratuity). Getting a massage in a beachside cabana while on vacation was super relaxing, but we can get massages at home for a fraction of that price.

Overall, we loved our cruise and have no regrets

The longer cruise with four ports of call was pricier than we realized, and we got a bit of sticker shock when we saw the final bill with our onboard extras.

I don't have any regrets since my family has always been more focused on experiences than stuff: We don't drive fancy cars or wear expensive clothes, but we prioritize nice vacations.

Although we know we need to curb the spending in a few areas and be a little more aware of what things cost when charging things to our room, we came away with fond memories that were worth every penny.

• A toddler was rescued from a locked Tesla after the car's battery died, a report says.
• The child's grandmother called 911 after she was unable to open the car.
• Firefighters eventually broke the car's window with an ax and rescued the child, the report said.

A toddler was rescued from a locked Tesla by Scottsdale firefighters after the car's battery died.

Renee Sanchez told Arizona's On Your Side that she was planning to take her 20-month-old granddaughter to the Phoenix Zoo when the incident occurred.

She said the EV's battery died after she closed the door on her grandaughter and walked around the car to get in the front seat.

"I could not get in. My phone key wouldn't open it. My card key wouldn't open it," Sanchez told the outlet.

She ended up calling 911 operators, who then dispatched Scottsdale firefighters, per the report.

After arriving on the scene, the firefighters told Sanchez they often struggled to get inside locked Teslas. They eventually broke the car's window with an ax and rescued the child, the report said.

Representatives for Tesla and Scottsdale Fire Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours. Sanchez could not immediately be reached for comment.

Numerous Tesla owners say they have been trapped inside their EVs after they lost power. There are several ways to open the doors when the car is completely flat, including if drivers are stuck outside, but many Tesla owners aren't aware of these safety features.

One key safety feature is a release lever on both the driver's and passenger's side doors that manually unlocks the doors.

In April, a TikToker said she got stuck in her Tesla for 40 minutes during a software update while parked in the sun. She said the temperature in the car soared to 115°F while the EV updated.

• Billionaire Ken Griffin is doubling down on Miami.
• The Citadel boss is expanding its new office in the city's financial district, CoStar News reported.
• Griffin has pumped millions of dollars into Florida since moving his company from Chicago in 2022.

Ken Griffin is in a Florida state of mind.

The billionaire boss of Citadel is adding two more floors to the firm's planned office at a new 55-story tower in Miami, according to a report in CoStar News.

The new Citadel office at 830 Brickell in the middle of Miami's financial district will now feature eight floors, CoStar reported.

The new tower (designed by the firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture Dubai) will feature panoramic views of Miami, a luxury rooftop restaurant, and a fitness center, according to developers OKO Group.

CoStar News reported that the tower's rent is upwards of $100 per square foot.

Citadel didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Griffin had stunned the financial world in 2022 when he announced he was moving Citadel from Chicago to Florida. He blamed Chicago's crime rate at the time for the mega-firm's shift.

Last November, Griffin declared that Miami could one day overtake New York as the premier financial hub in the United States.

"Miami, I think, represents the future of America," he said, praising the state's pro-business stances. Florida taxes are much lower than those in New York City or Chicago.

Earlier this year, Citadel employees told BI that the city's ample sunshine and less stressful vibe made Miami a welcome change of pace.

Since moving the firm, Griffin has pumped millions into South Florida through donations to local programs.

Last September, he announced Griffin Catalyst, a Miami-based civic engagement organization building on his prior philanthropic work. The group focuses on topics like charter school expansion, free speech initiatives, science and medical research, and the promotion of "the American dream" and economic mobility.

Griffin has also donated to local hospitals and groups, including a $50 million donation to cancer research for the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and $9 million for the area's public schools to expand tutoring programs.

In total, he's donated nearly $150 million to South Florida initiatives, according to the Miami Herald.

• Giovanni Carmine has curated Art Basel's Unlimited show for four years.
• Carmine told BI that picking the art, building a hall, and installing it for the latest show took a year.
• This article is part of BI's 2024 Art Basel series, taking you inside the art fair's global scene.

Giovanni Carmine tosses out words like "dialogue" and "conversation" to describe the relationship between artworks in Unlimited, an exhibition at the annual Art Basel show in Switzerland.

Carmine, the director of Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, told Business Insider his goal as the exhibit curator is to find a way for pieces with vastly different subjects to flow together and converse.

While some pieces, like Lutz Bacher's "Chess," have literal sound, others, like David Claerbout's "Birdcage," intentionally leave out noise. Regardless of the sound a piece omits, Carmine hopes it ignites a discussion among the observers.

"The people that come here, they will have — maybe for the first time — an experience they will never forget," Carmine said. "This is the proposition that art makes: Let's discuss things together, let's figure it out, and let's challenge ourselves, too."

