philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Six (or seven) predictions for AI 2026 from a Generative AI realist

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5. No country will take a decisive lead in the GenAI “race”. 
6. Work on new approaches such as world models and neurosymbolic will escalate.
7. 2025 will be known as the year of the peak bubble, and also the moment at which Wall Street began to lose confidence in generative AI. Valuations may go up before they fall, but the Oracle craze early in September and what has happened since will in hindsight be seen as the beginning of the end.
8. Backlash to Generative AI and radical deregulation will escalate. In the midterms, AI will be an election issue for first time. Trump may eventually distance himself from AI because of this backlash.

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See the full story here: https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/six-or-seven-predictions-for-ai-2026

The Disney is Dying – Apple Should Pull the Plug

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Ten years ago, the gap between these two giants was manageable. Apple was worth approximately $500 billion. Disney sat at $200 billion. It was a partnership of equals. Steve Jobs was Disney’s largest individual shareholder; Bob Iger sat on Apple’s board. Today, that relationship has warped. Apple is hovering near a $4 trillion valuation. Disney is still stuck at $200 billion.

The gap tells the story of the last decade. Big Tech fought a war for media dominance, and the traditional media companies lost. Amazon absorbed MGM to secure James Bond. Google turned YouTube into the largest television platform on Earth. Netflix built a half-trillion-dollar global content engine. Disney, the company that defined American entertainment for a century, is now the smallest player in the room. ...

We are entering an era where AI models are commodities. The underlying technology powering ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude is rapidly converging. In two years, the average user will not care which Large Language Model provides the answer. They will care about the interface. They will care about the personality. Trust is the new moat.

Apple understands hardware and software, but it struggles with “soul.” ...

When Apple integrates Disney’s IP into its AI layer, the paradigm shifts. A child does not ask a generic voice assistant for help with homework. They ask Yoda, and the AI responds with the syntax, wisdom, and voice of the character, powered by Apple’s secure on-device intelligence. ...

Disney is the missing link for spatial computing. Disney does not just tell stories. It builds worlds. The reason people pay thousands of dollars to visit Disney World is to physically step into a narrative. The Vision Pro allows them to do that from their living room. ...

See the full story here: https://kenradio.substack.com/p/the-disney-is-dying?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

British Actors Vote To Refuse On-Set Digital Scans Amid Growing AI Dispute

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Equity asked its 7,000 members: “Are you prepared to refuse digital scanning on set to secure adequate AI protections?” Harriet Walter, Hugh Bonneville, and Adrian Lester were among the 99% who voted, “Yes.” The ballot turnout was 75%. ...

See the full story here: https://deadline.com/2025/12/equity-british-actors-vote-digital-scand-ai-dispute-1236652329/

The new ChatGPT Images is here

Today, we’re releasing a new version of ChatGPT Images⁠(opens in a new window), powered by our new flagship image generation model. Now, whether you’re creating something from scratch or editing a photo, you’ll get the output you’re picturing. It makes precise edits while keeping details intact, and generates images up to 4x faster. Alongside, we’re introducing a new Images feature⁠(opens in a new window)within ChatGPT, designed to make image generation delightful—to spark inspiration and make creative exploration effortless. ...

Now, when you ask for edits to an uploaded image, the model adheres to your intent more reliably—down to the small details—changing only what you ask for while keeping elements like lighting, composition, and people’s appearance consistent across inputs, outputs, and subsequent edits. ...

See the full press release here: https://openai.com/index/new-chatgpt-images-is-here

Stanford AI Experts Predict What Will Happen in 2026

... AI sovereignty will gain huge steam this year as countries try to show their independence from the AI providers and from the United States’ political system. What is AI sovereignty? In one model of sovereignty, a country might build its own large LLM. In another example, a country might run someone else’s LLM on their own GPUs so that they can make sure their data doesn’t leave their country. ...

So far, financial markets and big tech companies have doubled down on AI, spending massive amounts of money and human capital, and building gargantuan computing infrastructures to sustain AI growth and development. Yet already there are signs that AI may not accomplish everything we hope it will. There are also hints that AI, in some cases, can misdirect, deskill, and harm people. And there is data showing that the current buildout of AI comes with tremendous environmental costs. ...

See the full collection of thoughts here: https://hai.stanford.edu/news/stanford-ai-experts-predict-what-will-happen-in-2026

What even is the AI bubble?

