• Elan Bibas, a contestant on "Love Island USA," asked his brother, Tal, to run his Instagram while he's on TV.
• In an interview with Business Insider, Tal tells us how his brother was recruited for the show and "is not doing this for the clout."
• Tal has been posting content from Elan's account and fielding business inquiries.

Elan Bibas entered the "Love Island USA" villa with a disadvantage: He was added late, as part of a group of hunks sent to stir things up. But he also has an advantage: his younger brother, Tal, who's running his social media while Elan's on the show.

I talked to Tal about his experience running Elan's social accounts and the business opportunities that have presented themselves since his brother's time on the huge summer hit for Peacock. (It was the No. 2 most watched original streaming show during its first two weeks, Nielsen said.)

Contestants on the show — and if you haven't watched, I must recommend it as great summer fun! — compete to find love, or share part of the $100,000 prize with their partner.

Appearing on the show can also be a big business opportunity.

Fan favorites from past seasons have gone on to success as influencers with lucrative brand deals or other entertainment appearances. Cast members from last season will reunite for a new show, "Beyond the Villa," starting later this month.

As my colleague Callie Ahlgrim observed, the spectre of social media looms large: "The islanders seem hyper-aware of their role as entertainers and competitors, much too preoccupied with how they're being perceived by an invisible audience to be truly honest and vulnerable with each other."

Contestants have to give up their phones during their time on the show, which airs five nights a week in near real-time, so some of them have entrusted family or friends to run their social media accounts for that time. Cierra Ortega, an early fan favorite, has her friend MJ Hedderman running her Instagram, who's been delighting fans with her funny perspective and long captions.

Business Insider talked to Tal Bibas, 22, who lives in London and has been posting to his older brother Elan's Instagram and TikTok accounts. Elan, 24, grew up in the suburbs of Toronto and now lives in Miami and works in tech.

So far, Tal's strategy for managing his brother's Instagram has seemed to work. Elan's followers have gone up from about 3,000 to 63,000 since he first appeared on the show a week and a half ago.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Were you surprised when Elan told you that he was going to be a contestant on "Love Island?"

One hundred percent. I think it was a shock to us all. Elan's a very smart guy — it's hard to see that on TV, but he's almost like a nerd. He's always been a super academic guy and always top-of-his-class. He got out of university, did computer science and engineering and entrepreneurship, came out with a job at a consultancy, a tech consultancy, helping them code and advise. He was doing really well with that. I think he hit a ceiling in Toronto and was really craving to move to a new city. Obviously, Miami comes with the beautiful weather, so that's what moved him there.

In the past few years, he's just got this virus to want to do these crazy ultramarathons and running. He formed a community of people in Miami doing that kind of stuff, and a lot of them are content creators within the health and wellness niche. He found that that was quite cool, and he's like, You know what? Wow, maybe I should start doing this a bit.

So shortly before he got approached to be on the show, he started doing a bit of content around health and wellness, running, self-improvement — things along those lines. I wouldn't say he had any viral posts or anything like that. Then he honestly just got DMed by a casting director, and that's kind of how this whole thing happened.

So the casting team reached out to him. He didn't apply to be on the show?

Exactly.

Oh, that's interesting. I didn't realize that's how the casting works. In terms of his day job, obviously, it's hard to take a month or two off to go shoot a reality show. What's the status of his job?

His work seemed to be quite fine with it. They basically said, "You can definitely take on this opportunity, but take all paid time off first, and then everything after that would be unpaid leave."

Knowing your brother, what's your reaction to what's happening on the show?

At first, when I saw him on, I was excited, but I had that weird feeling where it's just like, "Oh my God, you never know how the public's going to perceive someone on TV."

Honestly, I was quite surprised by how comfortable he seemed. I thought maybe he would sound a bit different or move in a different way. Right now, the way he's acting inside the villa is the exact same way he acts in real life.