For Carmine, creating a space to welcome those conversations doesn't start weeks or months before the show. Curating a space like Unlimited takes a year to complete.

Curating this year's Unlimited show started at last year's Art Basel

For one week each summer, the Swiss town of Basel ushers in an influx of visitors. Gallery owners, museum curators, artists, and art-curious tourists arrive for the Art Basel show.

The weeklong event is divided into a handful of sectors. Art installations dot public spaces, creating the Parcours program. Inside one large hall, more than 250 galleries display art from around the world. Films are showcased, and experts host discussions, Q&As, and debates.

Perhaps the most popular part of Art Basel is the Unlimited sector, famous for its large-scale works. The exhibition doesn't have a theme, but Carmine describes it as "an overview of contemporary art and what is interesting at the moment in the market."

In a hall the size of three football fields, artists can create and showcase work without physical barriers.

This year, 70 projects were featured in the 172,000-square-foot room. The works include immense installations, seemingly never-ending paintings, captivating live performances, encompassing photo series, and striking video projections.

For example, Chiharu Shiota's "The Extended Line" takes up about 1,550 square feet of the hall. Miles of red rope hangs above a bronze cast of the artist's open hands and arms, urging viewers to question what it means to be human. In another area of the hall, 1,200 of the world's most popular names stretch across a wall in a project titled "The World: A Moment in Time" by Allan McCollum.

Carmine said the placement of each piece is intentional. But before he can decide where an artwork will find its home in the hall, Carmine must select what will be displayed — something that starts a year in advance.

"The moment we open the show is the moment we are starting to work for the next year," he said.

This is Carmine's fourth year of curating Unlimited. He spends the week of Art Basel conversing with gallery representatives, discussing artists' works, and planting seeds for the next exhibit.

Once Art Basel is over, Carmine said these conversations get more serious. Instead of an individual artist submitting a project, the artwork is featured with the support of a gallery.

Carmine's next step is to visit galleries to view artworks and artists. He might head to another Art Basel show in Paris or Miami and continue exploring potential works.

Then, a committee works together to select the projects by the end of January. Like most years, a selection of old and new works were picked this year.

Carmine is given the blank canvas of an enormous white hall, and for the next two months, he'll work with an architect to design the space. Walls will need to be built, and rooms will need to be created to house each project.

Carmine estimates there were about 50 iterations of this year's hall. Each year has hurdles, and this year, Carmine was tasked with developing a space for unusually long pieces.

"I knew that having some really long paintings would be a challenge to show them in a way that's good for the paintings, first of all, and for the visitors to see," he said.

Carmine said the team landed on the use of diagonals. Two long walls divide the room. Keith Haring's "Untitled (FDR NY) #5-22" stretches across one wall, and Sam Falls' "Spring to Fall" fills another.

"Through the placement, you can generate also a kind of dramaturgy," Carmine said.

For example, Carmine said it was intentional to have Mario Ceroli's "Progetto per la Pace" be the first piece visitors see. The mixed-media work, composed of 365 white silk flags staked in soil and hay, represents a vision of peace.

"In these moments of human history, I think it's interesting to put an exclamation on this topic at the beginning of the exhibition," he said.

Once the hall's layout is finalized, walls and lights are built and placed. Finally, the galleries and artists arrive to install their projects about four days before Art Basel begins.

Carmine watches as the bright white room is transformed. During installation, he estimates he walks about 30 miles a day while supervising the process.

Then comes Carmine's favorite part: welcoming an audience.

'A little town of art'

For the next week, viewers will wander through what Carmine calls "a little town of art." The projects invoke a wide range of emotions.

Kresiah Mukwazhi challenges cultural norms and taboos placed on girls and women in her 26-foot-long work, "Nyenyedzi nomwe (The Seven Sisters Pleiades)." In the piece, she uses more than 1,000 pieces of salvaged bra straps and lingerie fabric from sex workers in Harare, Zimbabwe, to showcase lived experiences.

Across the hall, viewers do exactly what Julio Le Parc set out to do with his installation, "Zepelín de Acero." His piece, which uses stainless steel and mirrors, stimulates active engagement. People of all ages walk around the reflecting pieces as they catch glimpses of themselves and others.

Carmine said the response this year has been overwhelmingly positive, adding that the commercial aspect of the Unlimited exhibit has been a success.

The 70 projects are listed for sale, and because they are so large, the target buyers are typically museums or private foundations. Installations like Christo's "Wrapped 1961 Volkswagen Beetle Saloon," a recreation of the artist's earlier work, were listed for $4 million. Christo was known for these large-scale works, such as wrapping the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in 2021.

Carmine said everyone from art collectors to galleries to the general public has shown appreciation and amazement for the exhibit.

And, he added, conversations seem to be sparking.

"What I was reaching for, it's happening," he said.

• The US still has a long way to go in terms of systemic racism, inequality, and police brutality.
• Here are 15 movies and TV shows that are a good place to start educating yourself.
• The list includes biopics like "Judas and the Black Messiah" and comedies like "Sorry to Bother You."

