Worried About AI Killing Art? This App Offers a Refuge--If Its Founder Can Keep the Lights On

"I was about to go to bed and then realized we had this interview," Jingna Zhang tells me. It's 9 am in Seattle, where she's currently living. The photographer and art director has been pulling all-nighters trying to keep up with demand for her social platform for artists, Cara, which recently exploded in popularity in response to widespread opposition to Meta's policies around art and artificial intelligence. More users has led to an onslaught of complications, including a hefty 96,000 bill from the social network's cloud storage provider, as well as service outages. Cara began as a side project, but its newfound prominence means that Zhang is now an accidental startup founder, keeping the hours to match.