philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Federal judge says voice-over artists’ AI lawsuit can move forward

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The couple claim they were separately approached by anonymous Lovo employees for voice-over work through the online freelance marketplace Fiverr.

Lehrman was paid $1200 (around £890). Sage received $800 (almost £600).

In messages shared with the BBC, the anonymous client can be seen saying Lehrman and Sage's voices would be used for "academic research purposes only" and "test scripts for radio ads" respectively.

The anonymous messenger said the voice-overs would "not be disclosed externally and will only be consumed internally". ...

This episode had a unique hook – an interview with an AI-powered chatbot, equipped with text-to-speech software. It was asked how it thought the use of AI would affect jobs in Hollywood.

But, when it spoke, it sounded just like Mr Lehrman.

"We needed to pull the car over," Mr Lehrman told the BBC in an interview last year. "The irony that AI is coming for the entertainment industry, and here is my voice talking about the potential destruction of the industry, was really quite shocking." ...

See the full story here; https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cedgzj8z1wjo.amp

The world’s top immersive experiences

PhilNote: Nancy Bennett worked on #7, which is in Area 15, Las Vegas

See the full story here: https://blooloop.com/immersive/in-depth/top-immersive-experiences/

Sam Altman’s predictions on how the world might change with AI

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He said the cost of using a given AI drops by roughly 10 times every year and that there's "no reason for exponentially increasing investment to stop in the near future" since, as he puts it, "the socioeconomic value of linearly increasing intelligence is super-exponential."

"If we don't build enough infrastructure, AI will be a very limited resource that wars get fought over and that becomes mostly a tool for rich people," he wrote last year. He cited the need to drive down the cost of compute, as well as the massive demand for enough chips and energy to power AI. ...

"I think it's like impossible to overstate the importance of AI safety and alignment work. I would like to see much, much more happening," he said in the 2023 interview. ...

See the full story here: https://tech.yahoo.com/articles/sam-altmans-predictions-world-might-130301863.html?guccounter=1

LLMs show real strategic thinking

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The Decode:

• Models Played 140K Rounds of the Prisoner’s Dilemma - Researchers pitted LLMs against each other in repeated games of cooperation or betrayal. Every move was accompanied by a rationale, allowing researchers to analyze thought patterns.
• Each AI showed a Unique Strategy Profile - Google’s Gemini was cutthroat, adapting aggressively to betrayals. OpenAI’s models were cooperative, even if taken advantage of. Claude from Anthropic proved the most forgiving.
• Behavioral Fingerprints Show Reasoning Over Pattern Matching - The models didn’t just mimic training data; they formed decision strategies based on outcomes and context. Each one developed consistent “strategic fingerprints” in how they reacted to wins, betrayals, and uncertainty.

See the full story here: https://decodeai.ghost.io/llms-show-real-strategic-thinking/

What Happens When English Becomes the Only Programming Language You Need?

... We’re moving from a world where you “hire specialists” to one where you “direct outcomes.”

This is the logical conclusion of what we’re already seeing. The cost of generating text, images, video, and functional code is already trending toward zero. When the primary input becomes natural language instructions rather than specialized technical skills, the economics of creation will collapse. ...

Every industry built on the scarcity of technical creation skills faces disruption. ...

This democratization of capability creates new risks. When anyone can spin up automated systems with simple English commands, who will be responsible for brand consistency? Regulatory compliance? Budget controls? Data privacy? AI, of course, and it will be better at it than people ever were. But it can only operate within the guardrails you set at the corporate level.

You need to start working on dynamic, adaptable AI governance frameworks now, so you have time to think through and learn about the way you want English as a programming language to work for your organization. ...

See the full story here: https://shellypalmer.com/2025/07/what-happens-when-english-becomes-the-only-programming-language-you-need/?mc_cid=6f6277872d&mc_eid=3ce5196977

Here’s how Character.AI’s new CEO plans to address fears around kids’ use of chatbots

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Unlike multi-purpose AI tools like ChatGPT, Character.AI offers range of different chatbots that are often modeled after celebrities and fictional characters. Users can also create their own for conversations or role play. Another distinction is that Character.AI bots respond with human-like conversational cues, adding references to facial expressions or gestures into their replies. ...

Those efforts aside, Anand said in an introductory note to Character.AI users last month that one of his top priorities is to make the platform’s safety filter “less overbearing,” adding that “too often, the app filters things that are perfectly harmless.”

He told CNN that things like mentions of blood when users are engaging in “vampire fan fiction role play” — something he says he’s a fan of — might be censored under the current model, which he wants to update to better understand context while balancing the need for safety. ...