Reading books and watching documentaries is a part of education, but fictional movies or dramatizations of real stories can be equally as illuminating.

June 19 was Juneteenth, which commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people in the US. To mark the holiday, we picked 15 movies and TV shows that will help people understand the history of racism in this country, from the Martin Luther King Jr. biopic "Selma" to the 1961 film "A Raisin in the Sun," to the horror-comedy "Get Out."

Keep scrolling for our recommendations of movies and TV shows to watch to educate yourself.

In 2018's "The Hate U Give," high school student Starr finds her voice as an activist after her friend is shot by a police officer in front of her.

"The Hate U Give," which is based on the 2017 novel of the same name by Angie Thomas, follows Starr after her best friend, Khalil, is fatally shot during a traffic stop.

"Now, facing pressure from all sides of the community, Starr must find her voice and stand up for what's right," IMDb writes.

"It's so gripping to watch — as well as being, in places, just delightfully funny — that you never feel you're being preached to. It picks you up in one place and sets you down in another," wrote Stephanie Zacharek of Time.

The film's director, George Tillman Jr., announced on X, formerly known as Twitter, that "The Hate U Give" was free to stream in June 2020 after the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a Minneapolis officer knelt on his neck for nine minutes.

"I hope the film provides a bit of understanding. Our story is a reminder to never be afraid to raise our voice in the name of justice. We must stand up for what we believe. The time for change is now!" Tillman wrote.

You can rent or buy "The Hate U Give" online.

Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx starred in "Just Mercy" in 2019, which is based on the real case of Walter McMillian and his lawyer Bryan Stevenson.

According to IMDb, "Just Mercy" is about the "world-renowned civil rights defense attorney Bryan Stevenson," who "works to free a wrongly condemned death row prisoner" in 1989. That prisoner, Walter McMillian, was convicted of the murder of a white woman. Stevenson is also famous for founding the Equal Justice Initiative.

"'Just Mercy' captures Bryan Stevenson's story for posterity's sake. We shall never forget," wrote Alan Ng of Film Threat.

"Just Mercy" is streaming on Prime Video.

Ava DuVernay's Netflix miniseries, "When They See Us," is based on the case of the Central Park Five, a group of teenagers who were wrongfully convicted in the rape of a jogger.

As the Netflix summary states, "Five teens from Harlem become trapped in a nightmare when they're falsely accused of a brutal attack in Central Park. Based on the true story." The series, which is split into four parts, delves deep into the fear and racism that surrounded the case, as reported by the BBC.

Hannah Giorgis of The Atlantic wrote, "In rendering their journeys, DuVernay pays careful attention to the terrifying power of language, especially the animalistic rhetoric with which prosecutors and journalists referred to the teens."

"When They See Us" is streaming on Netflix.

"Loving" is about the real-life couple Richard and Mildred Loving, who were at the center of the Supreme Court case that took down the ban on interracial marriage.

According to IMDb, "Loving" is "the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a couple whose arrest for interracial marriage in 1960s Virginia began a legal battle that would end with the Supreme Court's historic 1967 decision."

"What is radical about [Jeff] Nichols' film is the extent to which he focuses not on the legal fight and ensuing national attention but on the Lovings themselves," wrote Newsweek's Tom Shone.

You can rent or buy "Loving" online.

Ryan Coogler's directorial debut, "Fruitvale Station," tells the story of the last day of Oscar Grant's life before he was shot in the back by a police officer.

"Fruitvale Station" is another dramatization of a real crime — according to the San Francisco Chronicle, Oscar Grant died in 2009 after he was detained and shot in the back by a police officer at a San Francisco BART station. He was 22 years old.

Matthew Lucas of The Dispatch wrote, "It's a rough sit, sometimes unpleasant, and ultimately deeply painful, but somehow an essential watch."

"Fruitvale Station" is streaming on Max, or any app with the Max add-on.

David Oyelowo completely inhabits the role of Martin Luther King Jr. in "Selma," which follows the Selma to Montgomery Marches in 1965.

"Fueled by a gripping performance from David Oyelowo, 'Selma' draws inspiration and dramatic power from the life and death of Martin Luther King, Jr. — but doesn't ignore how far we remain from the ideals his work embodied," according to Rotten Tomatoes. 

"'Selma' is spectacularly staged, impressively acted and narratively satisfying. But it is also something much, much more and we need much, much more like it," wrote Ryan Syrek of The Reader.

Director Ava DuVernay announced on X that Paramount made "Selma" free to rent for the month of June 2020. "We've gotta understand where we've been to strategize where we're going. History helps us create the blueprint. Onward," her tweet read.

"Selma" is streaming on Paramount+ and MGM+.

"Get Out" is both a horror movie and a critique on so-called "woke" white people.

