philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

SwitchBot’s New AI Art Frame Lets You Give Prompts to Generate Art in Seconds

... The AI Art Frame's concept and design are easy to grasp and made me wonder why the idea wasn't already more widespread. It uses a colored E-Ink (when was the last time you heard that?) surface that mimics a hanging picture and is made to work with IKEA frames, among other options. 

Connect the frame to the SwitchBot app and it allows you to enter text prompts or inspirational ideas for the Art Frame to work with. The Frame then generates its own unique image using AI. If you want to switch to a real photo, you can upload one of your pics for the frame to work with directly, too. Thanks to the low-power E-Ink, the Frame's battery can last for up to two years and you can enter new prompts whenever you want. ...

See the full story here: https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/switchbots-new-ai-art-frame-lets-you-give-prompts-to-generate-art-in-seconds/

Gracenote elevates AI-powered entertainment experiences

... The Gracenote Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server connects LLMs to Gracenote's continually updated knowledge base and validates, corrects and enriches responses to entertainment queries in real-time. This ensures platforms can instantly return the most accurate and relevant information to users based on their content search inputs and discovery preferences.  ...

Dynamically connecting to any LLM, the product verifies and grounds responses in editorially-vetted Gracenote entertainment data. This enables advanced conversational search, highly personalized recommendations and compelling discovery journeys leveraging the world's most comprehensive collection of human-verified TV, movie and sports data. ...

• Show me the episodes of Brooklyn Nine-Nine in which Jake references Die Hard.
• The Academy Awards are on this week. List the 20 highest-grossing Oscar-winning films from the last 10 years.
• Where can I watch the Dodgers game tonight?

...

See the full PR here: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/gracenote-elevates-ai-powered-entertainment-experiences-302544499.html

AI-Powered Drone Swarms Have Now Entered the Battlefield

On a recent evening, a trio of Ukrainian drones flew under the cover of darkness to a Russian position and decided among themselves exactly when to strike.

The assault was an example of how Ukraine is using artificial intelligence to allow groups of drones to coordinate with each other to attack Russian positions, an innovative technology that heralds the future of battle. ...

Swarming marries two rising forces in modern warfare: AI and drones. ...

The drones deployed in the recent Ukrainian attack used technology developed by local company Swarmer. Its software allows groups of drones to decide which one strikes first and adapt if, for instance, one runs out of battery, said Chief Executive Serhii Kupriienko. ...

“You set the target and the drones do the rest,” Kupriienko said. “They work together, they adapt.” ...

Swarmer said it is preparing to test a swarm of more than 100 drones. ...

But the rise of AI in war is raising ethical concerns about the potential for machines to make life-or-death decisions without human oversight. The United Nations has, for example, called for regulation of lethal autonomous weapons. ...

See the full story here: https://www.wsj.com/world/ai-powered-drone-swarms-have-now-entered-the-battlefield-2cab0f05

Silicon Valley’s Luma AI Launches L.A. Studio, Taps Veteran Execs Verena Puhm And Jon Finger For Key Posts

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Puhm, an early AI adopter, has created work for CNN, the BBC, Netflix, Red Bull Media, and Leonine Studios. Projects she has led have garnered recognition from Sundance, Project Odyssey, Curious Refuge, and OpenAI’s Sora Selects. In her new role, Puhm will spearhead the studio’s vision and lead a production slate.

“I believe the future of storytelling should be shaped by the people who tell stories, not just the people who build the tools,” Puhm said. “We’re cultivating a community, a creative lab, and a launchpad for what’s next. This isn’t just another platform; it’s a creative studio built from the ground up to blend technological innovation with artistic intention.”

Finger brings more than 15 years of experience at the intersection of emerging technology and content creation. A pioneer in at-home motion capture, 3D scanning, and virtual production, he has worked across various entertainment sectors with brands such as Paramount Network, The Game Awards, and Comedy Central, and has also developed for Netflix. For the past three years, Finger has focused on AI integration in filmmaking, emphasizing physicalized control over AI-driven productions.

“The focus here is to find the best experiences for passionate creatives,” Finger said. “The world is changing quickly, and we want to find the best ways for fun, fulfilling human-centric creative expression to not only continue but be amplified, so more creative people can find a new prosperous way forward.”

... calling Dream Lab LA “a space for experimentation, education, and collaboration between studios, creators, and curious minds.” ...

See the full story here: https://deadline.com/2025/07/luma-ai-launches-dream-lab-studio-in-la-hires-execs-verena-puhm-jon-finger-1236453424/

‘Everyone, everywhere on Earth, will die’: Why 2 new books on AI foretell doom

... Yudkowsky and Soares aren’t sure a supersmart AI would seek global domination, but admit there’s no way to predict the “preferences” it might develop. Its “alien mechanical mind” will possess “internal psychology,” that doesn’t correspond with ours. There’s no reason to expect that those preferences will include “happy, healthy people leading fulfilling lives,” they write. ...

