philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

USC Studies Aim to Advance Self-Driving Cars, Transform Robot “Brains” and Understand Workplace AI Use

...

Titled “World Models for Next Generation Autonomous Driving Policy Learning,” one of Wang’s projects focuses on making autonomous vehicles capable of navigating safely anywhere in the world by teaching them to reason through unfamiliar and extreme road scenarios. His second project, “Reasoning in Motion: Dynamic Adaptation and Intelligent Execution of Large Behavior Models,” focuses on developing humanoid robots that can learn and adapt in real time through daily interactions and feedback within home environments. ...

... world models ...

By teaching AI to understand environmental context, such as realizing that a basketball rolling into the street likely means a child is close behind, the research aims to create self-driving systems that can navigate extreme “out-of-distribution” scenarios safely anywhere in the world, without hitting obstacles, coming to a dead stop or encountering scenarios they have not seen. ...

See the full story here: https://www.isi.edu/news/85440/usc-studies-aim-to-advance-self-driving-cars-transform-robot-brains-and-understand-workplace-ai-use/

Major AI offerings at a glance

...

Here's a look at some of the ​major AI offerings available to consumers:

And here are some of the major AI models available to enterprises:

Reporting by Anhata Rooprai in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai and Maju Samuel

See the full story here; https://www.reuters.com/world/china/major-ai-models-glance-2026-07-08/

Pritzker Signs Landmark AI Regulation Bill That Aims to Mitigate Risks

Gov. JB Pritzker signed artificial intelligence legislation modeled after similar bills in California and New York on Monday, furthering a push for a state-driven national framework in lieu of federal regulations. ...

Senate Bill 315, also known as the Artificial Intelligence Safety Measures Act, increases transparency and accountability requirements for the largest artificial intelligence models — those that generate more than $500 million in annual revenue and are trained using massive computing power.

The bill mirrors California’s SB-53 and New York’s Responsible AI Safety and Education Act, which were each signed in late 2025. It establishes new reporting standards for the possibility that the AI model could be used for large-scale harms, such as by providing users assistance in creating a chemical, biological or nuclear weapon or committing cyber-attacks. ...

The new law requires model developers to publish an AI framework outlining how the developer identifies and assesses “catastrophic risk,” defined as the likelihood that incidents that could cause death or serious injury to more than 50 people or more than $1 million in property damage.

Developers will also be required to report any incidents that could cause harm to the state within 72 hours of identifying the incident, or 24 hours if it poses an imminent risk for death or serious physical injury. ...

See the full story here: https://news.wttw.com/2026/07/06/pritzker-signs-landmark-ai-regulation-bill-aims-mitigate-risks

The browser wars aren’t about search anymore — here are the best alternatives to Chrome and Safari

... The browser wars have entered a new phase this year: The fight isn’t just over search results anymore — it’s over which company’s AI gets to act on your behalf inside the browser. ...

Perplexity’s Comet

The Browser Company’s Dia

Opera’s Neon - which has contextual awareness and can do things like researching, shopping, and writing snippets of code. 

OpenAI’s Atlas

Aside - an upcoming AI-first, browser-native automation platform built to autonomously complete tasks, fill out forms, and manage data on behalf of users. 

Jatter

Privacy-focused browsers

Brave- popular for its built-in ad and tracker blocking capabilities. It also has a gamified approach to browsing, rewarding users with its own cryptocurrency called Basic Attention Token (BAT). 

DuckDuckGo - In addition to blocking scams, DuckDuckGo prevents trackers and ads, and it doesn’t track user data, resulting in fewer pop-ups for users.

Ladybird - has an ambitious mission compared to other rivals: It aims to build an entirely new open source browser from scratch. 

Vivaldi customizable user interface, which allows users to change the appearance and enable or disable features. 

Niche browsers

Opera Air - includes unique features designed to support mental well-being. These features consist of break reminders and breathing exercises. 

SigmaOS - emphasizes productivity. It displays tabs vertically, allowing users to treat them like a to-do list that can be marked as complete or snoozed for later.

Zen Browser - aims to create a “calmer internet” with its open source browser.

See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/03/as-the-browser-wars-heat-up-here-are-the-hottest-alternatives-to-chrome-and-safari-in-2026/

The Revenge of the Philosophy Majors

A.I. labs are hiring contrarian, chin-stroking, finger-steepling sages. Who’s underemployed now?

... One of humanity’s oldest disciplines and one of its newest inventions feel distinctly made for each other. A.I. presents a fresh way for philosophers to ask ancient questions, and its own set of new ones that they are uniquely trained to engage with: of truth and belief and knowledge (epistemologists); of reasoning (logicians); of mind and consciousness (philosophers of mind and consciousness). For ethicists, in particular, A.I. is a bonanza. How should models act toward us? How should humans interact with them? Where would purpose come from in a post-work society?

“When you look at A.I. and think seriously about it, the philosophical questions just abound,” says Iason Gabriel, an Oxford-trained philosopher who joined Google DeepMind in 2017 and now leads its Artificial General Intelligence and Society team. “They’re almost everywhere.” ...