No spoilers; the twists and turns of "Get Out" should be seen on screen. But the basic gist: An interracial couple, Rose and Chris, travel to Rose's parents' house so Chris can meet them, but Rose and her parents are white, and her parents don't know her boyfriend is Black. Drama and uncomfortable jokes ensue.

"The villains here aren't southern rednecks or neo-Nazi skinheads, or the so-called 'white supremacy.' They're middle-class white liberals. The kind of people who read this website. The kind of people who shop at Trader Joe's, donate to the ACLU and would have voted for Obama a third time if they could," Lanre Bakare of The Guardian wrote.

"Get Out" is streaming on Peacock.

The 1961 film "A Raisin in the Sun," based on the play of the same name, remains relevant over 60 years later.

The movie centers on the Youngers, a Black family living in a city. The family must decide what to do with a $10,000 life insurance check. It deals with themes of racism, feminism, and economic inequality, among others.

A 2019 retrospective from Film Frenzy calls the film "a groundbreaking work that manages to be both specific to the African-American experience and universal in its themes of hope, change, and upward mobility."

"A Raisin in the Sun" is streaming on Tubi or Prime Video.

"If Beale Street Could Talk," based on the James Baldwin novel of the same name, is about a couple who has to deal with a false rape accusation and racist police.

The film centers on Tish and Fonny, who have begun dating after being friends their whole lives. When Fonny is falsely accused of rape, Tish and her family work together to support each other and try to get Fonny freed.

Matthew Norman of the London Evening Standard wrote, "[Director Barry] Jenkins doesn't scratch the surface of the Black American experience. He takes you deep into its bones and suggests that far less has changed than the naive may believe."

"If Beale Street Could Talk" is streaming on Peacock, Prime Video, and Starz.

Spike Lee's seminal film "Do the Right Thing" takes place on the hottest day of the summer in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bed-Stuy.

According to IMDb, the film is about "the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn" when "everyone's hate and bigotry smolders and builds until it explodes into violence."

"If you think Spike Lee's 'Do the Right Thing' is dangerous, let me ask you: Aren't the problems he addresses, and our silent neglect of them, far more dangerous?" asked Eva Yaa Asantewaa of OutWeek.

"Do the Right Thing" is available to rent or buy online.

Lee's 2018 film "BlacKkKlansman" is also worth a watch.

"BlacKkKlansman" is based on the 2014 memoir "Black Klansman" by Ron Stallworth, the first Black detective in Colorado Springs.

The film tells the story of Stallworth's real-life infiltration into a Colorado chapter of the Ku Klux Klan with the help of his fellow officer Flip Zimmerman. In the film, Stallworth is played by John David Washington, while Zimmerman is played by Adam Driver.

While communicating over the phone with KKK leader David Duke (played by Topher Grace), Stallworth also deals with racism within his own police department and his reluctance to tell the woman he's dating that he's a cop.

As Slate's Lawrence Ware wrote, positing what it will feel like to watch "BlacKkKlansman" 20 years from now, "We can hope it will feel dated, but as 'BlacKkKlansman' argues, and the previous three decades of Lee's movies have taught us, it's likely to feel as pertinent as ever. Time may pass, but the struggle against racism in America remains largely the same."

"BlacKkKlansman" is streaming on Prime Video.

Boots Riley's absurdist black comedy "Sorry to Bother You" is both a satirical takedown of capitalism and a critique on racism in the workplace.

In "Sorry to Bother You," released in 2018, LaKeith Stanfield stars as Cash Green, an unemployed Black man who gets a job at a shady telemarketing company. But he can only get ahead using his "white voice" (played by David Cross).

As he climbs the corporate ladder, he distances himself from a union drive at his company and makes moral compromises he didn't think he had in him — and a lot more, but we don't want to spoil the truly absurd turn this movie takes.

"It's about exploitation and profit, about the fetishization of Black bodies and the indignities of code-switching, about giving up your dignity and trying to find love. Careening from office comedy to something like horror, 'Sorry to Bother You' is weird and funny and unsettling, and not quite like anything I've seen before," wrote Vox's Alissa Wilkinson.

"Sorry to Bother You" is streaming on The CW's website.

"Hidden Figures" is an empowering movie about the Black women who helped the US win the space race.

"Hidden Figures," loosely based on the book of the same name, focuses on three Black women working at NASA in the 1960s: Katherine Johnson (played by Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (played by Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (played by Janelle Monáe), as they confronted both racism and sexism in the workplace.

After years of their contributions to NASA and space travel being erased, "Hidden Figures" is a celebration of their hard work and perseverance, as well as a hard look at what it was like in the struggle to be taken seriously by their peers.

"It might be one of the few Hollywood movies about the civil rights era to imagine that Black lives in the '60s, particularly Black women's lives, were affected not only by racism but also by the space race and the Cold War," wrote K. Austin Collins for The Ringer.

"Hidden Figures" is streaming on Disney+.