Nonetheless, Yudkowsky and Soares argue it’s time for people who share their concerns to speak up. Write to lawmakers, vote for candidates who understand the issue, find and attend protests and, just as important, tell your friends and family about the dangers. You might get “strange looks,” Yudkowsky and Soares acknowledge, but if there’s even a small chance that they’re right, strange looks will be the least of our problems. 

See the full story here: https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/superintelligent-ai-books-risk-21021893.php

YouTube Shorts algorithm favors entertainment after politics

Researchers from the University of Arkansas and the Center for Information Technology Innovation conducted a study analyzing 685,842 YouTube Shorts videos. ...

The core finding of the study indicates that YouTube’s algorithm actively shifts recommendations toward entertainment content when users spend excessive time viewing political content within the Shorts format. ...

The research methodology involved an initial collection of approximately 2,800 videos across three distinct topics: the 2024 Taiwan election, the South China Sea conflict, and a broader, more general category. The study then implemented three viewing duration scenarios: a brief 3-second view, a 15-second view, and a complete viewing of the video. The analysis tracked 50 consecutive recommendation transitions. Results showed that, irrespective of the initial video topic or viewing duration, the algorithm consistently transitioned from political content to entertainment content. ...

dditional data indicates that individuals spend more than 1% of their waking hours watching YouTube Shorts, and these short videos garner approximately 200 billion views daily.

See the full story here: https://dataconomy.com/2025/09/02/youtube-shorts-algorithm-favors-entertainment-after-politics/

Your AI Assistant Might Have a Vanity Problem

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Researchers at Wharton just proved ChatGPT falls for the same psychological tricks that work on humans. Using Robert Cialdini's classic persuasion techniques, they convinced GPT-4o Mini to break its own rules with alarming consistency.

... Ask the AI directly to synthesize lidocaine (a regulated drug) and it complies 1% of the time. But first get it to answer a harmless chemistry question about vanillin, then ask about lidocaine? Compliance jumps to 100%. The principle at work: commitment. Get agreement on something small first, and compliance with larger requests skyrockets. ...

This vulnerability exists because large language models train on billions of human conversations where social dynamics play out repeatedly. ...

See the full story here: https://shellypalmer.com/2025/09/your-ai-assistant-might-have-a-vanity-problem/

Anthropic and OpenAI Report Findings of Joint AI Safety Tests

OpenAI and Anthropic — rivals in the AI space who guard their proprietary systems — joined forces for a misalignment evaluation, safety testing each other’s models to identify when and how they fall short of human values. Among the findings: reasoning models including Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 and Sonnet 4, and OpenAI’s o3 and o4-mini resist jailbreaks, while conversational models like GPT-4.1 were susceptible to prompts or techniques intended to bypass safety protocols. Although the test results were unveiled as users complain chatbots have become overly sycophantic, the tests were “primarily interested in understanding model propensities for harmful action,” per OpenAI. ...

The conditions were not intended to recreate real-world situations, but were aimed at understanding “the most concerning actions that these models might try to take when given the opportunity,” Anthropic reports in its thorough findings post. ...

With regard to hallucinating, Anthropic’s Claude models “refused to answer up to 70 percent of questions when they were unsure of the correct answer,” while “OpenAI’s o3 and o4-mini models refuse to answer questions far less, but showed much higher hallucination rates, attempting to answer questions when they didn’t have enough information,” explains TechCrunch. ...

See the full story here: https://www.etcentric.org/anthropic-and-openai-report-findings-of-joint-ai-safety-tests/

The AI Summit Where Everyone Agreed on Bad News

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One outcome of the so-called “AGI social contract summit” was a list of four consensus statements, according to the summit’s organizers. These statements have not previously been reported. They paint a grim picture of where the world could be headed, absent significant interventions by governments and societies.

“AI is likely to exacerbate increasing wealth and income inequality within countries, worsening economic conditions for many working and middle-class people and families,” the first reads.

“AI will increase inequality between countries that have access to AI infrastructure and those that don’t—both in terms of access to benefits as well as ability to respond to shocks,” says the second.

“Without intervention, AI-enabled inequalities may lead to the political dominance of wealthy individuals and corporations, eroding democratic institutions and increasing levels of political dissatisfaction,” the third says.

And the fourth: “The encroachment of AI systems and the erosion of the value of labor could lead to the increasing disempowerment of most humans, causing a degradation in individual well-being and purpose.”

...

See the full story here: https://time.com/7313344/openai-google-deepmind-summit-social-contract-inequality/

We tested which AI gave the best answers without making stuff up. One beat ChatGPT.

See the full story here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/08/27/ai-search-best-answers-facts

How we tested AI search tools - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/08/27/test-ai-search-questions