Read the full story here: https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/03/tech/character-ai-ceo-chatbots-kids-safety

EU sticks with timeline for AI rules

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"I've seen, indeed, a lot of reporting, a lot of letters and a lot of things being said on the AI Act. Let me be as clear as possible, there is no stop the clock. There is no grace period. There is no pause," Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier told a press conference.

"We have legal deadlines established in a legal text. The provisions kicked in February, general purpose AI model obligations will begin in August, and next year, we have the obligations for high risk models that will kick in in August 2026," he said. ...

See the full story here: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/artificial-intelligence-rules-go-ahead-no-pause-eu-commission-says-2025-07-04/

Kaleidoscope Vision: Seeing the Multifaceted Future of AI

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The Caltech team designed an experimental method specifically to avoid these issues. Rather than testing algorithms using images of real people collected from random sources, the researchers used AI to generate a dataset of realistic human face images that were systematically varied across age, gender, race, facial expression, lighting, and pose. They also created a dataset of text prompts that described social perception based on findings from psychological research (e.g., “a photo of a friendly person,” and “a photo of dishonest person.”)

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Alvarez also serves as co-director of Caltech’s Linde Center for Science, Society, and Policy (LCSSP) along with Professor of Philosophy Frederick Eberhardt. One of the center’s functions is to connect efforts across the Institute that aim to understand and steer the responsible implementation of AI. The LCSSP also provides scientific expertise to inform policy on pressing societal issues such as the implications of biotechnology as well as climate change and sustainability.

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“We’re at this tipping point,” Alvarez adds. “If attitudes become polarized along partisan lines, it makes it very, very difficult for policymakers to effectively deal with AI.” Eberhardt says the LCSSP aims to build a bridge between Caltech researchers and policymakers “that will ensure a more secure integration of these two communities.”

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“I am a Russianist, and I often raise with students this question about the development of AI technologies that enable autocratic regimes to track and persecute political dissidents,” Dennison says. “I point out to them how important it is to acknowledge the dark side of this advancement and encourage them to be clear about the larger implications of what they want to work on. It’s fine to argue that the positives outweigh the negatives. But, as with nuclear technology in the 20th century, there are important debates around these questions. It can be an uncomfortable conversation, but it is necessary.”

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While the ethical debates, regulatory landscapes, and shifting social realities of AI may be complex, Perona says Caltech students and scientists are well equipped to work through them together while also continuing to tackle the hardest scientific questions. “There are questions that the AI industry is not interested in because there is no market,” he says. “We can work on them here at Caltech. In fact, this is probably the best place on Earth to do it.”

See the full story here: https://magazine.caltech.edu/post/kaleidoscope-vision?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=magazine-spring25&utm_source=weekly-newsletter&utm_content=&utm_term=

A movement is needed to ensure AI serves humanity and democracy

Five years ago, I witnessed Beijing’s crackdowns devastate my hometown of Hong Kong. We lost free speech, political rights and freedom from fear. Friends were jailed for years because of peaceful advocacy and I fled to Britain as a political refugee.

I learned a valuable lesson: When power is concentrated and unchecked, democracy dies.  Power takes different forms – some exercised by governments within national remits, others by corporations whose influence expands across jurisdictions and scales infinitely. We should be concerned about both, especially the latter, as corporate power is more subtle, yet equally influential. ...

Ample research has shown the dangers of letting our future depend on the goodwill of a few companies – it’s time for advocacy. Democratic activists, free speech advocates, campaigners for environmental and racial justice, AI safety researchers and many others should unite and raise our concerns with one voice. ...

See the full story here: https://www.democracywithoutborders.org/37130/a-movement-is-needed-to-ensure-ai-serves-humanity-and-democracy/

Inside Wikipedia’s AI Revolt

Before generative AI, if you wanted an inexpensive way to build out lots of content, you launched a wiki.

You’d spin up a site—broad or niche—and throw the doors open for anyone to edit. ... The catch with wikis is that when you hand the reins to the crowd, keeping quality consistent becomes a serious challenge. In Wikipedia’s case, that’s meant taking stewardship to heart, relying on a small army of editors—mostly volunteers—to manage millions of community-driven pages. ...

The newsrooms getting this right—Reuters, The New York Times, The Washington Post—deploy AI thoughtfully and deliberately: team by team, sometimes even user by user, doing the hard work of winning people over before introducing new experiences. ...

See the full story here: https://www.fastcompany.com/91360473/wikipedia-ai-revolt-media