philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

One Year After Governor Shapiro Signed Executive Order, Pennsylvania is Leading the Way in Responsible, Ethical Use of Artificial Intelligence that Empowers Workers

Governor Shapiro spoke at the inaugural AI Horizons Summit in Pittsburgh and joined leaders from Carnegie Mellon University, University of Pittsburgh, and NVIDIA to Launch First-of-its-Kind AI Tech Community in Pittsburgh

The Shapiro Administration has incorporated introductory lessons about generative AI into training for Commonwealth employees, launched a first-in-the-nation pilot program with OpenAI to empower state workers, and leveraged partnerships with leading universities and private sector innovators

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See the full story here: https://www.pa.gov/en/governor/newsroom/2024-press-releases/ethical-use-of-artificial-intelligence-that-empowers-workers.html

California’s AI Safety Bill Is Dead, but the Regulation Debate Lives On

... “I think we should be very narrowly focused on the application of AI, not the training of AI models and the operation of AI models,” Aaron Levie, co-founder and chief executive of Box, said at The Wall Street Journal’s CIO Network Summit in New York on Tuesday. Levie added that he was against SB 1047 and the government shouldn’t risk slowing down the pace of AI innovation.

“Right now, we need as much progress as humanly possible,” he said. Levie added that is especially the case since he believes we are still far away from any kind of existential risk from AI - although that is debated. ...

See the full story here: https://www.wsj.com/articles/specter-of-dead-california-ai-safety-bill-haunts-cio-event-42db9a6b

How GenAI makes foreign influence campaigns on social media even worse

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 The same campaign can post a message with one account and then have other accounts that its organizers also control “like” and “unlike” it hundreds of times in a short time span. Once the campaign achieves its objective, all these messages can be deleted to evade detection. Using these tricks, foreign governments and their agents can manipulate social media algorithms that determine what is trending and what is engaging to decide what users see in their feeds. ...

In addition to posting machine-generated content, harmful comments, and stolen images, these bots engaged with each other and with humans through replies and retweets. ...

In a recent paper, we introduced a social media model called SimSoM that simulates how information spreads through the social network., The model has the key ingredients of platforms such as Instagram, X, Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon: an empirical follower network, a feed algorithm, sharing and resharing mechanisms, and metrics for content quality, appeal, and engagement. ...

These insights suggest that social media platforms should engage in more - not less - content moderation to identify and hinder manipulation campaigns and thereby increase their users’ resilience to the campaigns. ...

Regulation should therefore target AI content dissemination via social media platforms rather than AI content generation. For instance, before a large number of people can be exposed to some content, a platform could require its creator to prove its accuracy or provenance. ...

See the full story here: https://www.fastcompany.com/91205647/generative-ai-foreign-influence-campaigns-social-media-research

Shelly Palmer email

In the news: Meta has launched Movie Gen, a new AI-powered video creation tool for small businesses. Movie Gen allows users to generate video content from prompts, edit existing videos, and add synchronized sound effects and music. It will not be available for open developer use but is intended for collaboration with the entertainment industry and content creators.

The big win for businesses is lower production costs – not only direct reduction of non-working media budgets, but also a significant decrease in the workflow timelines and an even more significant reduction in the number of people who will have to be involved.

Movie Gen joins other AI video generation tools such as OpenAI's Sora, Google's Lumiere, Runway Gen-2, Stability AI's Stable Video Diffusion, Pika Labs, and Nvidia's Vid2Vid, but it is purpose built to help users quickly create video ads suitable for Facebook and Instagram.

The value of generative AI video tools is clear. The only question is, "When will one of these tools suit your needs." For many, the answer will be Meta's Movie Gen. And, remember, today is the worst these tools will ever be.

Fox Technology Chief Calls on Entertainment Companies to Be ‘Peers to Big Tech’ While Exploiting AI

Hollywood studios need to approach artificial intelligence as “peers” rather than subordinates to Big Tech, Fox’s chief technology officer Melody Hildebrandt said at TheGrill conference on Tuesday. “There’s incredible opportunity, but I think we really need to think of ourselves as peers to Big Tech in the exploitation of it,” she said.

