philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Shelly Palmer

Windsurf, the AI coding startup that is reportedly in the process of being acquired by OpenAI for $3 billion, just launched SWE-1: its first in-house small language model designed specifically for software engineering. ...

The implications line up with my thesis: "Within 36 months, both code and content will be free." ...

As code becomes free to generate, remix, and deploy, content will follow the same path. Vibe-everything models are accelerating the shift. This is no longer just democratization. It is deflation. The marginal cost of creating digital content (of every kind) is quickly approaching zero.

Windsurf’s announcement is a clear signal that the value is moving away from creation and toward distribution. ...

Key AI Developments to Watch This Year

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The Mind-Boggling Surge in AI-Generated Content

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What will be the impact on Internet usage when so much online content is artificially generated and often of low quality? In a sea of so-called "AI slop," how will consumers find authentic, human-authored works? And will human creators be able to compete with an infinite wave of works generated by AI at little or no cost? ...

As websites and online platforms increasingly rely on AI-generated content to attract and engage users, a looming legal question – one that any U.S. court has yet to address – is whether Section 230 provides any protection from claims arising from defamatory and other false information generated by AI tools. ...

Potential Decline in Quality of AI Output ...

Coming Plateau in AI Development? ...

The Debate Over AGI ...

Adoption of AI Tools Across Industries ...

Regulatory Landscape Under the Trump Administration ...

... Just three days after his inauguration, President Trump revoked the Biden administration’s Executive Order on Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence. Less than three weeks later at the AI Action Summit, Vice President Vance reaffirmed the administration’s hands-off approach to AI regulation, warning global leaders that excessive regulation could cripple the AI industry.  ...

... we are already seeing states – especially blue states – pick up the regulatory mantle.  ...

Next-Generation AI Legal Issues ...

How to allocate liability for false information and other problematic outputs produced by AI-fueled chatbots? To what extent might an AI tool developer, or a company making available the AI tool to its customers, or the customers themselves, be liable for such outputs? There is already a Canadian court decision holding Air Canada liable where its online chatbot had negligently misrepresented the company’s bereavement fare policy; in this country, however, liability issues may be complicated by the extent to which Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act may provide protection for the output of generative AI tools.

... As these agents become more common, will they be “click accepting” or otherwise consenting to online contractual terms in the course of performing their tasks and, if so, to what extent will users by bound by such terms? ...

... in future copyright infringement suits, it may prove especially difficult to assess both ownership and the scope of protectable expression, leading to more fact-intensive inquiries (with a greater likelihood of jury trials) and higher litigation costs. ...

Concluding Thoughts ...

See the full story here: https://perkinscoie.com/insights/blog/key-ai-developments-watch-year

FOX Launches an AI-Driven Converged Media Platform Powering the Future of Advertising Impact Across its Iconic Portfolio

Today FOX Advertising announces the launch of the OneFOX converged media platform, powered by AdRise built on a foundation of AI-driven technology and tools.

This intelligence platform will harness audience & contextual signals along with behavioral, creative and campaign analytics to create more personalized ad experiences for consumers and increase ad efficacy for advertisers. ...

"There is a lot of buzz about AI, but we're actually seeing a growing number of partners and customers experiment with AI-driven audience modeling and advanced targeting that will dramatically enhance current identity-based infrastructures," said Stephano Kim, Chief Strategy and Operations Officer, FOX Ad Sales. "As we lean into protecting consumer data and their privacy, we are looking for better alternatives to connecting brands and their consumers in a safe and compliant way." ...

See the full story here: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fox-launches-an-ai-driven-converged-media-platform-powering-the-future-of-advertising-impact-across-its-iconic-portfolio-302452841.html

Shelly Palmer Blog: Copyright Office Head firing

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On Saturday, May 11, the President fired Shira Perlmutter, the head of the U.S. Copyright Office. The timing was extraordinary: her office had released a report just two days earlier (on Friday, May 9), concluding that many current AI training practices likely exceed the boundaries of fair use. No matter your politics, there are two sides to this story, both of which demand serious consideration.

The Constitutional Foundation

Copyright protection isn't just legal doctrine, it's a constitutional right. Article I, Section 8 grants Congress the power "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." This isn't an abstract principle. It's the foundation of how we balance innovation with creator compensation.

What Was Actually Said

The Copyright Office's Copyright and Artificial Intelligence Part 3: Generative AI Training deserves careful reading. It acknowledged that "training a generative AI foundation model on a large and diverse dataset will often be transformative" under fair use analysis. However, it draws a crucial distinction: using copyrighted works for research and analysis likely qualifies as fair use, but "making commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially where this is accomplished through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries."

