philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

We need to start thinking of AI as “normal”

PhilNote: Their point is a variation on 'the future is here, it just isn't evenly distributed.'

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The core point, Kapoor says, is that we need to start differentiating between the rapid development of AI methods—the flashy and impressive displays of what AI can do in the lab—and what comes from the actual applications of AI, which in historical examples of other technologies lag behind by decades. 

“Much of the discussion of AI’s societal impacts ignores this process of adoption,” Kapoor told me, “and expects societal impacts to occur at the speed of technological development.” In other words, the adoption of useful artificial intelligence, in his view, will be less of a tsunami and more of a trickle. ...

There’s one alarming deployment of AI that the authors leave out, though: the use of AI by militaries. That, of course, is picking up rapidly, raising alarms that life and death decisions are increasingly being aided by AI. The authors exclude that use from their essay because it’s hard to analyze without access to classified information, but they say their research on the subject is forthcoming.  ...

“The arms race framing verges on absurd,” Narayanan says. The knowledge it takes to build powerful AI models spreads quickly and is already being undertaken by researchers around the world, he says, and “it is not feasible to keep secrets at that scale.” 

So what policies do the authors propose? Rather than planning around sci-fi fears, Kapoor talks about “strengthening democratic institutions, increasing technical expertise in government, improving AI literacy, and incentivizing defenders to adopt AI.”  ...

See the full story here: https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/29/1115928/is-ai-normal/

The unexpected visionary: Pope Francis on AI, humanity, and the future of work

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During his papacy, Pope Francis brought this moral perspective on AI to the world stage, shaping dialogue well beyond the Vatican. Last year, he delivered a powerful address on AI to world leaders at the G7 summit, noting the dawn of a “cognitive industrial revolution” and calling for “ethical inspiration” to guide AI. In remarks to the World Economic Forum in Davos, he urged the global elite to prioritize human dignity over efficiency, and to ensure AI progress benefits all. And through thought-provoking essays such as Antiqua et Nova (Latin for “old and new”), the Vatican under Pope Francis emphasized that AI must serve humanity, not substitute for it.

It is not surprising for a faith leader to emphasize the human stakes of change. What set Pope Francis apart was his embrace of AI’s full complexity. At a time when many debates narrow AI to either boundless opportunity or inevitable harm, Pope Francis called for a more nuanced understanding that recognized both the promise and the peril, and underscored society’s ability to shape the direction of AI. ...

See the full story here: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-unexpected-visionary-pope-francis-on-ai-humanity-and-the-future-of-work/

AI in Entertainment: Transforming How We Watch, Listen, and Play

PhilNote: nothing new here

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Here are a few real-world examples of how the AI in entertainment helped the creators:

• Scriptwriting: An AI can write movie scripts by providing dialogues and scenes based on popular topics.
• Editing: Thus, AI video editing software reduces hours of work to arrange clips, add a bit of music, and filter the background noise.
• Music generation: AI tools are used by artists for creating beats, remixing tracks, and composing a full piece in minutes.
• Game design: Developers are working with AI to develop intelligent game characters and realistic environments.

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See the full story here: https://pctechmag.com/2025/04/ai-in-entertainment-transforming-how-we-watch-listen-and-play/

The Godfather of AI is more worried than ever about the future of AI

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1. There's a 10%-to-20% risk that AIs will take over ...

2. Is AI a "cute cub" that could someday kill you? ...

3. Hackers will be more effective – banks and more could be at risk ... Dr Hinton's response? Risk mitigation by spreading his money across three banks. ...

4. Authoritarians can misuse AI ...

5. Tech companies aren't focusing enough on AI safety ...

"we're at this very very special point in history where in a relatively short time everything might totally change at a change of a scale we've never seen before. It's hard to absorb that emotionally." ...

See the full story here: https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/the-godfather-of-ai-is-more-worried-than-ever-about-the-future-of-ai

Fake movie trailers were an art form. Then came the AI slop.

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According to an investigation from Deadline, counterfeit trailers have become lucrative enough that some Hollywood studios have asked YouTube for a cut of their ad revenue rather than file copyright complaints and takedowns. Two of the most popular fake-trailer channels — KH Studio and Screen Culture — lost their ability to run ads on their content after Deadline inquired about them.

Jack Malon, a spokesperson for YouTube, confirmed those accounts were “correctly” demonetized for policy violations. He said the company will bar ads on fake trailers when the video’s metadata — which helps tell search engines how to promote it — claims a false affiliation with the original film’s copyright holder, which can “deceive viewers into believing the content is different from what it actually is.” ...

See the full story here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/movies/2025/04/28/fake-movie-trailers-ai-youtube/

Shelly Palmer: ChatGPT now offers ad-free shopping

OpenAI has launched a new online shopping feature inside ChatGPT Search. Announced yesterday via their official X account, the update adds real-time product discovery capabilities, including personalized recommendations, pricing, reviews, images, and direct merchant links – all presented seamlessly within ChatGPT.

Unlike traditional search engines, ChatGPT’s shopping experience is free of sponsored listings and ads. OpenAI emphasized that results are generated independently, using structured product data rather than promotional agreements. The update is available globally across all user tiers (Free, Plus, Pro), and even for users who aren't logged in.

OpenAI’s deeper integration of commerce inside ChatGPT directly challenges Google’s core business model, signaling a future where search, discovery, and purchase could happen in a single conversational flow. Whether users embrace this particular ad-free business model remains to be seen, but one thing is clear: ten blue links won't rise to this challenge.