Cast members build big social followings during the show, which can lead to all sorts of lucrative opportunities. When Elan asked you to manage his socials, was that something very much at the top of your mind?

I think Elan is not doing this for the clout or fame. Honestly, that's the last thing on his mind. He loves saying "yes" to opportunities. For him, it's all about going through this, living through this experience, and just having this bucket-list, once-in-a-lifetime experience to be able to say he did this thing. And through that, to form connections, build relationships, and meet a lot of cool people.

Elan basically said, "Here's my login details. Do your best to keep things positive and have fun with it. Mostly just let it ride and just see how it goes."

I guess I have my own strategy for how I want to manage his Instagram. I don't think he knows exactly that. I definitely see this as not just a business opportunity, but a way to help my brother out. I want to do the most I can to post good content, engage with the audience, and leave him in the best spot for when he comes out to have that seamless transaction of "OK, guys, he's back." And it's kind of that exact brand and audience that he's known for.

I was studying a lot of the old contestants and seeing what their experiences were via their social presence, and so I was learning quite a lot from just looking at that.

I do have a background also in digital marketing and social media. I worked as an intern at a big influencer-marketing agency in Toronto, so I kind of understand the nuances of how the industry works — I just never thought it would be my brother. It's been an interesting learning curve.

Have you been approached by brands or business opportunities for him? How are you fielding these incoming things?

I made a separate email account for him for his social accounts. There's a lot of random stuff coming in there. Going through it and figuring out what's legit and what's not takes time. I want to make this process as seamless as possible for Elan so that when he comes out I can say, "Look, I was taking care of everything when you were gone. This is what happened. We've got these brands, these people approaching you for these opportunities," and just go through it with him and see what is the priority right now, what makes the most sense. I wouldn't say there's a long list of brands, but there are talent agencies that want to represent him.

• The Chase Sapphire Reserve was once the hottest card for millennials. I didn't have one and felt left out and bitter.
• Now, Chase has changed the card's fees and rewards structure. It's $795 for a personal card. Some people say they'll cancel.
• For me, schadenfreude is almost as satisfying as a good deal.

Some financial windfalls are all about the timing — and luck: A handful of California gold nuggets in 1848. A SoHo loft in 1984. Bitcoin in 2013. A home mortgage rate in 2020.

I've made peace with missing out on some of life's chances to accidentally inflate my financial standing in the world. But the one that has always made me slightly sick to my stomach is missing out on the late 2016 Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card points bonanza.

Now, my painful case of FOMO has been cured.

Last week, Chase said it was revamping the Sapphire Reserve — and upping its annual fee to $795, from the current $550. And it's making a bunch of changes to its rewards structure, which some people are downright furious about. They say they'll cancel. (Chase says its card will become even more valuable, with "over $2,700 in annual value.")

Well, as a world-class hater, sore loser, and jealous snake, I couldn't be more thrilled.

When the new yearly fee and rewards were announced last week, I watched in absolute glee as friends of mine and strangers on the internet lamented and wailed at the fact that the card that had once showered them with rewards points would not be worth the fee (again, only for some people).

The Chase Sapphire Reserve card had attained a millennial mythos akin only to avocado toast and entitled attitudes. It came during the peak of the ZIRP and "millennial lifestyle subsidy" eras: Ubers were cheap, and the credit card points flowed like The Fat Jewish's personal rosé brand. The card — especially if you signed up in the early days — gave you a massive points bonus that could be used for travel or other perks.

It seemed almost impossible not to have the credit card make you money (of course, assuming you paid off your balances and wisely used the points).

I never had the Chase Sapphire Reserve; when it launched, my friends were excited and extolling its virtues, but I thought I needed another credit card and was intimidated by the points gaming. At some point, I realized I had missed the boat. I didn't get in while the getting was good.

Now, I've been reading the r/SapphireReserve subreddit with glee, seeing some of the former evangelists of the card defeated by its new fee. The main post about the news: "Welp. It's bad and official."

