philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Winning the Race to the End State

...  While there is no agreed-upon definition of AGI, the consensus is that it will not equal the best humans, but it will surpass the average human by such a wide margin that the imbalance of power will be irreversible. ...

The race isn’t theoretical. It’s real. It’s here. And it’s funded. Global private investment in AI topped $252 billion in 2024, up nearly 45 percent in a single year. ...

This is not a technology challenge. It is a leadership challenge.  ... The harder problem is inspiring a workforce that understands they are building the very systems that may one day replace them. ...

So what happens between now and that Market 26 notification? In the next 36 months, white collar roles will evolve in predictable ways. Right now, humans are in the loop, teaching systems how to do their work. Soon, those humans will shift to writing and training agents. After that, their focus will move to orchestrating fleets of agents to accomplish goals. And then, the agents will simply operate, reporting back with anomalies and adjustments. ...

You lead by acknowledging reality and offering a vision that turns inevitability into momentum. The message has to be clear: our team can win because we will evolve faster than others. We will test, fail, learn, and adapt. We will use these tools to transform into a more productive, more valuable, and more resilient organization. ...

See the full story here: https://shellypalmer.com/2025/08/winning-the-race-to-the-end-state/?mc_cid=b815d13638&mc_eid=116e9f337b

Using Generative AI in Content Production

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See the full rules here: https://partnerhelp.netflixstudios.com/hc/en-us/articles/43393929218323-Using-Generative-AI-in-Content-Production

How Burning Man VR rebuilt after Microsoft shut it down 

... The BurnerSphere, as it is now called, is being released in beta for both VR headsets and desktop PCs in time for next week’s Burning Man festival. ...

That even this community struggled to find a home in VR, and ultimately decided to go its own way, also tells you a lot about the friction that still exists in this medium, and the challenges companies need to overcome to have people buy into their vision of the metaverse. ...

Riding on a mutant vehicle

When you launch the BurnerSphere app on your Meta Quest headset, you’ll find yourself on a digital replica of Gate Road, the desert road leading to the festival. From there, you can watch a short VR documentary of immersive footage shot at Burning Man events in years past, or enter the festival itself through a series of interconnected portals. 

Some of these portals unlock showcases for Burning Man art, complete with information about each artist. Others let you watch additional short immersive videos, or explore different camps and squares. ...

I also got to see how BRCvr blends digital artifacts with real-life immersive video: When I entered a tent, its interior got overlaid with 360-degree footage of people hanging out in the real-life version of that tent, making it seem like I was in the middle of the action. ...

BRCvr tries to adhere to the same principles that guide Burning Man, which precludes it from selling avatars or using corporate sponsors — things that are often out of your control on another company’s platform. At the same time, there are significant costs associated with running BurnerSphere, which is why some content and experiences are reserved for members who pay an annual $48 “camp fee.” 

The plan, according to Demos, is to offer the more than 100,000 “burners” who attend Burning Man events every year a permanent digital home.  ...

“We don't know what's going to happen. But if the platform goes under, at least, we'll make it go under, not some corporation.”

See the full story here: https://www.lowpass.cc/p/burning-man-vr-brcvr-burnersphere-2025?_bhlid=4c09482a076a19b8a6cd8f3d4ea705be34493830&utm_campaign=burning-man-is-back-in-vr&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=www.lowpass.cc

When Human Fatigue Becomes AI’s Weakest Link

... A 2014 study by Stanford University economist John Pencavel shows that output per hour declines steeply after roughly 50 hours per week, and that the extra hours beyond 55–60 subtracts from output due to the additional time required to fix mistakes. Serious health risks increase as well. One meta-analysis of 37 studies found that working more than 55 hours per week raises the chance of stroke and heart attack by 35 percent and 17 percent respectively, adding to business costs through absenteeism, turnover, and diminished cognitive performance. Creativity and judgment—the very human skills most needed in an AI-infused working environment—also suffer from overwork which often impairs attention, working memory and decision-making. The converse is also true: people who take time away from direct cognitive effort are more likely to generate novel insights than those who do not. ...