The report isn't anti-innovation. It recommends against immediate government intervention, suggesting that voluntary licensing markets should develop organically. This measured approach reflected extensive public input: more than 10,000 comments from stakeholders across 50 states and 67 countries.

The Business Reality

Contemporary AI companies face a fundamental cost structure problem. Training state-of-the-art models requires enormous datasets; ChatGPT is estimated to have used more than 300 billion words for training. Acquiring licensing rights for such volumes at market rates would fundamentally alter the economics of AI development.

The Creator Perspective

For artists, writers, journalists, and other content creators, this represents an existential threat. If AI systems can generate substitutes for human creative work using unauthorized training data, the economic foundation of creative industries erodes. The Constitution's copyright clause exists precisely to ensure creators can derive economic benefit from their work, incentivizing continued creative output.

The Questions We Must Ask

What constitutes protectable intellectual property in the age of AI? Should a romance novelist have recourse if an AI generates similar works after training on their complete bibliography? How do we balance the transformative potential of AI with fundamental property rights? Should we prioritize unrestricted AI development or enforce existing intellectual property frameworks? Can we find middle ground that protects creators while enabling technological advancement?

This shouldn't be about politics (not that we have any choice). Our copyright laws are centuries old. AI capable of upending them has been around for less than a planning cycle, and it's evolving faster than any previous technology ever has.

If you have a point of view about this, today is the time to contact your elected officials and let them know. A call, an email, a blog or social media post. Make yourself heard! Today. Right now.

See the full post here: https://shellypalmer.com/?mc_cid=cda44dd937&mc_eid=3ce5196977

AI and the changing character of warfare

Advancements in the field of AI has enabled the introduction of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS) that have the ability to autonomously scan, identify, lock and destroy as well as carry out battle damage assessment over a range of airborne, seaborne and ground based targets with remarkable accuracy. AI-based systems are impacting various domains and influencing decision-making processes at different levels. However, this autonomy often leads to unacceptable collateral damage, posing challenges not only to the desired level of human control but also raising serious concerns about the extent of decision-making autonomy granted to machines. ...

Ruthless and lethal use of AI-driven targeting system was exemplified by IDF in Gaza. In December 2023, The Guardian revealed that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) used an AI-based targeting system called Hesbora (Gospel) to target more than 100 targets in a single day. According to Aviv Kochavi, the former head of IDF, a human intelligence-based system could only identify up to 50 targets in an entire year. ...

Concerted global efforts are needed to legally and ethically advance AI-driven initiatives. Recognising the significance and urgency of this issue, UN Secretary-General António Guterres emphasised in his address during the 2023 New Agenda for Peace policy briefing that "there is a necessity to conclude a legally binding instrument to prohibit the development and deployment of autonomous weapon systems by 2026."

See the full story here: https://tribune.com.pk/story/2545279/ai-and-the-changing-character-of-warfare

Trump fires Copyright Office director after report raises questions about AI training

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“But making commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially where this is accomplished through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries,” it continues.

The Copyright Office goes on to suggest that government intervention “would be premature at this time,” but it expresses hope that “licensing markets” where AI companies pay copyright holders for access to their content “should continue to develop,” adding that “alternative approaches such as extended collective licensing should be considered to address any market failure.” ...

Musk, meanwhile, is a co-founder of both OpenAI and a competing startup, xAI. He recently expressed support for Square founder Jack Dorsey's call to “delete all IP law.”

See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/11/trump-fires-copyright-office-director-after-report-raises-questions-about-ai-training/

Beijing to host humanoid robot sports games at Bird’s Nest, Ice Ribbon

Beijing will host the 2025 World Humanoid Robot Sports Games from August 15 to 17, which will be another sports event for humanoid robots following world's first humanoid robot half-marathon held in April, officials from the Beijing municipal government said on Wednesday.

The games will be held at the two Olympic landmarks in the Chinese capital - the National Stadium, known as the Bird's Nest, and the National Speed Skating Oval, also known as the Ice Ribbon. Local professional sports associations and athletes together with robotics experts jointly finalized the competition events and rules, the China Central Television reported.

The games will feature 11 human sport events for humanoid robots, including track and field, gymnastics and football, among other performance and application competitions. The event aims to showcase current development progress of robotics and future direction by referencing human sport events, said Zhang Hua, an official from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Sports, during a press conference. ...