"Judas and the Black Messiah" is a biopic about the betrayal of Black Panther chairman Fred Hampton by William O'Neal, who was manipulated by the FBI.

"Judas and the Black Messiah," released in 2021, stars Daniel Kaluuya in an Oscar-winning performance as Fred Hampton, a Black Panther leader who was assassinated by police officers backed by the FBI.

But where did they get their information? From an informant in the Black Panthers organization, Bill O'Neal, played by LaKeith Stanfield — although, according to the film, O'Neal, who was originally recruited to clear his own criminal record, tried to quit multiple times when he became too invested in Hampton and the cause.

The New York Times' A.O. Scott called the film "a political tragedy" and discussed how the title refers to "the paranoia of J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen), who saw African-American militants as the gravest internal threat to national security and feared the emergence of a popular, crowd-inspiring national leader" — and thus, felt the need to remove him from the playing field.

"Judas and the Black Messiah" is streaming on Max and various other streaming services with an HBO add-on, as well as Tubi.

"Dear White People" is a satirical look at what being Black at a predominantly white university is like.

"Dear White People" is a 2014 dark comedy about what it's like for Black students to attend a prestigious, mainly white college, and how the four students the film focuses on (Tessa Thompson's Sam, Teyonah Parris' Coco, Tyler James Williams' Lionel, and Brandon P. Bell's Troy) each experience life at Winchester College.

But when a frat on campus throws a blackface-themed party, the four are united in their outrage.

"The film explores how two members of the same race can have vastly different experiences depending on how dark their skin is, as well as why certain people can say and act one way, but not others," wrote IndieWire's Jenna Marotta.

"Dear White People," the 2014 film, is streaming on Max and various other streaming services with an HBO add-on. The 2017 TV series based on the film is streaming on Netflix.

This article is part of "Build IT," a series about digital-tech trends disrupting industries.

In December, Michael Cohen, the lawyer who gained notoriety working for Donald Trump, asked a federal judge to overlook his latest transgression: citing cases fabricated by generative AI. Cohen had used Google Bard, a predecessor of Google Gemini, to cite cases that didn't exist. Cohen claimed ignorance, saying he misunderstood the chatbot "to be a supercharged search engine."

Cohen wasn't the only lawyer to make this mistake. A federal judge last year fined two lawyers $5,000 for citing fictitious cases. And in February, a court imposed $10,000 in sanctions over an appeal that cited nearly two dozen fake cases.

These failures could suggest AI has no place in the practice of law. But some lawyers and legal experts told BI that that isn't always the case. Generative AI's accuracy can make it a minefield, but the legal industry's increasing complexity has many lawyers using it for help.

Danielle Benecke, the head of machine-learning practice at the international law firm Baker McKenzie, said AI models were getting good at "interpreting and generating complex legal language," a core part of the business.

A lawyer's copilot

Founded in 1949, Baker McKenzie has over 6,500 lawyers working in 70 offices worldwide. Benecke said the firm's interest in AI predated generative AI, but the recent arrival of large language models, or LLMs, kicked off a wave of innovation. The firm's work building generative AI to produce legal draft advice for high-volume employment-law questions recently won an award from Law.com.

Benecke said AI tools were especially useful for handling the legal fallout from common issues like cybersecurity incidents. Even a minor incident can overwhelm a company with regulatory-compliance requirements that necessitate several days of work from a small team of lawyers, racking up steep fees.

The pinnacle of AI application in the next five to 10 years is going to be empowering lawyers.
Cecilia Ziniti, the CEO and cofounder of GC AI

Benecke said the firm's tools were designed to provide accurate advice in order to significantly reduce the time lawyers spend on navigating a client's regulatory requirements.

Benecke stressed that the firm's goal is quality, not efficiency. She said the time saved sorting through regulatory requirements is better spent strategizing on the client's response to the incident.

Cecilia Ziniti, the CEO and cofounder of GC AI, predicted this dynamic would come to dominate discussions of AI in the legal profession. "The pinnacle of AI application in the next five to 10 years is going to be empowering lawyers," she said. "It's a lawyer copilot."

Popular media often focuses on the most romantic aspects of law, like a prosecutor grilling a defendant on the stand or a hardworking lawyer crafting a novel legal strategy. But the reality, Ziniti said, is often less glamorous, as the legal industry spans a "very long tail" of tedious tasks.

Ziniti, like Benecke, gave the example of regulatory requirements. In January, the Federal Trade Commission sent a request for information to five companies, including Microsoft and OpenAI, asking for things like emails that might span hundreds of documents. The request was made as part of the FTC's investigation into competition in the AI industry.

Replying to such a request can require hundreds of hours of work as lawyers sift through documents to find relevant information. It's important work — a failure to comply may be met with stiff penalties and further scrutiny — but it's also repetitive, dull, and time-consuming.