The Pragmatic Engineer reported this week on moves by a number of firms to institute what are called “996” schedules (9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., six days per week) as a kind of minimum expectation. This practice originated in China and was eventually banned by the government ...

Telling workers they must sacrifice sleep, health, and family to be part of “humanity’s greatest breakthrough” is less leadership than it is psychological coercion parading as a mission. ...

See the full story here: https://www.aei.org/domestic-policy/when-human-fatigue-becomes-ais-weakest-link/

Hollywood’s biggest AI debut? Las Vegas Sphere’s ‘Wizard of Oz’

• AI enhances 'Wizard of Oz' for immersive Las Vegas Sphere experience
• Project involves Warner Bros, Google, and over 2,000 collaborators
• Critics concerned about altering classic film, but creators defend innovation

The $104 or more per seat spectacle is more than meets the eye. "The Wizard of Oz" marks one of the most significant partnerships between a studio and technology company to use artificial intelligence to forge a new media experience.

Reuters spoke with nine people, including principals directly involved in the project and senior entertainment industry experts, who told the story behind a project that some industry veterans see as a potential watershed moment in Hollywood's use of AI tools. ...

"Wizard of Oz at Sphere" drew upon archival materials from the film -- including set blueprints, shot lists, publicity stills and film artifacts -- as well as some 60 research papers to help deliver the movie in resolution representing a ten-fold improvement over previous work.

"We had to reimagine the cinematography, we had to reimagine the editing, and we had to do all of this without changing the experience," said Oscar-winner Ben Grossmann, who oversaw the project's visual effects. "Because if you touch anything about this sacred piece of cinema, you're toast!" ...

"Hollywood embraces new technology, and everyone can't wait to be the second one to use it," said Buzz Hays, a veteran film producer who leads Google Cloud's entertainment industry solutions group. "What 'The Wizard of Oz' is doing for us is giving that first opportunity where people go, 'Oh my god, this is not at all what I thought AI was going to be.'" ...

Before turning over one of the world's most important entertainment properties, Warner Bros set strict ground rules. Google could train its generative AI models on each major actor to reproduce their performances, but the data would remain the studio's property. None of the "Oz" training data would be incorporated into Google's public AI models. ...

Coordinated physical effects add another dimension. Flying monkeys will swoop into the Sphere as 16-foot-long helium-filled simians steered by drone operators, one of many Four-D effects.

The result is an amalgam of cinema, live production and experiential VR. "I think that's going to change the way people think about entertainment and experience," Grossmann said.

See the full story here: https://www.reuters.com/technology/hollywoods-biggest-ai-debut-las-vegas-spheres-wizard-oz-2025-08-21/

Say farewell to the AI bubble, and get ready for the crash

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The cheerless rollout of GPT-5 could bring the day of reckoning closer. “AI companies are really buoying the American economy right now, and it’s looking very bubble-shaped,” Hanna told me. 

The rollout was so disappointing that it shined a spotlight on the degree that the whole AI industry has been dependent on hype. ...

One problem underscored by GPT-5’s underwhelming rollout is that it exploded one of the most cherished principles of the AI world, which is that “scaling up” — endowing the technology with more computing power and more data — would bring the grail of artificial general intelligence, or AGI, ever closer to reality. 

That’s the principle undergirding the AI industry’s vast expenditures on data centers and high-performance chips. ...

As Bender and Hanna point out in their book, AI promoters have kept investors and followers enthralled by relying on a vague public understanding of the term “intelligence.” ...

“What I had not realized,” Weizenbaum wrote in 1976, “is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people.” ...

Some economists are dashing cold water on predictions of economic gains more generally.  ...

“Claims around consciousness and sentience are a tactic to sell you on AI,” Bender and Hanna write. So, too, is the talk about the billions, or trillions, to be made in AI. As with any technology, the profits will go to a small cadre, while the rest of us pay the price ... unless we gain a much clearer perception of what AI is, and more importantly, what it isn’t.