See the full story here: https://en.people.cn/n3/2025/0508/c90000-20311891.html?mc_cid=2f8e94891d&mc_eid=116e9f337b

The Rise of AI and the End of Hollywood as We Know It

... Despite these high-profile stumbles, social media video has continued its rise. Shapiro calculatesthat "social video represents about one-quarter of all time spent with video in the U.S." and that the "total creator media economy revenue was a little shy of $250 billion last year." By comparison, in 2024, the combined revenues of Disney, NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix, Paramount, Sony Pictures and Lionsgate totaled less than $150 billion. ...

"Any value that exists is a function of the moats in the value chain," Shapiro explains, referring to competitive barriers that protect profitable businesses. ...

Shapiro identifies two historical critical moats in media: "There was a big moat around distribution because it was very capital-intensive, and there was a moat about content creation because it was expensive but risky [as it is] very hits-driven." ...

"The internet caused the cost to move bits to go to zero," he says, "and GenAI could cause the cost to make the bits to go to zero." ...

The democratization of animation tools has already begun reshaping the industry even without AI. At this year's Academy Awards, the Best Animated Feature Oscar went to Flow, a Latvian film made for just $3.6 million using Blender, a free open-source animation software. ...

"When you slump down on the couch after a long day and scroll through [Instagram] Reels for 20 minutes rather than pick up the remote that's an arm's length away," Shapiro writes, "you're revealing that Reels is higher quality than anything on Netflix (or Disney+, Hulu, Max, Amazon Prime, etc.)." What consumers increasingly value, he argues, isn't technical quality but engagement "quality," which is defined by authenticity, relatability and personal relevance. ...

"That parasocial aspect replaces the [need that arises from the] relatively dispersed populations that we now are," Shapiro says, and with recent trends like remote work, "we are losing direct physical-social, so parasocial will be an important part of our lives going forward."

When GenAI tools make high production values accessible to everyone, these elements of connection and authenticity may become even more important differentiators than traditional production values. ...

Importantly, the gap between GenAI's technical capabilities and genuine understanding of human experience may well preserve space for human creators, even in an AI-transformed landscape. The most successful content might combine AI's production capabilities with the authentic human connection that drives today's creator economy. ...

He believes GenAI will move the entertainment industry toward further fragmentation.

"I think that the middle [in] popularity—I would bet against that. I would bet that what you'll see is this increasing atomization into microcultures," he says. I think what you'll see is more and more time will be spent in personalization and in these very small cultures." ...

 "I think a good general question to ask is when one input becomes more abundant, what becomes more scarce? And clearly distribution is becoming more scarce," Shapiro observes. "Owning the end user, owning the platform, being the curator is probably more valuable than ever." ...

The vision Shapiro sketches in our conversation isn't complete disruption or replacement of traditional media but rather a fundamental transformation in creative and economic power. And he argues that GenAI won't eliminate human creativity, but it will democratize who can express that creativity at scale. ...

The Dunbar number—that is the number of other people researchers say our human brains are designed to interact with—is only 150, not the nearly 4 million people who bought tickets to Sinners last weekend. But, as Yuval Harari has noted in his classic text Sapiens, our species will still need the common narratives that unite us, so there will always be a vestigial desire for massive communal experiences at the same instance in time—like trekking to megaplexes for the opening weekend of Avatar 3: Fire & Ash—as well as for common experiences that are asynchronous and more parasocial.

See the full story here: https://www.newsweek.com/nw-ai/rise-ai-end-hollywood-we-know-it-2068807

Netflix embarks on the biggest changes to its user experience since 2013

... Announcing the release of a new home page – to be rolled out on May 19 – the streaming giant revealed it is also testing changes that include a vertical video feed that the company says better suits the mobile watching and sharing experience.

Executives also announced the company is exploring ways to integrate generative artificial intelligence into the experience in partnership with OpenAI.

Netflix said it will enable features such as more visible shortcuts to finding content and real-time recommendations that respond to viewers’ “moods and interests in the moment”. ...

See the full story here: https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/entertainment/tv/2025/05/08/netflix-homepage-changes

Disney to open theme park in the Middle East

... The resort, which will be in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Abu Dhabi's Yas Island, is a collaboration between Walt Disney and local leisure and entertainment company Miral. ...

In a statement announcing the new facility, Disney said the UAE was located within a four-hour flight of one-third of the world's population, making it a "significant gateway for tourism".

It added that 120 million passengers travel through Abu Dhabi and Dubai every year, making the Emirates the biggest global airline hub in the world. ...

See the full story here: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdrgr2zzv00o