philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Why the Meow Wolf experience offers something Disney never will

... Meow Wolf took pains to ensure that its arrival in Denverwould benefit the community. Executives worked with local activists to outline commitments around sustainability, wages, and diversity and inclusion. In acknowledgement of Denver’s DIY scene, Meow Wolf created a fund to channel money to local arts groups. And it pledged to devote 40% of its exhibition space to Colorado artists. “If a company says that they want to do good in the world and that they’re a B Corp and that they’re about social impact, they’re expected to walk the walk,” Kadlubek says. The Denver Meow Wolf finally opened in September 2021, having already sold $1 million worth of tickets in the first 24 hours they were available.

This past summer, an eclectic crowd of club kids, burners, D&D types, and even some families turned up at a former junkyard near the Denver museum for Meow Wolf’s annual Vortex music festival. When a wall of clouds rolled down from the Rockies and unleashed a ferocious summer thunderstorm, flooding the concrete yard, they stayed put as a lineup of hyperpop groups, SoundCloud rappers, and techno DJs kept the party going. It wasn’t exactly the nightly “fireworks spectacular” over Cinderella’s castle; it was uncontrolled, unexpected, and altogether human. ...

As it’s grown, Meow Wolf has systematized its creativity. A variety of employees, not just those hired as artists, are encouraged to develop installations to fill the smaller rooms of exhibitions. They can also attend workshops on how to operate 3D printers, vacuum-forming machines, laser cutters, and other manufacturing tools. “It’s about, ‘How do we develop everyone to be an artist?’” says Rich Staib, senior vice president for exhibition design and production. This openness, he says, is very different from what he encountered earlier in his career, working on attractions for Disney and Universal. ...

It’s one of art’s most important functions—helping us grapple with the complexities of existence by allowing us to absorb them in small but powerful doses. And it explains why, as Kadlubek told me, Meow Wolf continues to explore all of the realms of human experience, not just the most commercial ones. “The big distinction between us and Disney,” he says, “is we actually want complexity and confusion and existential crisis and struggle. We don’t want to just be the happiest place on earth.”

See the full story here: https://www.fastcompany.com/90808077/inside-the-delightful-confounding-tragic-world-of-immersive-art-company-meow-wolf

Kickstarter Suspends AI-Generated Image (Well, Porn) Project [Update]

... But porn or not, this is still AI-generated imagery, and given the protests currently going on at ArtStation, and with the wider controversy surrounding the field in general, Unstable Diffusion landed at the right time to be the campaign to get Kickstarter looking at their own policies on the matter. ...

UPDATE 11:15pm ET: Unstable Diffusion have issued a statement, which reads:

While Kickstarter’s capitulation to a loud subset of artists disappoints us, we and our supporters will not back down from defending the freedom to create. We have updated our new website, to allow our supporters to directly contribute to the creation and release of new artistic AI systems more powerful than ever. We are rising to the call to defend against the artists lobbying to make all AI art illegal, and backers support will allow us to challenge this increasingly well-funded and organized lobby.

See the full story here: https://kotaku.com/kickstarter-ai-art-image-porn-unstable-diffusion-nsfw-1849921325

A.I. is here, and it’s making movies. Is Hollywood ready?

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And this technology could open the door to films being changed long after they come out, said Denver D’Rozario, a Howard University marketing professor who has studied the software resurrection of dead actors.

“Let’s say … in a movie a guy’s drinking a can of Pepsi, and 20 years from now you get a sponsorship from Coke,” said D’Rozario. “Do you change the can of Pepsi to Coke?” “At what point can things be changed? At what point can things be bought?”

Mann said the advantages of his technology are many, from breaking down language barriers and fomenting cross-border empathy to sparing actors the headache of reshoots. In his view, scenarios like D’Rozario’s hypothetical Coke sponsorship represent new revenue streams. ...

See the full story here: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2022-12-19/the-next-frontier-in-moviemaking-ai-edits

The Backstory of ChatGPT Creator OpenAI

ChatGPT, the artificial-intelligence program captivating Silicon Valley with its sophisticated prose, had its origin three years ago, when technology investor Sam Altman became chief executive of the chatbot’s developer, OpenAI.

Mr. Altman decided at that time to move the OpenAI research lab away from its nonprofit roots and turn to a new strategy, as it raced to build software that could fully mirror the intelligence and capabilities of humans—what AI researchers call “artificial general intelligence.” Mr. Altman, who had built a name as president of famed startup accelerator Y Combinator, would oversee the creation of a new for-profit arm, believing OpenAI needed to become an aggressive fundraiser to meet its founding mission. ...