Ziniti said an AI "copilot" allowed lawyers "to do what we call practicing at the top of our license," meaning "we can do the things that we are most capable of doing, that are the fun part."

GPT-4 enters the courtroom

The allure of a tool that tirelessly digs through documents on a lawyer's behalf is significant but shadowed by AI's biggest bugbear: hallucination.

IBM describes a hallucination as when an AI tool's LLM perceives nonexistent patterns and generates "outputs that are nonsensical or altogether inaccurate." As Cohen discovered, this can happen when an AI chatbot is prompted to answer a specific query that's not well represented in its training data.

It might come as a surprise that AI tools built for lawyers generally don't use models specifically trained for the industry. Most rely on the same generalized LLMs anyone can access, and OpenAI's GPT is by far the most popular. "There's not a model out there more powerful than GPT-4 right now," Ziniti said.

CoCounsel, an AI legal-assistant product, says it takes several steps to reduce hallucinations. It uses retrieval-augmented generation, a technique to ground an AI's response in documents provided to it, in combination with prompted instructions for the LLM to keep its responses focused on documents' contents.

OpenAI operates a set of servers dedicated to CoCounsel, giving CoCounsel's engineers more control over the model's output. That also helps with regulatory compliance, as information provided to CoCounsel isn't shared more widely.

Jake Heller, the head of product for CoCounsel at Thomson Reuters, said Thomson Reuters had established a "trust team" of lawyers and AI engineers to ensure CoCounsel "is getting the right answer." The AI assistant also provides citation links to alleviate accuracy concerns.

AI won't replace lawyers

There's another fear likely to push lawyers toward AI: other lawyers.

Heller said all law firms and lawyers exist within a "competitive dynamic." Law firms fight over a limited pool of clients, and plaintiffs and defendants compete to win cases. Ziniti described the practice of law as an "adversarial system" meant to push each lawyer to present the best case possible on behalf of their client.

Because of this, it's unlikely AI will eliminate lawyers' jobs. Instead, AI could be viewed as an extension of trends rooted in the dawn of the computer age.

"We used to physically review every single document in every case," Heller said. "Even every potentially relevant email, we would physically print them out, and they'd be sitting in banker boxes in a basement."

In a way, you have the problem advancing in tandem with the solution.
Danielle Benecke, the head of machine-learning practice at Baker McKenzie

Times have changed. Electronic review has replaced manual review wherever practical. The legal industry has an entire subfield, electronic discovery, dedicated to finding and sorting electronic documents.

Lawyers might also turn to AI to address a force meant to tame AI: regulation. Benecke said the complexity of government regulation was "on an exponential curve," adding, "In a way, you have the problem advancing in tandem with the solution." This is especially relevant for an international firm, like Baker McKenzie, that advises clients in dozens of countries.

Ultimately, the adoption of AI in the legal industry comes down to a fact of life: There are only so many hours in a day. While manually reviewing every document that could be relevant to a case may sound great, it's often not the best use of a lawyer's time.

"I think in three to five years, not using AI for legal work will be tantamount to refusing to use online search for legal work today," Ziniti said.

She added that lawyers have a professional responsibility to avoid inflating billable hours. That responsibility is codified by many legal organizations, including the American Bar Association.

• As a frequent solo traveler, I've been lucky enough to visit all 50 US states.
• Though I've loved aspects of every state, there are some places I'm not in a rush to return to.
• Indiana, North Dakota, and Kansas are some of the states I don't plan to return to anytime soon.

A 2016 survey by the market-research company Ipsos found that the average American had been to only 12.5 states. But as a frequent solo traveler, I've been lucky enough to visit all 50 US states.

The journey has been filled with beauty, excitement, unique destinations, and a sense of accomplishment I never could have imagined.

Though I've found beauty in all 50 states and would honestly return to them all, there are some that I'm in less of a rush to visit again.

Whether the landscapes just weren't for me or the distance to travel was too great, here are the five states I'm not in a hurry to return to.

I enjoyed traveling to Indiana but would prefer to visit other states in the Midwest.

Though I haven't visited every corner of Indiana and enjoyed my previous visits, I don't see myself returning anytime soon.

I prefer visiting many of the states around Indiana and am constantly working to get back to them. For example, Michigan and Wisconsin are two of my favorite places to visit

Though Indiana has a major national park, Indiana Dunes, I'd rather visit the sand dunes in Michigan or simply head to Chicago, which is less than an hour from the park.

North Dakota is beautiful but more difficult to navigate.

North Dakota is one of the country's most otherworldly and beautiful states. Though I consider it worth a visit for anyone who appreciates plains, prairies, badlands, and wildlife, it is — to me — the sort of place that's a once-in-a-lifetime visit.

The state's remoteness and lack of larger cities (only Fargo has more than 100,000 residents) make it a place that isn't necessarily as easy to visit on a quick weekend trip.

