philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Tech prophet Mary Meeker just dropped a massive report on AI trends – here’s your TL;DR

... Meeker's data shows AI is being adopted faster than the early internet. ChatGPT, the report's standout example, reached 100 million users in just two months, far eclipsing the growth rates of TikTok, Instagram, or Netflix. By April 2025, ChatGPT had 800 million weekly users and was handling over 365 billion searches annually. These numbers make ChatGPT the fastest-growing consumer technology product in history, achieving in two years what took Google more than a decade. ...

ChatGPT hit the world stage all at once, growing in most global regions simultaneously." ...

In 2025 alone, China released three large-scale open-source AI models, and DeepSeek,  a Chinese large language model (LLM), rapidly captured 21% of the global user share. ...

Everyone is engaged. It's a period for lots of wealth creation and wealth destruction." ...

China now operates more industrial robots than the US and the rest of the world combined, signaling an aggressive push toward automation and AI-driven productivity. ...

In particular, Meeker states, "Professions centered on intaking large bodies of structured, historical data and outputting rules-based decisions and judgment, fall squarely in the core competency of generative AI. ...

"In an extreme, entirely agentic future, humans maintain a role in the system, pivoting towards oversight, guidance, and training. Imagine facilities filled with humans teaching robots intricate movements or offices full of workers providing reinforcement learning human feedback (RLHF) to optimize algorithms. This is not conjecture. Companies like  Physical Intelligence and Scale AI, respectively, are building powerful businesses based on this view of the world." ...

But what will people do when they've trained AI all they know? Meeker is unsure, and it's a question no one can answer. ...

... she does point out that developments in AI accompany advances in robotics and drones to automate manual work. ...

She says, for now, "China … is leading the open-source race, with three large-scale models released in 2025: DeepSeek-R1, Alibaba Qwen-32B, and Baidu Ernie 4.5." While proprietary models power Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, Meeker says, "Open-source technology is fueling sovereign AI initiatives, local language models, and community-led innovation."  ...

As Meeker says, "We're watching two philosophies unfold in parallel -- freedom vs. control, speed vs. safety, openness vs. optimization -- each shaping not just how AI works, but who gets to wield it." ...

The pace of adoption, the intensity of global competition, and the shift toward AI-native business models signal a new era for technology and society. ...

See the full story here: https://www.zdnet.com/article/tech-prophet-mary-meeker-just-dropped-a-massive-report-on-ai-trends-heres-your-tldr/

“NATO for News”: Is a Joint Effort by Media Companies the Way to Go in the Age of AI?

... Jones argued that media companies could “collaborate on our own technology” to ensure control and opportunities rather than deep-pocketed technology giants taking advantage of media firms’ content. Corp echoed that, sharing: “We want to protect our brands while working together.” ...

Slade brought a comparison to an international defense alliance into play at that stage. “Someone described it as a kind of NATO for news,” he said. “At the moment, we’re all spending an enormous amount of money, each incremental to last year’s budget, in just trying to hold stuff back. So there’s a good argument for a lot more collaboration around all aspects.” ...

“What I’m most interested in now is a way for us to prove that if AI companies work with us, we can help train their models faster, more efficiently, more accurately. And that’s worth something, and that should be the catalyst.” ...

The panelists on Tuesday also agreed that a proposed opt-out rule in the U.K. approach to AI, allowing AI companies to use copyrighted works unless the holder actively opts out, is not the right approach. ...

See the full story here: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/nato-for-news-ai-media-conference-london-1236233521/

Google’s Veo 3 AI video generator is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. The world isn’t ready.

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Misinformation experts have been warning for years that we will eventually reach a point where it's impossible for the average person to tell the difference between an AI video and the real thing. With Veo 3, we have officially stepped out of the uncanny valley and into a new era, one where AI videos are a fact of life. ...

Crucially, in addition to video, Veo 3 also produces audio and dialogue. It doesn't just offer photorealism, but fully realized soundscapes and conversations to go along with videos. It can also maintain consistent characters in different video clips, and users can fine-tune camera angles, framing, and movements in entirely new ways. On social media, many users are dumbfounded by the results. ...

Watch short film "Influenders" here: https://youtu.be/zmlbAbWQCVY

"Yes, we used Google Veo 3 exclusively for this video, but to make a piece like this really come to life we needed to do further sound design, clever editing and some upscaling at the end," Dor said in an email to Mashable. "The full piece took around 2 days to complete." Dor added, "Veo 3 is a massive step forward, it’s easily the most advanced tool available publicly right now. We're especially impressed by its dialogue and prompt adherence capabilities." ...

