Beyond that, she recently announced her third album, HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, to be released May 17, 2024. She spent the days leading up to the announcement building excitement by adding all of her Instagram followers to her “Close Friends” list. Eilish had the most Instagram followers in 48 hours…with her count increasing by 7 million followers total.
While her debut album, when we all fall asleep…where do we go?, was a chart-topper in its own right, it landed Billie every GRAMMY it was nominated for at the ripe age of 18…Eilish has solidified herself as one of the most sought-after and revered popstars in the world.
Eilish recently caught media attention for quietly revealing her sexuality. In an interview with Variety, she states that she’s always liked girls…and assumed people always knew that. In a viral snippet from her new song, LUNCH, she details a love affair with a girl.
But people don’t only adore Billie for her catchy tracks that consistently top the charts. It’s not just her songwriting ability and unique vocals that keep us hooked. People love her because she’s unafraid to speak her mind.
Whether it be complaining about too many influencers being at an awards show, or calling out other artists for using unsustainable practices…Billie does not hold back.
Billie Eilish On Sustainability
Eilish home
rethinkingthefuture.com
The Eilish home is iconic for many reasons: it’s where Billie and Finneas recorded her debut album, countless other songs, and EPs, in an effort to conserve water there’s no grass, and the roof is covered in solar panels. And being environmentally conscious extends beyond the four walls of their home.
When the hottest young talent is discovered at such an early age like Eilish, record labels are chomping at the bit to sign them. It’s like when a D1 athlete is ready to commit to college…you have your pick.
But what Eilish and her mom, Maggie Baird, were looking for wasn’t about money or label-perks…they were seeking a solid sustainability program. And while that may seem like standard practice, most labels didn’t bring up environmental policies during these meetings at all.
After signing to The Darkroom via Interscope Records, the struggle didn’t stop there. Billie Eilish and her family have been consistent contributors to the fight against climate change.
Maggie Baird has since started Support + Feed, which focuses on the climate crisis and food insecurity. Support + Feed helped Eilish’s 2022 Happier Than Ever tour save 8.8 million gallons of water through plant-based meal service for the artist and crew members.
During Billie’s 2023 Lollapalooza performance, she aided the launch and funding of REVERB’s Music Decarbonization Project – which guaranteed all battery systems used during her set were solar powered. The MCD’s overall mission is to lower – and eventually eliminate –the music industry’s carbon emissions.
But more recently, Billie Eilish called out other artists for releasing multiple versions of vinyls in order to boost vinyl sales. In an interview with Billboard, she says,
“We live in this day and age where, for some reason, it’s very important to some artists to make all sorts of different vinyl and packaging … which ups the sales and ups the numbers and gets them more money and gets them more…”
Artists convince fans to buy different versions of their albums by offering exclusive features on each vinyl. Take Taylor Swift, for example, who released five separate vinyl versions of Midnights, each with a different deluxe “Vault” track.
While Billie may not have been trying to shade one artist in particular, the point is that she’s fed up. After being the rare artist in the industry who go out of their way to remain environmentally conscious, Eilish sets the bar high.
How Eilish’s New Album Is Sustainable
Billie for "Hit Me Hard and Soft"
William Drumm
Social media users were quick to claim Eilish was hypocritical by announcing that HIT ME HARD AND SOFT will have eight vinyl variations. However, each vinyl is made from recycled materials – either 100% recycled black vinyl or BioVinyl, which replaces petroleum used during manufacturing with recycled cooking oil.
This just illustrates that Eilish wasn’t directing criticism towards other artists for using vinyl variants to gain album sales…but she does think there are better ways to do it that benefit the environment without hurting their sales.
AI and the Hiring Process
Are games and algorithms the future of the interview process?
Even if you're qualified for the position you're applying for, many feel the interview process is a nerve-wracking experience, one that forces the interviewee to answer a series of exacting questions that have no real relevance to her ability to perform the job. From the employer side, things aren't much easier. HR reps and middle managers alike often find themselves with employees who look good on paper and talk a big game during their interview, but don't deliver once they've been hired. On top of this, there's nothing really stopping a potential employee from flat out lying during the hiring process. If an interviewee gets caught in a lie, she won't get hired, but she didn't have a job to begin with, so she's no worse for wear. In order to mitigate these and the myriad other difficulties associated with the hiring process, employers have started using (in a somewhat ironic twist) artificial intelligence to aid with recruiting.