Since things are more spread out, this trip requires more planning than others. So, while I'd love to go back eventually, I probably won't find myself there again soon.

I found Kansas to be a bit monotonous.

Kansas has more to offer than the traditional plains many people think of, but I still find the landscape to be somewhat monotonous.

I did love exploring hidden gems like Monument Rocks' giant chalk formations, which rise dramatically from the plains.

But while the state's mostly rural and agricultural nature is charming, I'd rather be in nearby Colorado or Missouri for more diverse landscapes.

I'd rather visit South Dakota or Wyoming than Nebraska.

Because of its proximity to my home in Colorado, I find myself traveling through Nebraska quite often. I've visited the state dozens of times and have traveled to many outdoor recreation opportunities, parks, and unique destinations throughout the state.

Though I've had a blast exploring Omaha's vibrant art scene, and Scotts Bluff National Monument is simply stunning, the landscape is still not one I would choose over the surrounding areas in South Dakota or Wyoming.

I don't love the remoteness of some of Nevada's highways.

This one is tough because Nevada's state parks are some of the most amazing in the country. I even have fun on an occasional trip to Las Vegas. The only problem I have with Nevada is the remoteness of some of the highways.

The state is home to what Life magazine dubbed the "Loneliest Road in America" in 1986. The stretch of US Route 50 that crosses the state is remote, isolated, and vast.

I've enjoyed driving the road and other areas of the state more than once. But lately, I've felt more comfortable knowing that others are nearby when I'm traveling solo.

Correction: June 18, 2024 — An earlier version of this story mistakenly included Illinois rather than Kansas in the summary bullets as one of the states the author wouldn't return to.

Correction: June 20, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated that the author has family in Nebraska.

• Law enforcement worldwide teamed up recently to fight cybercrime. 
• "Operation Endgame" led to four arrests and the dismantling of 100 malicious servers globally.
• Cybersecurity experts called the sting an important step, but said its just a start. 

In what's been billed as a first-of-its-kind operation, law enforcement agencies around the world recently banded together to take down major cyber criminal infrastructure that officials said targeted multitudes of victims and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damages globally.

Over a couple of days in late May, "Operation Endgame" led to the arrests of four people in Ukraine and Armenia, the dismantling of more than 100 malicious computer servers worldwide, and the seizure of over 2,000 domains, according law enforcement in the US and Europe.

One of the main suspects raked in at least $70 million in cryptocurrency by "renting out criminal infrastructure sites to deploy ransomware" according to Europol, the law enforcement agency of the European Union that conducted the operation along with other agencies, including the FBI.

Cybersecurity experts told Business Insider that the takedown is a pivotal step forward in the ongoing war against cybercrime. However, they said, the fight can't end here, as cybercrime is one of the biggest threats facing humanity.

"It's not like this is going to solve the problem, but it's a great step in addressing it," said Adam Wandt, a cybercrime investigations expert and a public policy professor at New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

'Largest ever operation against botnets'

Europol called the sting the "largest ever operation against botnets, which play a major role in the deployment of ransomware."

"This worldwide operation, involving law enforcement authorities from 13 countries, led to a significant disruption of criminal activities," Europol spokesperson Ina Mihaylova told Business Insider, noting the effort was also supported by the private industry.

Mihaylova called the scale of the operation "unprecedented in the cyber domain."

FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement that the agency "used joint and sequenced actions to run a first-of-its-kind international operation and debilitate the criminal infrastructure of multiple malware services."

As part of the operation, the law enforcement agencies shut down at least four malware groups or "droppers" known as "IcedID," "Smokeloader," "Pikabot," and "Bumblebee."

According to the FBI, these droppers, designed to install malware onto computer systems, "infected millions of computers and claimed countless victims around the world and throughout the United States, including a hospital network, which not only cost millions of dollars but alarmingly put people's lives at risk due to the compromised critical care online system."

"This is taking down computer servers, which are affecting all of us," said Wandt, who explained that the hackers behind the botnets are "going for money, and they don't care who they go for or how they get it."

"This could be my grandmother sitting at home, this could be a large bank. It doesn't matter," he said.

Wandt and other experts said the takedown of 100 malicious servers is a small number when compared to the vast number of servers that run botnets around the globe but that it's nonetheless important.

"That doesn't mean that it was a small number in the amount of fraud that it was committing," said Wandt.

Ransomware 'wreaking havoc around the world'

Tracy Beth Mitrano, a cybersecurity policy expert and a visiting professor of information science at Cornell University, called "Operation Endgame" a "significant step," but said "it's not significant in terms of the total scope of the problem."

"Ransomware has just been wreaking havoc around the world," Mitrano said. "It's been ripping through the United States."

Mitrano emphasized the importance of the US working with other countries around the world to combat cybercrime and called for international law, treaties, and agreements "to establish rules of the road in cyberspace."

"The war will not be won until there are international laws and standards that bring countries together," said Mitrano.