In promoting Veo 3, Google is eager to stress its partnerships with artists and filmmakers like Darren Aronofsky. And it's clear that Veo 3 could drastically reduce the cost of creating animation and special effects. But for content farms and bad actors producing fake news and manipulative outrage bait, Veo 3 is equally powerful. ...

"The SynthID watermark is embedded in all content generated by Google’s AI tools, and our SynthID detector rolled out to early testers last week. We plan to expand access more broadly soon, and as an additional step to help people, we’re adding a visible watermark to Veo videos." ...

TV news anchors speaking into the camera have also been a recurring theme in Veo 3 videos so far, which has worrying implications for the information ecosystem online. ...

See the full story here: https://mashable.com/article/google-veo-3-ai-video

Mary Meeker AI rpt – It’s not your imagination: AI is speeding up the pace of change

... Venture capitalist Mary Meeker just dropped a 340-page slideshow report -  which used the word “unprecedented” on 51 of those pages  ...

“The pace and scope of change related to the artificial intelligence technology evolution is indeed unprecedented, as supported by the data,” she writes in the report, called “Trends — Artificial Intelligence.” ...

ChatGPT reaching 800 million users in 17 months: unprecedented. The number of companies andthe rate at which so many others are hitting high annual recurring revenue rates: also unprecedented. ...

The one area where AI hasn’t outpaced every other tech revolution is in financial returns. ...

See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/30/its-not-your-imagination-ai-is-speeding-up-the-pace-of-change/

See the slide show here; https://www.bondcap.com/reports/tai

How the Loudest Voices in AI Went From ‘Regulate Us’ to ‘Unleash Us’ 

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 In DC, the word “oversight” has fallen out of favor, and the AI discourse is no exception. Instead of advocating for outside bodies to examine AI models to assess risks, or for platforms to alert people when they are interacting with AI, committee chair Ted Cruz argued for a path where the government would not only fuel innovation but remove barriers like “overregulation.” Altman was on board with that. His message was no longer “regulate me” but “invest in me.” He said that overregulation—like the rules adopted by the European Union or one bill recently vetoed in California would be “disastrous.” “We need the space to innovate and to move quickly,” he said. Safety guardrails might be necessary, he affirmed, but they needed to involve “sensible regulation that does not slow us down.” ...

The Trump doctrine of AI regulation seems suspiciously close to that of Trump supporter Marc Andreessen, who declared in his Techno Optimist Manifesto that AI regulation was literally a form of murder because “any deceleration of AI will cost lives.” ...

Public pressure, or some spectacular example of misuse, may lead Congress to address those AI issues at some point. But what lingers for me is the about-face from two years ago when serious worries about catastrophic risk dominated conversations in the AI world. The glaring exception to this is Anthropic, which still hasn’t budged from a late October blog post—just days before the presidential election—that not only urged effective regulation to “reduce catastrophic risks” but pretty much proposed the end of times if we didn’t do it soon. “Governments should urgently take action on AI policy in the next eighteen months,” it read, in boldface. “The window for proactive risk prevention is closing fast.” ...

See the full story here: https://www.wired.com/story/plaintext-sam-altman-ai-regulation-trump/

The Great Pivot: How Hollywood Studios Are Moving Beyond AI Experimentation

Three years ago, Hollywood executives sat silently in the audience at AI on the Lot, a conference on AI’s place in the media industry furiously taking notes while independent filmmakers shared their experiments with artificial intelligence tools. This year, Amazon Studios executives took the stage publicly on Thursday to discuss how they’re using generative AI — a milestone that signals the entertainment industry’s dramatic shift from fearful observer to active participant in the AI revolution.

... The event’s location in Culver City — where Amazon, Apple and other tech companies have planted flags in their bid to reshape entertainment — underscores how the boundaries between Silicon Valley and Hollywood are blurring through AI adoption. ...

...  the goal no longer being to create “AI content” but rather good content that happens to leverage AI tools.  ...

This year’s conference, sold out at 1,200 attendees, had a fundamentally different energy. ...

The conference’s defining moment came when Amazon MGM Studios executives spoke publicly about AI for the first time in a panel titled “Cloud-Connected Workflows to Empower Storytellers With Gen AI.” The session featured Chris Del Conte, director of VFX at Amazon MGM Studios; Gerard Medioni, vice president and distinguished scientist; and Danae Kokenos, head of technology innovation, discussing how the studio is helping creative partners navigate generative AI and integrating these tools into creative pipelines. ...

Dan O’Brien, the 54-year-old mayor of Culver City and feature film and promo editor with 25 years of experience, captured the mood in his remarks during the conference’s opening: “Do I embrace the change that is coming or do I let it roll me over?” ...