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What makes this moment surreal is the honesty. The same people pouring billions into AI will openly tell you it might all come crashing down. 

Taylor framed it as two truths existing at once. “I think it is both true that AI will transform the economy,” he told me, “and I think we’re also in a bubble, and a lot of people will lose a lot of money. I think both are absolutely true at the same time."

He compared it to the internet. Webvan failed, but Instacart succeeded years later with essentially the same idea. If you were an Amazon shareholder from its IPO to now, you’re looking pretty good. If you were a Webvan shareholder, you probably feel differently. ...

Maybe AI will save us from our own irrational exuberance. But for now, we’re living in an in-between moment when everyone knows what’s coming but keeps blowing more air into the balloon anyway. As Altman put it that night at dinner: “Someone is going to lose a phenomenal amount of money. We don’t know who.”

See the full story here: https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/12/15/1129183/what-even-is-the-ai-bubble/

Anthropic’s Chief Scientist Says We’re Rapidly Approaching the Moment That Could Doom Us All

Anthropic’s chief scientist Jared Kaplan is making some grave predictions about humanity’s future with AI. ...

Such a point is fast approaching, he says in a new interview with The Guardian. By 2030, Kaplan predicts, or as soon as 2027, humanity will have to decide whether to take the “ultimate risk” of letting AI models train themselves. The ensuing “intelligence explosion” could elevate the tech to new heights, birthing a so-called artificial general intelligence (AGI) which equals or surpasses human intellect and benefits humankind with all sorts of scientific and medical advancements. Or it could allow AI’s power to snowball beyond our control, leaving us at the mercy of its whims. ...

Kaplan conceded it’s possible that AI’s capabilities could stagnate. “Maybe the best AI ever is the AI that we have right now,” he mused. “But we really don’t think that’s the case. We think it’s going to keep getting better.”

See the full story here: https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/anthropic-ai-scientist-doom

The white-collar layoffs have come to McKinsey

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The company is planning deep cuts across its non-client-facing staff, Bloomberg reports, as much as 10% of headcount within some areas, a move that could eliminate several thousand jobs over the next 18 to 24 months. ...

But AI has also opened up consulting opportunities as major firms advise the globe's biggest companies on how to integrate the new technology — making it difficult to get a precise read on the overall consulting industry's state. ...

McKinsey’s move lands with particular symbolic weight because of the firm’s cultural role in white-collar America. When McKinsey — an emblem of elite professions — lays off workers, it often means the larger white-collar labor cycle has turned negative. ...

See the full story here: https://qz.com/mckinsey-layoffs-white-collar-jobs-ai

Trump threatens funding for states over AI regulations

• Trump says state rules stymie innovation
• Administration must act with Congress to work on national standard, Trump says
• Critics say Trump order will create 'lawless Wild West'

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"To win, United States AI companies must be free to innovate without cumbersome regulation," the order said, adding that the current patchwork of different regulatory regimes made compliance more challenging, especially for start-ups. ...

Yet state leaders from both major political parties have said they need the power to put guardrails around AI, particularly as Congress has consistently failed to pass laws governing the tech industry.

New York state last month became the first to enact a law requiring online retailers that employ "surveillance pricing" to disclose their use of algorithms and customers' personal data. California and lawmakers in Washington are considering bans on such methods, which are also known as "personalized pricing." ...

See the full story here: https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-says-he-will-sign-order-curbing-state-ai-laws-2025-12-11/

Fortnite meets Hunger Games: There are no humans in this YouTube reality show

PhilNote: Isn't this Twitch without humans?

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The entire project was completed by just five people in under two months, with a budget of around $28,000.

The concept: six fully autonomous AI characters battling for survival on a treacherous island. But there's no script – the story unfolds entirely on its own. Each character is shaped by AiMation's proprietary engine, Omnigen-01, which gives them unique psychological profiles, backstories, traumas and motivations. Once the simulation begins, the characters act independently. As Tom Paton puts it, "We created the psychology, not the plot." Even the creators have no idea how each episode will end. ...

Returning to the question posed earlier: so far, reality shows without human participants haven't resonated strongly with audiences. At the time of writing, episode one had around 130 likes compared to 550 dislikes. Many viewers criticize the dialogue as stiff, the scenes as unnatural and the overall concept as "soulless".  ...

See the full story here: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Fortnite-meets-Hunger-Games-There-are-no-humans-in-this-YouTube-reality-show.1183330.0.html