See the full story here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/chatgpt-creator-openai-pushes-new-strategy-to-gain-artificial-intelligence-edge-11671378475

AI Timelines: What Do Experts in Artificial Intelligence Expect for the Future?

... The chart shows the answers of 352 experts. This is from the most recent study by Katja Grace and her colleagues, conducted in the summer of 2022.

Experts were asked when they believe there is a 50% chance that human-level AI exists.³Human-level AI was defined as unaided machines being able to accomplish every task better and more cheaply than human workers. More information about the study can be found in the fold-out box at the end of the text on this page.⁴ ...

As highlighted in the annotations, half of the experts gave a date before 2061, and 90% gave a date within the next 100 years. ...

Expert surveys are one piece of information to consider when we think about the future of AI, but we should not overstate the results of these surveys. Experts in a particular technology are not necessarily experts in making predictions about the future of that technology. ...

See the full story here: https://singularityhub.com/2022/12/18/ai-timelines-what-do-experts-in-artificial-intelligence-expect-for-the-future/

Talking About Large Language Models

See the full story here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2212.03551.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0Nf_qi97sIpTDDiaEKi4-knaPOfbmVAKvnRihzAoOY9EEG30lK2dbSqQ4

The top 10 science stories of 2022

10. For the first time, a human wears augmented reality contacts

In July, the startup Mojo Vision announced that their CEO wore the company’s prototype augmented reality (AR) contact lenses for the first time. Each device is equipped with a display that is 30 times sharper than an iPhone’s and is outfitted with all the technology needed to track a user’s eye movements. Though extremely preliminary, the technology makes real the sci-fi dream of implanted vision that allows the wearer to seamlessly interact with digital images overlaid on perceptual reality. ...

See the full story here: https://bigthink.com/the-present/top-10-science-stories-2022/

Gorillaz demo Google’s latest AR technology in a virtual concert

Following the launch of Google’s ARCore Geospatial API, the band is now making a special appearance with augmented reality to perform their new single “Skinny Ape” in New York’s Times Square.

AR app brings Gorillaz to New York and London

The performance can be followed in the “Gorillaz Presents” app for iOS or Android. The digital characters and effects of the concert will be integrated into the real city backdrop.

An AR performance will follow at London’s Picadilly Circus on Sunday, December 18, 2022. It starts at 2 p.m. local time. You can also watch this show again in the app after the live performance.

Gorillaz was created as a sarcastic commentary on the interchangeability of the music landscape at the turn of the millennium. Blur singer Damon Alban and comic artist Jamie Hewlett (Tank Girl) put together a virtual band whose characters served as many musician clichés as possible.

See the full story here: https://mixed-news.com/en/gorillaz-demo-googles-latest-ar-technology-in-a-virtual-concert/

Sam Altman: This is what I learned from DALL-E 2

Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, has been at the heart of the San Francisco–based firm since cofounding it with Elon Musk and others in 2015. ...

3/ What DALL-E means for society

... But, look, it’s important to be transparent. This is going to impact the job market for illustrators. The amount one illustrator is able to do will go up by, like, a factor of 10 or 100. How that impacts the job market is very hard to say. We honestly don’t know. I can see it getting bigger just as easily as I can see it getting smaller. There will, of course, be new jobs with these tools. But there will also be a transition.

At the same time, there’s huge societal benefit, where everybody gets this new superpower. I’ve used DALL-E 2 for a lot of things. I’ve made art that I have up in my house. I did a remodel of my house, too, and I used it quite successfully for architectural ideas. ...

See the full story here: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/16/1065255/sam-altman-openai-lessons-from-dall-e-2/

Generative AI is changing everything. But what’s left when the hype is gone?

... Computers are already used in several industries to generate vast numbers of possible designs that are then sifted for ones that might work. Text-to-Xmodels would allow a human designer to fine-tune that generative process from the start, using words to guide computers through an infinite number of options toward results that are not just possible but desirable.

Computers can conjure spaces filled with infinite possibility. Text-to-X will let us explore those spaces using words. 

“I think that’s the legacy,” says Altman. “Images, video, audio—eventually, everything will be generated. I think it is just going to seep everywhere.”

See the full story here: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/16/1065005/generative-ai-revolution-art/