A key factor enabling Hollywood’s embrace of AI has been the emergence of “clean models” — AI systems trained on verifiably licensed data rather than scraped web content. Rachel Joy-Victor, co-founder of AI studio FBRC AI who has come to all three AI on the Lot conferences, sees this as crucial to the industry’s adoption. ...

The technology is advancing at breakneck speed, with tools becoming outdated within weeks of release. Video AI models still lag roughly two years behind text-based large language models, according to Amit Jain, the CEO of Luma Labs, ...

See the full story here: https://www.thewrap.com/ai-on-the-lot-hollywood-studio-experimentation/

GOP push to ban state AI laws ignites debate: What to know

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The proposal, tucked into President Trump’s "one big, beautiful bill,"  calls for a 10-year moratorium on state laws regulating AI models, systems or automated decision systems. This includes enforcement of existing and future laws on the state level.  

Proponents of the moratorium argue a patchwork of state laws can be confusing or burdensome for technology companies to follow when operating in multiple parts of the country.  ...

The bill includes some exemptions for states’ enforcement of laws focused on promoting AI development. 

This includes regulations that seek to remove barriers or facilitate the use of AI models and systems or those focused on streamlining processes like licensing or permitting to help AI adoption.  ...

Meanwhile, many Democrats are against the moratorium over concerns it is overreaching and risks harm to consumers in the absence of a federal standard. 

Democratic Rep. Doris Matsui (Calif.) called the moratorium a “slap in the face to American consumers.”  ...

Lawmakers are concerned the provision may not pass the Byrd Rule, a procedural rule in the Senate prohibiting "extraneous matters"  from being included in reconciliation packages. This includes provisions that do not “change outlays or revenues.” ...

See the full story here: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5314757-house-republicans-propose-ai-regulation-ban/

SMPTE Content Validation – C2PA

SMPTE's Bits By the Bay Tackles AI's Impact on Media's Future

... Matt Galek, Footen’s colleague at Deloitte, discussed the issue of authenticated content in the age of AI, elaborating on the latest developments around the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI), a six-year-old project designed to to promote transparency and authenticity in digital content; and the C2PA, a consortium of tech companies tasked with developing the technical standards for content credentials, among other things.

C2PA is the “leading standard” to confirming and maintaining trust in digital content and is on the path to becoming an ISO standard this year, according to Galek, who pointed to the three pillars of technology that drive the standards developed by the CAI: metadata, fingerprinting and watermarking.

“All these together provide a solid foundation for authenticity,” Galek said.

While C2PA’s standards don’t deal with detection of AI-altered media, it starts with the assumption that most of it is now, Galek said. “C2PA kind of assumes that users are going to be changing a piece of media, and [in] some of the research I was looking at, most studies were saying that over 50% of people posting content to social media platforms have manipulated in some way, whether it's due to editing that content or adding a filter,” he said. “So that's a significant amount that has been altered in some way, and kind of unknowingly, you're consuming that media.” ...

... most studies were saying that over 50% of people posting content to social media platforms have manipulated in some way, whether it's due to editing that content or adding a filter,” he said. ...

See the full story here: https://www.tvtechnology.com/features/smptes-bits-by-the-bay-tackles-ais-impact-on-medias-future

AI influencers compete for followers and brand deals on social media

... Back in New York, as the interview wraps with Marjorie, she recognizes that the steady march of AI upending every aspect of work and play isn't slowing down, despite her finding it "dangerous." She adheres to the mantra "adapt or die," ready to harness new technology to gain an influencing edge.

She concludes, "I need to continue to be more human-like and almost over prove myself that I'm a real human being in order to compete with these influencers. So, it's going to get really interesting from here."

See the full story here: https://abcnews.go.com/US/ai-influencers-compete-followers-brand-deals-social-media/story?id=122377888

This movie is fully AI-generated and has a fully SAG-AFTRA cast – here’s 3 things you need to know about Echo Hunter

• Echo Hunter is a new, fully AI-generated sci-fi short film created using Arcana AI
• The cast is SAG-AFTRA actors led by Breckin Meyer
• The film blends traditional voice performances with AI-rendered visuals

Echo Hunter was created by Arcana Labs and written and directed by filmmaker Kavan Cardoza (better known as “Kavan the Kid”). However, unlike any other major AI-produced film, it features a fully unionized cast of SAG-AFTRA actors. You can see a bit of how it came together in the behind-the-scenes video below, but there are a few key things to know about Echo Hunter and its AI origins. ...

See the full story here: https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/this-movie-is-fully-ai-generated-and-has-a-fully-sag-aftra-cast-heres-3-things-you-need-to-know-about-echo-hunter