philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Europe agreed on world-leading AI rules. How do they work and will they affect people everywhere?

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WHAT IS THE AI ACT AND HOW DOES IT WORK? 

The AI Act takes a “risk-based approach” to products or services that use artificial intelligence and focuses on regulating uses of AI rather than the technology. The legislation is designed to protect democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights like freedom of speech, while still encouraging investment and innovation. 

The riskier an AI application is, the stiffer the rules. Those that pose limited risk, such as content recommendation systems or spam filters, would have to follow only light rules such as revealing that they are powered by AI. 

High-risk systems, such as medical devices, face tougher requirements like using high-quality data and providing clear information to users. 

Some AI uses are banned because they’re deemed to pose an unacceptable risk, like social scoring systems that govern how people behave, some types of predictive policing and emotion recognition systems in school and workplaces. ...

The AI Act won’t take effect until two years after final approval from European lawmakers, expected in a rubber-stamp vote in early 2024. Violations could draw fines of up to 35 million euros ($38 million) or 7% of a company’s global revenue. ...

See the full story here: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/europe-agreed-on-world-leading-ai-rules-how-do-they-work-and-will-they-affect-people-everywhere/

Top 3 Takeaways From the AI Summit New York 2023

... Watch for companies with the best blend of prompt applications for storytelling ...

What is undeniable, however, is that the expertise for targeting the appropriate demographic for the content will be critical, and businesses that possess that capability will be the winners. We will also see the rise of even more powerful algorithms that help match content with viewers that rivals even the best of today’s current streaming market.

Watch for entertainment conglomerates that can create the best systems to manage their internal data ...

Watch for stunning startups ...

The worst place to be is in the middle. If you don’t have the corporate size to drive large scale and you don’t have the nimbleness and agility of a startup, the middle is a very, very dangerous place. No one wins in that space, ever.” ...

Additional narratives to note

There were also several discussions around DEI as it pertain to ethics, biases, investors, and founders. ...

Many consistently ask about guardrails to which there is are industry-wide answers for such questions at the moment. Companies that figure out such solutions just may actually become the most valuable yet in this powerful new sector.

See the full editorial here: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/top-3-takeaways-from-the-ai-summit-new-york-2023

The Biggest Technology Trends This Year

Three technology trends besides “pure AI” that I’m tracking include the convergence of physical and digital worlds, the data ecosystem for insights developed with transparency and trust, and the bidirectional feedback loop of science and technology. ...

The bidirectional feedback loop of science and technology enables more rapid innovation to address challenges in the global supply chain, climate change, and medicine. Specifically, I’m tracking advanced materials for energy and exploring the geospatial frontier. For example, the ambitious push for autonomous electric vehicles hinges on the availability of advanced battery technology. Could the solution lie in exploring new materials, nanotechnological, self-healing capabilities, or innovative approaches to energy storage? While we may not have all the answers yet, it's clear that addressing this bottleneck is crucial for supply chains, mobility solutions and climate impact.

See the full short article here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2023/12/09/the-biggest-technology-trends-this-year/?sh=238d88ea7afd

Orlando’s Breakthrough Digital Twin Project Named 2024 Top Tech

... The OEP [ Orlando Economic Partnership ] digital twin project marks the largest of its kind, simulating 800 square miles of the famed region as a 3D render that OEP staff or visitors can interact with via a large-scale screen.

The OEP displays the digital twin at its new downtown Orlando, Florida headquarters, ready for potential regional partners to view the area and related core data points, which help visitors understand a place of business growth, all from one room. ...

For example, in April, Dave Rhodes, the GM and senior VP of Digital Twins at Unity, explained how his firm would be able to integrate related XR technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), simulation, and analytics to improve digital twin workflows at OEP and to match the growing number of use cases the team is receiving.

Unity’s digital technology unlocks data from proprietary formats, making merging anything into one virtual experience more effortless and allowing stakeholders to collaborate, simulate, and make better decisions. ...

See the full story here: https://www.xrtoday.com/augmented-reality/orlandos-breakthrough-digital-twin-project-named-2024-top-tech/

MIT group releases white papers on governance of AI

Providing a resource for U.S. policymakers, a committee of MIT leaders and scholars has released a set of policy briefs that outlines a framework for the governance of artificial intelligence. The approach includes extending current regulatory and liability approaches in pursuit of a practical way to oversee AI.

The aim of the papers is to help enhance U.S. leadership in the area of artificial intelligence broadly, while limiting harm that could result from the new technologies and encouraging exploration of how AI deployment could be beneficial to society.

The main policy paper, “A Framework for U.S. AI Governance: Creating a Safe and Thriving AI Sector,” suggests AI tools can often be regulated by existing U.S. government entities that already oversee the relevant domains. The recommendations also underscore the importance of identifying the purpose of AI tools, which would enable regulations to fit those applications. ...

“We felt it was important for MIT to get involved in this because we have expertise,” says David Goldston, director of the MIT Washington Office. “MIT is one of the leaders in AI research, one of the places where AI first got started. Since we are among those creating technology that is raising these important issues, we feel an obligation to help address them.” ...

Purpose, intent, and guardrails

The main policy brief outlines how current policy could be extended to cover AI, using existing regulatory agencies and legal liability frameworks where possible. The U.S. has strict licensing laws in the field of medicine, for example. It is already illegal to impersonate a doctor; if AI were to be used to prescribe medicine or make a diagnosis under the guise of being a doctor, it should be clear that would violate the law just as strictly human malfeasance would. ...