Beyond nonprofits like Eleos, most of the hiring has been concentrated at DeepMind and Anthropic, each of which employs at least a half-dozen philosophers.

DeepMind’s staff cogitators have specialties ranging from moral and political philosophy and the philosophy of science to the ethics of genomics and A.I. ethics and animal cognition. ...

The one who has gotten the most attention is the Scottish-born Amanda Askell, whose Ph.D. from N.Y.U. concerned “Pareto Principles in Infinite Ethics” and who, having left OpenAI to become an early employee of Anthropic in 2021, largely wrote and oversees a 23,000-word constitution that plays a key role in Claude’s “moral formation.” ...

He and his colleagues are now looking in artificial minds for processes similar to those found in human and animal minds: preferences, introspection, metacognition (thinking about thinking) and so on. ...

One thing Mr. Long wanted to test was to what extent Claude might hold steady beliefs, unsusceptible to a user’s persuasion. ...

 “We can do neuroscience on A.I. systems in a way that we kind of can’t with humans,” Mr. Long said, in that they “don’t have skulls.” The three jobs Eleos was hiring for would all be machine-learning research scientists who could design and perform experiments. ...

Instead, he moves from how humans have experiences, to how it seems like a lot of animals have experiences, to how “there’s this interesting question of: What if something wasn’t even alive? It was made out of metal, but it processed information and reacted to its environments and talked to us. What would we say about something like that?” ...

See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/05/business/philosophy-majors-ai-jobs.html

Sony Pictures invests $100 million in Cosm, takes minority stake

Sony Pictures Entertainment announced a $100 million strategic investment in immersive technology firm Cosm on Wednesday, marking ​a push by the Hollywood studio to extend ‌its film and television properties into a growing network of dome-shaped venues across the United States....

Cosm has opened three domes in Los ​Angeles, Dallas and Atlanta, with venues planned ​for Detroit ⁠in September and Cleveland next year. Additional U.S. and international locations will be announced soon, the company said. ...

See the full story here: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/media/sony-pictures-invests-cosm-rcna351642

The New Push to Ready Millions for AI Career Upheaval

... Called RAISE US, it launches Thursday and will be led by former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who served under former President Joe Biden, and former Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican.

Its mandate, they said, isn’t just to build retraining programs but also to reconsider decades-old policies such as unemployment insurance and act as a working lab for testing the most effective ways to transition workers to new fields. The group will explore corporate incentives for employers to hold on to workers whose jobs are disrupted by AI and prep them for new roles.

The organization said it has so far raised more than $500 million—about half of its multiyear goal—from companies and nonprofit groups. It will initially work with state governments in Arkansas, Maryland, Utah and Connecticut. OpenAI and Anthropic are also involved, and academics including MIT economist David Autor sit on an advisory board. ...

The RAISE US work will vary by state. In Maryland, the group plans to expand a service-year option in the state to help people gain exposure to such growing fields as healthcare. An effort in Arkansas will focus on supporting “an AI-powered career navigation platform.”  ...

See the full story here: https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/the-new-push-to-ready-millions-for-ai-career-upheaval-dfb04cc5

NEWS: Sanders Introduces Legislation to Create $7 Trillion AI Sovereign Wealth Fund

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today introduced the American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund Act to give the public a 50% ownership in the largest artificial intelligence (AI) companies in our country.

“Left unchecked, Artificial Intelligence and robotics threatens the jobs, privacy rights and mental health of every man, woman and child in America,” Sanders said. “As a society, we can no longer sit back and allow a handful of Big Tech oligarchs to determine the future of this revolutionary technology with no democratic input.  ...

See the full story here: https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-sanders-introduces-legislation-to-create-7-trillion-ai-sovereign-wealth-fund/

AI is now moving faster than government

... Governments currently lack the frameworks, technical expertise, and speed to evaluate and regulate such advanced AI, leading to reactive policy-making. Future confrontations are expected, potentially involving bio-weapons or large-scale persuasion, demanding faster, proactive regulatory responses and international coordination. The Fable 5 episode highlights that AI labs won't slow down for rule-making to catch up. ...

See the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/craigsmith/2026/06/19/ai-is-now-moving-faster-than-governments-can-govern-it/

Disney’s Imagineering Arm Using Adobe’s Firefly AI Models for Park Designs

Months after its OpenAI deal fell through, Disney has found a new way to make use of AI.

The company’s Imagineering Research & Development unit is using Adobe’s Firefly Foundry, the commercial version of Adobe’s AI model designed to protect a brand’s intellectual property, to help Imagineers design and visualize elements of Disney’s upcoming parks and attractions. The Firefly models so far have been trained on franchises such as Frozen, Cars and Lilo & Stitch, and they’ve helped Disney Imagineers turn sketches into fully rendered 2D concept art along with turning 2D renderings into 3D prototype models, according to the companies. ...

See the full story here: https://variety.com/2026/digital/news/disney-imagineering-parks-adobe-firefly-ai-models-1236782627/