I should note here that the card may indeed still be a good deal for some people — it matters how much you spend, and what kind of rewards/perks you're most interested in.

The perks, however, are not exactly what everyone wants, like Apple TV+ or Apple Music subscriptions (less appealing for a Spotify user). There are credits for certain hotels from Chase's selection of hand-picked hotels (which may not be the ones you want). If you spend $75,000 a year on the card, you will get status on Southwest Airlines.

But as one Redditor said: "Who is spending $75k per year on this card that also wants status on Southwest Airlines?"

As for Chase, it touts 8X points on all Chase Travel purchases, which is up from 5X on flights, but slightly down from 10X on hotels and car rentals. It also touts 4X points on flights and hotels purchased directly with the airline or hotel, up from 3X.

The points system for the card is somewhat complicated (part of why I have always avoided a points-based card), and people's individual situations will vary a lot about whether this card is better or worse or worth it. For some people, the higher yearly fee will net out with all the new rewards; for others, they're thinking of downgrading to a cheaper version or canceling altogether.

I wish all of the Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholders the best journey to the path that works best for them. Me, I'm just feeling a huge burden lifted off my shoulders. Ahhhh ….

• Jony Ive and Sam Altman are teaming up to make AI hardware.
• They aren't giving many clues about what it would be like, but probably screen-free, and not a phone.
• Please, I beg you, Jony and Sam: Do not make me talk to a device in public.

I'm as curious and excited as any gadget lover to see what newfangled AI thingamabob will come from OpenAI's $6.5 billion purchase of the ex-Apple designer Jony Ive's IO company.

But I have one request: Please, for the love of God, do not make it a voice-controlled device.

Here's what we know about the possible device that Ive and Sam Altman are teasing in a video about their new collaboration. The Wall Street Journal reported that Altman told OpenAI employees a few details:

The product will be capable of being fully aware of a user's surroundings and life, will be unobtrusive, able to rest in one's pocket or on one's desk, and will be a third core device a person would put on a desk after a MacBook Pro and an iPhone.

The Journal earlier reported that the device won't be a phone, and that Ive and Altman's intent is to help wean users from screens. Altman said that the device isn't a pair of glasses, and that Ive had been skeptical about building something to wear on the body.

Ming-Chi Kuo, a supply chain analyst who is often correct about coming hardware, says that the device may be something larger than the Humane AI Pin, and possibly worn around the neck.

I am extremely nervous that this sounds like it might be some sort of voice-controlled device.

Don't get me wrong: I'm an enthusiastic voice user of Alexa (at home) and Siri (in the car). I can see how convenient it is.

But the idea of talking to Siri while walking down the street or at a grocery store gives me hives. The idea of saying, "Hey Meta, take a picture" to activate my Ray-Bans while at a Benson Boone concert makes me want to bite my cyanide capsule. If I ever start using Siri out loud at my desk in the office, I fully accept that HR can fire me on the spot.

(Of course, voice-controlled devices are an accessibility issue for some people who are blind, have low vision, or otherwise have trouble using a screen device. I am not talking about this use, which is obviously good and a benefit. Perhaps society would be better if public use of voice devices were more normalized!)

OpenAI does seem to be interested in voice. At a demonstration over a year ago, it showed new voices that could talk to you (this was the demonstration that infamously got them in trouble with Scarlett Johansson for making a voice option suspiciously close to her own).

Meta has also embraced the idea of voice controls. Its stand-alone Meta AI app is meant for natural conversations between you and the app on your phone (though, at the moment, it's laggy and often leads to crosstalk).

It's a long-held sci-fi dream to have a supersmart AI agent you can just talk to naturally. Like Tony Stark's Jarvis, or the ScarJo voice in "Her." But even "Knight Rider" had the basic understanding that it was OK to talk to your car only in your car.

Humane's AI Pin turned out to be a disaster, partly because it just didn't work very well. Let's assume whatever OpenAI/IO is cooking up will be good at doing what it's supposed to.