While the policy framework involves existing agencies, it includes the addition of some new oversight capacity as well. For one thing, the policy brief calls for advances in auditing of new AI tools, which could move forward along a variety of paths, whether government-initiated, user-driven, or deriving from legal liability proceedings. ...

“AI enables things humans cannot do, such as surveillance or fake news at scale, which may need special consideration beyond what is applicable for humans,” Ozdaglar says. “But our starting point still enables you to think about the risks, and then how that risk gets amplified because of the tools.” ...

As Goldston puts it, the committee releasing these papers is “is not a group that is antitechnology or trying to stifle AI. But it is, nonetheless, a group that is saying AI needs governance and oversight. That’s part of doing this properly. These are people who know this technology, and they’re saying that AI needs oversight.” ...

Read the full article here: https://news.mit.edu/2023/mit-group-releases-white-papers-governance-ai-1211

This A.I. Subculture’s Motto: Go, Go, Go

... The battle between the e/accs and the Effective Altruists is one of many quasi-religious schisms breaking out in San Francisco’s A.I. scene these days, as insiders argue about how quickly the technology is progressing, and what should be done about it.

E/acc prefers the all-gas, no-brakes approach. Its adherents favor open-sourcing A.I. software rather than having it be controlled by big corporations, and unlike Effective Altruists, they don’t see powerful A.I. as something to be feared or guarded against. They believe that A.I.’s benefits far outweigh its harms, and that the right thing to do with such important technology is to get out of the way and let it rip. ...

Initially, I wrote the movement off as a fringe novelty — a bunch of Twitter-addicted techies with persecution complexes turning warmed-over Ayn Rand into edgy memes.

But a few months later, tech luminaries like Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, started showing up in e/acc’s Twitter Spaces, and proclaiming that he, too, believed in effective accelerationism. ...

Critics have pointed to the fact that some of e/acc’s leaders, including Mr. Verdon, seem to actually agree with the Effective Altruists that a rogue A.I. could wipe out humanity, but aren’t bothered by the idea, since superhuman A.I. could represent a logical next step in evolution.  ...

See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/technology/ai-acceleration.html?fbclid=IwAR2sqGN1Hs1klDA-GF48Qw2_YGpqkH_tmEdO4fKE0jXRput-1xH8wGKD6mc

The Race to Dominate A.I.

Though the companies were concerned that their A.I. chatbots were inaccurate or biased, they put those worries to the side — at least for the moment. As one Microsoft executive wrote in an internal email, “speed is even more important than ever.” It would be, he added, an “absolutely fatal error in this moment to worry about things that can be fixed later.”

A.I. has since sneaked into daily life, through chatbots and image generators, in the word processing programs you might use at work, and in the seemingly human customer service agents you chat with online to return a purchase. People have already used it to create sophisticated phishing emails, cheat on schoolwork and spread disinformation. ...

That one person could be so central to the future of A.I. — and perhaps humanity — is a symptom of the lack of meaningful oversight of the industry. ...

European regulators this week are in marathon sessions to write the world’s strictest A.I. regulations, and they will be worth watching. In the meantime, companies continue to push ahead. On Wednesday, Google demonstrated a powerful new A.I. system called Gemini Ultra, even though Google hasn’t yet completed its customary safety testing. The company promised it would be out in the world early next year. ...

See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/briefing/ai-dominance.html

Democrats and Republicans see role for government in development of AI

... “Government cannot govern AI if it does not understand AI,” said Daniel Ho, a professor at Stanford Law School, at the hearing. ...

President Biden’s Oct. 30 executive order on AI lays out 150 requirements, as tracked by Stanford, meaning there are major workforce demands for implementation. Yet among other persistent skills gaps in cyber and IT, Ho said that fewer than 1% of AI PhDs pursue a career in public service. ...

Read the full story here: https://www.federaltimes.com/federal-oversight/congress/2023/12/07/democrats-and-republicans-see-role-for-government-in-development-of-ai/

AI And A-listers: Sundance Festival Line-up Unveiled

Kristen Stewart is among several Hollywood stars heading to next month's Sundance festival. But artificial intelligence -- the subject of, and technology behind, several new films -- could steal the show.

Among the line-up for Utah's influential indie movie fest are a "generative" music film that plays differently on each viewing, two documentaries about loved ones using AI to communicate after death, and an interactive "digital griot" that will teach audiences how to vogue.

"One of the things that was striking to see, as we were going through these films and talking about them as a team, was how AI just kept popping up," Sundance director of programming Kim Yutani told AFP.

"Whether it be in a documentary, whether it be influencing a documentary... that's going to be a really interesting part of the festival this year." ...

Among Sundance's new offerings are "Eno," which explores musician Brian Eno's career and creative process, using a "generative engine" to mesh together near-infinite different versions of a film from hundreds of possible scenes.

The technology uses prompts and keywords to find and create associations between scenes, changing or reshuffling the lineup each night, just as a touring band might do at each new gig...

See the full story here: https://www.barrons.com/articles/ai-and-a-listers-sundance-festival-line-up-unveiled-1628627f

The race to 5G is over — now it’s time to pay the bill

... Instead, there’s one 5G use case where the big three networks are finding traction, and it comes up over and over again in their earnings reports: fixed wireless access, or FWA. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s internet that comes to your house over radio waves rather than a cable. T-Mobile and Verizon have aggressively expanded their FWA offerings over the past couple of years, and even “fiber is everything” AT&T is getting in on the action with Internet Air. ...

https://www.theverge.com/23991136/5g-network-att-verizon-tmobile-cost-competition