Outside of the difficulties discussed above, one of the primary motivators for companies' move towards automated recruiting processes is money. It can cost nearly a quarter million dollars to recruit, hire, and onboard a new employee, and when someone turns out to be a dud, the effects can reverberate throughout the entire company. That said, it's not as if corporations have HAL from 2001 a Space Odyssey hand picking the optimal candidate, not yet at least. Different AI developers offer different things. For example, x.ai specializes in scheduling interviews, Filtered automatically generates coding challenges for aspiring programmers looking for work, and Clearfit has a tool that can rank potential candidates.
These programs, however useful, only free employers from having to do the low-level clerical work hiring. The bulk of the sorting and selecting of candidates still falls squarely on the shoulders of the hiring manager. Cue Pymetrics, a company built on the idea of replacing the way in which we conduct interviews and hire new employees. Pymetrics' AI uses a series of algorithms and cognitive science-based games to help pair employees and companies. The latter though, is what differentiates Pymetrics from the competition.
The idea is simple: when an employer gives an applicant a test or asks her a series of questions, the applicant answers in a way that comports with what she thinks the interviewer wants to hear. With an objective-based game where a clear goal is outlined, a candidate has a much harder time masking her methodology. The games Pymetrics develops reportedly measure 90 "cognitive, social and personality traits" and are used to gather data on a company's top performers. After enough data is collected, Pymetrics can then create the perfect composite employee. Every applicant is then measured against this composite, giving employers an objective look at who is best for the job.
The use of games is far from a passing trend however, and is not unique to Pymetrics. A Deloitte report recently revealed that nearly 30% of all business leaders use games and simulations in their hiring process. Unfortunately for companies hoping AI and algorithmic programs are the cure all for their (the companies') hiring woes, this report also concluded that over 70% of these business leaders found cognitive games to be a "weak" indicator of employee success. Still, to throw another wrench into the equation, there is a significant amount of evidence to support the idea that algorithms do outperform humans when it comes to hiring ideal candidates. In reality though, humans and AI systems are actually just better at different things. For example, a person, with only so much time in their day, can't accurately or quickly read through thousands of resumes and cover letters. But while algorithms are good at narrowing down selections and denying clear wrong fits, they aren't particularly well suited for sussing out passion or work ethic. There's also another, unforeseen issue attached to AI hiring.
AI and algorithmically-based hiring are supposedly unbiased and don't allow for pettiness, racism, or sexism to factor into their selection process. That said, today's leaders in AI technology are far from working out all the kinks. A crime-predicting algorithm in Florida recently labeled black people as potential criminals twice as often as it did white people. It also isn't an unrealistic jump in logic to suggest that an algorithm could see a demographic inconsistency, such as the best salesman at a particular firm happening to be male, and conclude that it should rank female job applicants lower. Pyretics, in particular, claims that its algorithms are rigorously designed to avoid this type of bias, but this issue not only calls AI's efficacy into question but its ethics as well. According to Sandra Wachter, a researcher at the Alan Turing Institute and the University of Oxford, "Algorithms force us to look into a mirror on society as it is," and that relying too heavily on data can make it seem as though our cultural biases are actually just inscrutable facts. This is what Arvind Narayanan, a professor of computer science at Princeton calls the "accuracy fetish," a fetish that's all too prevalent in Silicon Valley, a place in which AI is consistently touted as objective.
In a lot of ways, it's hard to argue against algorithmic hiring procedures. They save both time and money, and have been proven to work in several cases. The danger is not in this technology supplanting HR reps. People will continue to be a part of the interview process, if only for the reason that liking the people you work with is one of the most important facets of productivity. Algorithms only become a problem when they're treated as infallible oracles, capable of answering questions inaccessible to the human mind, rather than pieces of machinery. It's important to remember, the algorithm is a tool, an electric drill to the interview process's hand crank. AI isn't meant to replace human judgement, but to narrow the gap between rote tasks and decisions that require said judgement. In this metaphor, people aren't the hand crank or the electric drill; we're the screw.
That said, it's human nature to appeal to authority and the question that lies at the heart of the luddite's fear, is whether or not we can demystify this technology enough to continue trusting our guts over an algorithm's calculations. Arthur C. Clarke once said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." We'll find out soon enough whether or not he was right.