See the full story here: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-08-20/say-farewell-to-the-ai-bubble-and-get-ready-for-the-crash

Could this movie based on a Hindu epic become India’s ‘Avatar?’

... Rather, the goal is to turn “Ramayana,” with its grand-scale adventure story and high-tech computer-generated effects, into a full-blown international blockbuster, filmed specifically for Imax’s giant screens in what is intended to be the largest-ever rollout for an Indian film, according to its backers. ...

While Hollywood studio bosses talk about reaching all four demographic “quadrants” (men and women, young and old) with their tentpole movies, Malhotra wants to draw two additional categories: believer and nonbeliever. For such a so-called six-quadrant movie to work, to use Malhotra’s terminology, it would have to succeed in the U.S. ...

It’s a major gamble for Malhotra, who founded Prime Focus in Mumbai in 1997. ...

“Ramayana” is directed by Nitesh Tiwari, the man behind 2016’s “Dangal,” the highest-grossing Bollywood film ever, including huge sales in China. Hans Zimmer and prolific Indian musician-composer A.R. Rahman (“Slumdog Millionaire”) are collaborating on the score, while the visual effects and production design team includes veterans from “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Avengers: Endgame” and the “Lord of the Rings” franchise.

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For the new version, Malhotra wants to eliminate any language barriers. DNEG is using syncing technology from its Brahma AI unit to seamlessly present the film in local languages for international audiences. In the U.S., for example, the movie will screen in English. ...

See the full story here: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/newsletter/2025-08-19/could-this-movie-based-on-a-hindu-epic-become-indias-avatar

AI will replace most humans, but then what?

 Is technology more job augmenting or job replacing? This has been a long-standing debate. But recent academic work suggests that technology has been a net destroyer of jobs for decades.

Artificial intelligence and robotics could rapidly accelerate this trend, with significant implications for inflation, the size of government and U.S.-China relations. ...

David Autor, an economist at MIT and winner of the 2005 John Clark Bates Medal, argues that since 1980, the jobs replaced by automation have not been fully offset by new jobs created.

This reflects the pace of technological change and the fact that advancements are now increasingly focused on “professional, technical, and managerial occupations,” Autor notes, rather than lower-skilled work. ...

But aging, like natural evolution in general, is gradual, while computational and technological evolution accelerates at an exponential pace. Because of the convexity in technological advances, it’s hard not to bet on technology rather than workers.

See the full story here: https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/ai-will-replace-most-humans-then-what-2025-08-19/

MIT report: 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing

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Despite the rush to integrate powerful new models, about 5% of AI pilot programs achieve rapid revenue acceleration; the vast majority stall, delivering little to no measurable impact on P&L. The research—based on 150 interviews with leaders, a survey of 350 employees, and an analysis of 300 public AI deployments—paints a clear divide between success stories and stalled projects. ...

Startups led by 19- or 20-year-olds, for example, “have seen revenues jump from zero to $20 million in a year,” he said. “It’s because they pick one pain point, execute well, and partner smartly with companies who use their tools,” he added.

But for 95% of companies in the dataset, generative AI implementation is falling short. The core issue? Not the quality of the AI models, but the “learning gap” for both tools and organizations. While executives often blame regulation or model performance, MIT’s research points to flawed enterprise integration. Generic tools like ChatGPT excel for individuals because of their flexibility, but they stall in enterprise use since they don’t learn from or adapt to workflows, Challapally explained. ...

See the full story here: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mit-report-95-generative-ai-105412686.html

IBM Study: Sports Fans Demand More Dynamic Digital Content, Powered by AI

- Most fans surveyed agree that AI-powered features will have a significant impact on how they consume sports 

- More than half surveyed want AI-driven sports commentary and insights for past, current and future events

- Mobile sports apps are becoming essential to the fan experience, particularly among fans attending events in-person

See the full PR here: https://newsroom.ibm.com/2025-08-18-ibm-study-sports-fans-demand-more-dynamic-digital-content,-powered-by-ai