Based on what the AI Pin could do, and other examples of AI assistants or devices, I can make a few guesses of what it might be able to do: listen to your work meeting and take notes for you, give you information about something you see in front of you ("What building is this?" or, "Which of these two sandwiches at Pret has more protein?"), do personal assistant tasks for you ("How much time until my next meeting?" or, "Text Hayley and tell her I'm running late.")

These all sound great and convenient! But a lot of them require something that I don't think I want to be doing: talking to my device out loud, in public, constantly.

We're at a moment in society where people are already pushing the norms of what is appropriate public device use. People are watching TikTok without headphones on the subway. Texting at the movie theater. Filming themselves at the gym. It was already weird enough when people started talking on the phone with AirPods in, making it unclear whether the person headed toward you on the sidewalk was on a call or experiencing a religious revelation. I don't think we're ready for a world where people are constantly talking to their always-on, always-listening AI devices.

So I eagerly await this device, which Altman says will sell 100 million units and be ready by the end of 2026. But please, please, do not make me talk to it in public.

• Airbnb has an ambitious new plan to help you book anything.
• It's using celebrities like Patrick Mahomes to promote its new "Experiences."
• Those "Experiences" aren't quite like the ones you'll actually book — but its new "Services" seem useful.

Airbnb is trying to expand beyond just vacation rentals — and it's enlisted some celebrities like Megan Thee Stallion and Patrick Mahomes to get some buzz going for its new offerings.

I have some questions.

It seems like these big names are only here to tout the new "Experiences" — things like throwing the pigskin with Mahomes or hanging out with Megan for the day. These all cost nothing, but go to only a handful of contest winners.

The celebs are obviously only going to be around for this promo period. After that, are people going to turn to Airbnb for a day tour of Philadelphia or a cooking class in Honolulu? Maybe. I have my doubts.

Meanwhile, another one of Airbnb's launches — called "Services" (think private chefs and photographers) — could make a lot of sense for people on vacation who need to find a trusted … well, service person.

There's also something big in all of this for Airbnb: your data. More on that later.

For now, let's look at a couple of these "Airbnb Originals" that are part of its new Experiences.

Spend a Sunday Funday with Patrick Mahomes

Toss a football and have a barbecue lunch with the Chiefs quarterback at a rental cabin near Kansas City.

Only four people (and their plus-one ) will get to do this.

Become an Otaku Hottie with Megan Thee Stallion

This is the most exciting option (to me), but also one of the more confusing ones. Twelve winners will get to make ramen with the rapper, dress up in a costume, and play Xbox with her.

The description of the actual run of events looks like this:

There are a handful of other slightly less famous celebrity experiences that do charge. Brooklyn Peltz Beckham (son of David and Victoria, son-in-law of billionaire businessman Nelson Peltz) offers a cooking demonstration for $150 per guest. Pro wrestlers Nikki and Brie Garcia offer a chance to sit in on their podcast taping for $195. Chance the Rapper is having a listening party for $110.

A rep for Airbnb told Business Insider that pricing was up to the celebrity and that another A-list celebrity would soon be doing a paid event, with the fees going to charity.

How to actually win these free experiences

There's a disconnect here between these star-studded promotional things and the new Experiences Airbnb is trying to promote. These are largely contests to win a free prize, not an experience or service you pay for.

It's not unlike a classic radio station contest where the 25th caller gets to meet Paul Stanley, or the 1990s MTV contests where suburban teens can win the chance for a big band to perform in their backyard.

The actual product Airbnb is launching is more practical and down-to-earth: high-quality tours and food experiences from vetted providers.

Even charging a nominal amount makes these celebrity experiences very different. Airbnb subsidizes the event, likely cutting the celebrity a big check to participate. This is a different business model from the regular tour guides, who make their money from customers.