Prediction: Palantir’s New Deal With NATO Could Revolutionize How Artificial Intelligence (AI) Is Used in the Public Sector. Here’s Why.

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Below, I'm going to break down why this deal with NATO could be a game changer for how AI is deployed in the public sector. More importantly, I'll make the case for why Palantir sits in a unique position to take advantage of the public sector's interest in AI and how the company appears to be supercharged for even more growth.

Taking a closer look at Palantir's revenue breakdown

Palantir's AI applications are sold across the public and private sectors. On the commercial side of the house, large corporations use Palantir to help them organize data across disparate systems and synthesize these workloads into actionable insights. On the government side, Palantir helps the Department of Defense (DOD) on different military and stealth operations.

Per the company's annual filing, Palantir bifurcates its revenue into two categories: government and commercial. In 2024, roughly 55% of Palantir's total revenue stemmed from the government. Taking this one step further, Palantir's 2024 revenue was split into the following geographic demographics: 66% for the U.S., 11% for the United Kingdom, and 23% for the rest of the world. ...

Palantir's MSS brings a unique blend of large language models, generative AI, and machine learning to mission-critical operations ranging from "intelligence fusion and targeting, battlespace awareness and planning, and accelerated decision-making." ...

See the full story here: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/prediction-palantirs-deal-nato-could-160000229.html

The AI-generated movie What’s Next opens a fresh debate over AI filmmaking

... In February, the 75th Berlin International Film Festival featured a movie made entirely of AI-generated video clips: What’s Next? by Cao Yiwen, a film that’s appropriately titled for the kind of conversations it ought to generate. While you’d be hard-pressed to find critics who watched and reviewed the 72-minute film (it has only 50 or so audience ratings between Lettboxd and IMDb, most of which skew negative), the festival’s description — which explicitly notes its artificial nature — generated enough interest that several of its screenings sold out. ...

See the full story here: https://www.polygon.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/563883/whats-next-ai-generated-movie-interview-ethics

‘You Can’t Lick a Badger Twice’: Google Failures Highlight a Fundamental AI Flaw

Here’s a nice little distraction from your workday: Head to Google, type in any made-up phrase, add the word “meaning,” and search. Behold! Google's AI Overviews will not only confirm that your gibberish is a real saying, it will also tell you what it means and how it was derived. ...

But two of its defining characteristics come into play when it explains these invented phrases. First is that it’s ultimately a probability machine; while it may seem like a large-language-model-based system has thoughts or even feelings, at a base level it’s simply placing one most-likely word after another, laying the track as the train chugs forward. That makes it very good at coming up with an explanation of what these phrases would mean if they meant anything, which again, they don’t. ...

The other factor is that AI aims to please; research has shown that chatbots often tell people what they want to hear. In this case that means taking you at your word that "you can't lick a badger twice"  is an accepted turn of phrase. In other contexts, it might mean reflecting your own biases back to you, as a team of researchers led by Xiao demonstrated in a study last year. ...

Compounding these issues is that AI is loath to admit that it doesn’t know an answer. When in doubt, it makes stuff up. ...

See the full story here: https://www.wired.com/story/google-ai-overviews-meaning/

The Man Who Wants AI to Help You ‘Cheat on Everything’

Last month, Roy Lee was suspended from Columbia after he was accused of using AI to “cheat” on technical job interviews for Amazon, Meta, and TikTok. On Sunday, he announced that he raised $5.3 million to start Cluely, a new startup that aims to allow users to similarly “cheat on everything.”  ...

Lee wants people to use Cluely on “Sales calls. Meetings. Negotiations,” the “manifesto” on the software’s website says. “If there’s a faster way to win—we’ll take it. We built Cluely so you never have to think alone again. It sees your screen. Hears your audio. Feeds you answers in real time. While others guess—you’re already right.” ...

“The second realm of negative feedback is that ‘cheating is inherently unethical and immoral.’ This is where we’re trying to do a lot of reframing around what exactly defines cheating, what cheating really is, and what cheating will look like in a future that is AI native,” he said. ...

I tried out a test version of Cluely in a mock interview with Emanuel Maiberg. We pretended Emanuel was interviewing me for a position at 404 Media and I used Cluely to shape my answers. ...

Then Cluely would answer the question it had just heard Emanuel ask me and put its answers in an overlay at the top of my screen. It would come in two pieces: a bright white script I could read verbatim and a darker piece of text below that explained the AI’s reasoning. Because of the way Cluely is programmed, it doesn’t show up in recordings or even screenshots. ...

It also wasn’t that impressive. A few questions into the conversation and Emanuel and I realized it was just feeding me ChatGPT answers to the questions as if I’d typed them in a browser. It also took 20 seconds each time to generate, with Emanuel and I staring at each other while we waited. ...

“The only thing the product really showcased [in the commercial] was ChatGPT in your glasses,” Lee said. ...

Both Lee and the marketing copy for Cluely hammer home that technical innovations are often thought of as cheating. Math teachers worried about the advent of calculators. ...

Every single thing that is rote memorization, that relies on facts that you don’t need in the moment, that are not intrinsically necessary for a human to learn, you won’t need that anymore.”

“Entire school systems will be gone. The entire K-12 education. Everybody sits in a room eight hours a day, takes multiple choice exams. In my future, everything we understand education to be, will be completely gone.” He said that people will explore whatever topics they want from the earliest ages in the “most efficient way possible.” ...

See the full story here: https://www.404media.co/the-man-who-wants-ai-to-help-you-cheat-on-everything/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email