philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

A.I. Is Getting More Powerful, but Its Hallucinations Are Getting Worse

... More than two years after the arrival of ChatGPT, tech companies, office workers and everyday consumers are using A.I. bots for an increasingly wide array of tasks. But there is still no way of ensuring that these systems produce accurate information. ...

The newest and most powerful technologies — so-called reasoning systems from companies like OpenAI, Google and the Chinese start-up DeepSeek — are generating more errors, not fewer. As their math skills have notably improved, their handle on facts has gotten shakier. It is not entirely clear why. ...

“You spend a lot of time trying to figure out which responses are factual and which aren’t,” said Pratik Verma, co-founder and chief executive of Okahu, a company that helps businesses navigate the hallucination problem. “Not dealing with these errors properly basically eliminates the value of A.I. systems, which are supposed to automate tasks for you.” ...

“The way these systems are trained, they will start focusing on one task — and start forgetting about others,” said Laura Perez-Beltrachini, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh who is among a team closely examining the hallucination problem.

Another issue is that reasoning models are designed to spend time “thinking” through complex problems before settling on an answer. As they try to tackle a problem step by step, they run the risk of hallucinating at each step. The errors can compound as they spend more time thinking.

The latest bots reveal each step to users, which means the users may see each error, too. Researchers have also found that in many cases, the steps displayed by a bot are unrelated to the answer it eventually delivers ...

See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/technology/ai-hallucinations-chatgpt-google.html

Anthropic CEO Admits We Have No Idea How AI Works

In an essay published to his personal website, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei announced plans to create a robust "MRI on AI" within the next decade. The goal is not only to figure out what makes the technology tick, but also to head off any unforeseen dangers associated with what he says remains its currently enigmatic nature.

"When a generative AI system does something, like summarize a financial document, we have no idea, at a specific or precise level, why it makes the choices it does — why it chooses certain words over others, or why it occasionally makes a mistake despite usually being accurate," the Anthropic CEO admitted. ...

The whole thing is driven by ingested human creative works, not from first principles of machine intelligence.

"This lack of understanding," Amodei wrote, "is essentially unprecedented in the history of technology." ...

See the full story here; https://futurism.com/anthropic-ceo-admits-ai-ignorance

UBER Expands Its Robotaxi Network with Momenta to Launch Service in Europe

Uber announced on Friday that it is teaming up with Chinese self-driving startup Momenta in order to launch robotaxi services outside the U.S. and China. The first rollout is planned for Europe in early 2026 and will start with safety operators inside the vehicles. Uber’s goal is to combine its global ridesharing network with Momenta’s autonomous driving technology to offer safe and efficient robotaxi rides. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said that this partnership will help make autonomous rides more reliable and affordable worldwide. ...

See the full story here: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/markets/stocks/AMZN/pressreleases/32199578/uber-expands-its-robotaxi-network-with-momenta-to-launch-service-in-europe/

DOGE Is in Its AI Era

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Wherever DOGE has gone, AI has been in tow. Given the opacity of the organization, a lot remains unknown about how exactly it’s being used and where. But two revelations this week show just how extensive—and potentially misguided—DOGE’s AI aspirations are.

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Wherever DOGE has gone, AI has been in tow. Given the opacity of the organization, a lot remains unknown about how exactly it’s being used and where. But two revelations this week show just how extensive—and potentially misguided—DOGE’s AI aspirations are. ...

If nothing else, it’s the shortest path to a maximalist gutting of a major agency’s authority, with the chance of scattered bullshit thrown in for good measure.

At least it’s an understandable use case. The same can’t be said for another AI effort associated with DOGE. As WIRED reported Friday, an early DOGE recruiter is once again looking for engineers, this time to “design benchmarks and deploy AI agents across live workflows in federal agencies.” His aim is to eliminate tens of thousands of government positions, replacing them with agentic AI and “freeing up” workers for ostensibly “higher impact” duties. ... AI agents are still in the early stages; they’re not nearly cut out for this. They may not ever be. It’s like asking a toddler to operate heavy machinery. ...

The problem isn’t artificial intelligence in and of itself. It’s the full-throttle deployment in contexts where mistakes can have devastating consequences. It’s the lack of clarity around what data is being fed where and with what safeguards. ...

AI is neither a bogeyman nor a panacea. It’s good at some things and bad at others. But DOGE is using it as an imperfect means to destructive ends. It’s prompting its way toward a hollowed-out US government, essential functions of which will almost inevitably have to be assumed by—surprise!—connected Silicon Valley contractors.

See the full story here: https://www.wired.com/story/doge-is-in-its-ai-era/

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Sounds Alarm As 50% Of AI Researchers Are Chinese, Urges America To Reskill Amid ‘Infinite Game’

CEO Jensen Huang has urged American policymakers on Thursday to fully embrace artificial intelligence as a long-term strategic priority that demands national investment in workforce development.

What Happened: Huang, speaking at Hill & Valley Forum in Washington, DC, said, "To lead, the U.S. must embrace the technology, invest in reskilling, and equip every worker to build with it."

Huang stressed the importance of understanding competitive advantages in the AI race, noting that “50% of the world’s AI researchers are Chinese” — a factor he says must “play into how we think about the game.” ...

See the full story here; https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-ceo-jensen-huang-sounds-035916833.html

Shelly Palmer / Decode – Visa/MC/PayPal Agent

... Technology is meaningless unless it changes the way we behave. AI agents turn intent ("find me running shoes under $120, deliver by Friday") into action – without a human clicking "buy." This collapses the entire purchase funnel into a single prompt. ...

 Privacy and Security by Design - Both systems ensure agents act only with user consent, using tokenized credentials and authentication layers. Agents must be verified before making transactions. Real-time fraud protection and dispute tools are built in. ...

See the full story here: https://decodeai.ghost.io/ai-agents-can-now-shop-for-you/

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