A prompt to fill out your user bio with more information

Well, there is something that makes sense about all of this. I figured it out when I started the process to sign up for Megan Thee Stallion's event on the Airbnb app.

It's about getting your sweet, sweet data.

As part of my application process, I was asked to continue to fill out my user bio — adding things like my favorite song from high school, my hobbies, where I went to school, and my pet's name (as a tech journalist, I must warn you here not to put information in a public bio that is commonly used for password reminder questions).

Tens of thousands of people want to hang out with Patrick Mahomes and Megan Thee Stallion. Only a handful will get to, but many will fill out their expanded bios, giving Airbnb lots of information on prospective users.

These expanded bios are part of Airbnb's new ambitious rebrand: to be a place not just for vacation rentals, but for people to hire other people for anything. And part of that is building out is convincing customers to make personalized bios, so that the vendors can better see who they're dealing with and vice versa.

I think the new feature called Services actually seems like a great idea — things like a hair stylist or makeup artist to come to your home or Airbnb rental for a big event are the kind of things people only want once in a while. And it will certainly open up tons of opportunities for chefs, trainers, stylists, etc., to get themselves in front of more clients.

But the Experiences? I'm not sure what this will all look like in a year after the celebrity buzz has died down.

• Facebook is testing a downvote feature for comment sections. It's designed to cut down on spam.
• It would allow you to downvote comments that aren't "useful."
• Facebook has tested a dislike or downvote button before, but it never stuck. Will this be different?

Mark Zuckerberg has vowed to make Facebook great again, and Meta announced a tiny new feature that might be a step toward that goal.

As part of a series of features and policies aiming to cut down on spammy content, Facebook is testing a "downvote" button for comment sections. This would allow people to anonymously downvote comments that they deem less "useful."

This wouldn't be the first time something like this has come up. For nearly as long as the "like" button has existed (since 2009), the masses have yearned for a "dislike" button. Meta has toyed around with testing a feature like this, but ultimately has never done it.

Back in 2016, Facebook added the extra "reaction" emojis (smiling, laughing, hugging, loving). Geoff Teehan, a product design director at Facebook at the time, wrote a Medium post in 2016: "About a year ago, Mark [Zuckerberg] brought together a team of people to start thinking seriously about how to make the Like button more expressive."

Teehan explained why they went with additional reactions instead of just a "thumbs down" emoji:

We first needed to consider how many different reactions we should include. This might seem like a pretty straightforward task: Just slap a thumbs down next to the Like button and ship it. It's not nearly that simple though.

People need a much higher degree of sophistication and richness in what choices we provide for their communications. Binary 'like' and 'dislike' doesn't properly reflect how we react to the vast array of things we encounter in our real lives.

In 2017, Facebook also tested out a "thumbs down" reaction button for Messenger. This would've been similar to the Apple iMessage reactions that launched in the fall of 2016 and included a thumbs-down emoji.

Instagram has also considered something like this. In February of this year, Instagram head Adam Mosseri posted about a test of downvoting Instagram comments:

But will people understand what the downvote arrow actually means? Will they use it on comments that are extraneous and actually not "useful," or will they use it to try to crush comments they don't agree with or don't like?

I asked Meta about this, and a spokesperson told me that, unlike past tests of a dislike or thumbs-down button, this test will explicitly tell users that it's about being useful —a little text bubble below the button will say, "Let us know which comments aren't useful."

The test is still just a test. It might not actually end up being rolled out. Personally, I think that less-useful comments are less of a burning issue than some of the other AI-slop stuff on Facebook. (Facebook is working on combating some of that, too.) But hey, that's just my questionably useful comment.

• Google's AI answers will give you a definition of any made-up saying. I tried: "You can't lick a badger twice."
• This is exactly the kind of thing AI should be really good at — explaining language use. But something's off.
• Is it a hallucination, or AI just being too eager to please?

What does "You can't lick a badger twice" mean?