Mitrano said "Operation Endgame," is a "very important first step, but we have to keep going."

"Cyber insecurity is one of the biggest threats we face on the globe today," she said.

Thomas Holt, a cybersecurity expert and professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University, said the coordinated effort of countries around the globe working to fight cybercrime as was done in "Operation Endgame" is "absolutely necessary."

"Cybercrime is such a distributed problem," he said, noting that cybercriminals can target "anyone anywhere with relative ease, and the likelihood of detection is really, really low."

So any attempt at cracking down on cybercrime is a positive, Holt said.

"It's a net gain in terms of complicating networks or forcing short-term behavioral change on the market and the actors," said Holt. "It may not create these long-term sustained drop-offs, but it at least provides a short-term benefit."

Holt said he does not believe cybercrime will ever be stopped, "But what I think we can do is produce complexities for the offender, making it harder for them to actually engage in an offense like running a botnet."

The "biggest problem" in the malware world, according to Holt, is that there is always a different iteration of malware on the horizon.

"Over the last decade, it has been ransomware primarily, but there's going to be an eventual pivot away from ransomware to something else," he said. "We don't know exactly what that something else is yet."

And artificial intelligence "will certainly simplify the process" for cyberattackers, said Holt.

Cybercriminals "don't have the same degree of difficulty or barriers to entry that we had in the 80s, the 90s, and even the early 2000s," Holt said.

"Now it's flattened to a point where as long as you have money, you can buy personal data, you buy credit card numbers, rent out denial of service attacks on demand or botnets," he said. "So you don't even need to know what you're doing. You just need to have a cursory understanding and dollars in your pocket."

Last month, Wray, the FBI director, pledged the agency's ongoing commitment to combatting cybercrime.

"The fight against borderless cybercrime does not end here, and the FBI is committed to tackling this ever-evolving threat," he said.

• Market research firm YouGov recently surveyed US travelers about acceptable behaviors on a flight.
• I was surprised by the amount of people who said ignoring safety presentations was acceptable. 
• I was also surprised by the number of people who take their shoes off and unbuckle their seatbelt.

Market research firm YouGov recently surveyed US travelers about what they consider appropriate behavior on a plane.

Some results were as expected: more than 80% disapproved of kids playing in the aisle, leaving their seats during turbulence, and getting drunk during a flight.

Since those behaviors range from irritating to downright dangerous, I'm heartened that they are met with overwhelming condemnation, even in a society as fractured as ours.

However, I found some of the YouGov survey's findings surprising and, in some instances, highly disconcerting.

Pay attention to safety demonstrations

20% of respondents said it's acceptable to ignore the safety demonstration at the beginning of flights.

It's a position that's more likely to be taken by frequent fliers (32%) versus just 16% of those who never fly.

I agree that the pre-flight safety demonstration can feel mundane and superfluous, but it still serves as a crucial overview of the aircraft's emergency exits and safety devices.

That's all information that could come in handy during a potentially chaotic and disorientating emergency evacuation.

Even the seemingly useless seatbelt demo can be useful. After all, passengers have been known to forget how to unbuckle their belts during emergency situations.

This just creates more work for flight attendants, whose primary job is to work as a team to get passengers off the plane quickly and safely in an emergency.

While I'm buoyed by the fact that 66% disapproved of the behavior, I remain concerned that at least 1/5 of the plane likely has no idea how to react in a life-threatening situation.

Keep your seatbelt on

Speaking of unbuckling seat belts, 47% of respondents said it is acceptable to do so when the seatbelt light is switched off.

I think there's a fundamental disconnect between what switching off the seatbelt light means to the flying public and what it actually means.

Switching off the light means passengers may now safely get up to use the lavatory or retrieve something from the overhead compartment. However, passengers should remain bucked once they return to their seats.

Flight crews sometimes will even make announcements instructing passengers to stay buckled when seated.

Given the recent examples of severe turbulence that have resulted in injuries and even a fatality, it's probably wise to heed those warnings.

Keep your shoes on

According to the survey, 30% of American adults said taking your shoes off on a plane is acceptable.

Soaring through the skies in a winged pressurized metal vessel is truly a marvel of modern engineering. I think I speak for most fliers when I say I don't want to enjoy this marvel while wafting the scent of someone's feet.

Beyond the assault on our olfactory senses, walking around the cabin of an airliner in your socks just isn't terribly sanitary.

Even though aircraft are vacuumed in fairly frequent intervals, their carpets see a lot of passengers between more thorough cleanings.

All kinds of detritus find their way onto these carpets, from food and drink to mud and dirt. In the most extreme cases, there may even be biohazards—soaked in blood, like on board an Air France flight to Toronto last July, or liquid feces, like Delta's diarrhea flight last September.

Even though airlines usually remove the biohazard-contaminated carpets, as was the case after the Delta flight, they serve as stomach-turning reminders to keep your shoes on.