Like many English sayings — "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," "A watched pot never boils" — it isn't even true. Frankly, nothing stops you from licking a badger as often as you'd like, although I don't recommend it.

(I'm sure Business Insider's lawyers would like me to insist you exercise caution when encountering wildlife, and that we cannot be held liable for any rabies infections.)

If the phrase doesn't ring a bell to you, it's because, unlike "rings a bell," it is not actually a genuine saying — or idiom — in the English language.

But Google's AI Overview sure thinks it's real, and will happily give you a detailed answer of what the phrase means.

Greg Jenner, a British historian and podcaster, saw people talking about this phenomenon on Threads and wanted to try it himself with a made-up idiom. The badger phrase "just popped into my head," he told Business Insider. His Google search spit out an answer that seemed reasonable.

I wanted to try this myself, so I made up a few fake phrases — like "You can't fit a duck in a pencil" — and added "meaning" onto my search query.

Google took me seriously and explained:

So I tried some others, like "The Road is full of salsa." (This one I'd like to see being used in real life, personally.)

A Google spokeswoman told me, basically, that its AI systems are trying their best to give you what you want — but that when people purposely try to play games, sometimes the AI can't exactly keep up.

"When people do nonsensical or 'false premise' searches, our systems will try to find the most relevant results based on the limited web content available," spokeswoman Meghann Farnsworth said.

"This is true of Search overall — and in some cases, AI Overviews will also trigger in an effort to provide helpful context."

Basically, AI Overviews aren't perfect (duh), and these fake idioms are "false premise" searches that are purposely intended to trip it up (fair enough).

Google does try to limit the AI Overviews from answering things that are "data voids," i.e., when there are no good web results to a question.

But clearly, it doesn't always work.

I have some ideas about what's going on here — some of it is good and useful, some of it isn't. As one might even say, it's a mixed bag.

But first, one more made-up phrase that Google tried hard to find meaning for: "Don't kiss the doorknob." Says Google's AI Overview:

So what's going on here?

The Good:

English is full of idioms like "kick the bucket" or "piece of cake." These can be confusing if English isn't your first language (and frankly, they're often confusing for native speakers, too). My case in point is that the phrase is commonly misstated as "case and point."

So it makes lots of sense that people would often be Googling to understand the meaning of a phrase they came across that they don't understand. And in theory, this is a great use for the AI Overview answers: You want to see the simply-stated answer right away, not click on a link.

The Bad:

AI should be really good at this particular thing. LLMs are trained on vast amounts of the English written language — reams of books, websites, YouTube transcriptions, etc., so being able to recognize idioms is something they should be very good at doing.

The fact that it's making mistakes here is not ideal. What's going wrong that Google's AI Overview isn't giving the real answer, which is "That isn't a phrase, you idiot"? Is it just a classic AI hallucination?

The ugly:

Comparatively, ChatGPT gave a better answer when I asked it about the badger phrase. It told me that it was not a standard English idiom, even though it had the vaguely folksy sound of one. Then it offered, "If we treat it like a real idiom (for fun)," and gave a possible definition.

So this isn't a problem across all AI — it seems to be a Google problem.

This is somewhat different from last year's Google AI Overview answers fiasco where the results pulled in information from places like Reddit without considering sarcasm — remember when it suggested people should eat rocks for minerals or put glue in their pizza (someone on Reddit had once joked about glue in pizza, which seems to be where it drew from).

This is all very low-stakes and silly fun, making up fake phrases, but it speaks to the bigger, uglier problems with AI becoming more and more enmeshed in how we use the internet. It means Google searches are somehow worse, and since people start to rely on these more and more, that bad information is just getting out there into the world and taken as fact.

Sure, AI search will get better and more accurate, but what growing pains will we endure while we're in this middle phase of a kinda wonky, kinda garbage-y, slop-filled AI internet?

AI is here, it's already changing our lives. There's no going back, the horse has left the barn. Or as they say, you can't lick a badger twice.