Hildebrandt spoke on TheGrill panel “The Next Frontier: How AI Is Reshaping the Studio System” alongside Yves Bergquist, director of AI and neuroscience in media at USC’s Entertainment Technology Center. ...

“The media industry is very much a technology industry,” Bergquist said. “The media industry is actually the only industry that has been successful at integrating technology and human creativity.”

While expressing a strong belief in AI’s utility, Hildebrandt noted that the entertainment industry can’t just be the creators of content that gets sucked up by AI.

“There’s a real risk where, again, we just become the inputs,” Hildebrandt said. “And I think we’ve kind of been through this rodeo before, a little bit, with technology, where we take a short-term view, and we really need to take a long-term view and participate as equity holders through the exploitation of the technology in a fair way with the right guardrails around it.” ...

Hildebrandt shared ways that AI is being quietly shared throughout projects in ways that many members of the audience have no idea about, including in Fox’s sports coverage. Hildebrandt also noted that Fox has encouraged the use of AI by its employees throughout the organization in day-to-day activities, giving an example of one staff member who used ChatGPT’s customization options to automate a significant portion of her workflow working with metadata across a variety of systems. ...

See the full story here: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/fox-technology-chief-calls-entertainment-231619033.html

It’s Time to TerminateEverything You Believe About A.I.

... (describe generative AI)

Imagine you have a robot that can create things like text, pictures, or even music based on instructions you give it. This robot doesn’t “think” like a human, but it’s trained to understand and learn from a huge amount of information, like books, websites, or images. Then, when you ask it to do something, it uses that knowledge to generate something new that looks or sounds like it was made by a person.

For example, you could ask it to write a story, and it will come up with one for you, or you could ask it to make a picture of a sunny beach, and it will create that too. This ability to create, or “generate,” is why it’s called “generative” AI. It helps people by automating creative tasks that would usually take time and effort!

... When working with AI, the key is to ask open-ended questions. Closed questions usually get limited answers, but open-ended questions can lead to deeper thinking and creative ideas. Once you ask a question, think of it as a dialogue. Keep asking to get better and deeper answers. ...

Maintain Evolving AI Conversations

Iterative questioning: Start broad, then narrow it down based on responses. “How should I analyze my competition in the market?” Then, “How could I look at my pricing strategies compared to these competitors?”

Contextual Prompts: Provide relevant information to guide the AI.

• Company Data: Share relevant metrics, recent performance reports, market trends, and competitor analysis.

• Project Details: Include project goals, timelines, team roles and any current challenges.

• Customer Insights: Data on customer preferences, pain points and feedback.

• Role-Playing Scenarios: Ask the AI to adopt specific personas or roles: “As a financial advisor, how would you approach investment diversification?”

These techniques en­sure your interaction re­mains dynamic and productive, tapping into the current potential of AI collaboration for idea generation and problem-solving.

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An AI Augmented Workforce

Sometimes, it’s natural to think that bigger is better. But there’s a line of thinking in VR that smaller language models are more suited to specific tasks. The next stage of AI development will see function-specific AIs working together as teams. ...

Everyone Will Have An AI Version of Themselves

Meta’s recent release of AI Studio marks a significant leap in the realm of Creator AI. This platform allows anyone to craft an AI avatar, essentially creating a digital twin capable of interacting with audiences on their behalf. ...

This development brings up critical questions regarding content ownership and authenticity. If anyone can create an AI version of a public figure, how do we ensure its legitimacy? For instance, could someone unauthorizedly produce a Bob Cooney AI? (Hint: I already have.) ...

See the full story here: https://www.replaymag.com/bob-cooney-siggraph-2024/?utm_source=thevrcollective.beehiiv.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=inside-vr-ai-pac-man-vr-haunts-and-so-much-more

Grindr is testing an AI ‘wingman’ bot, CEO says

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The wingman will apparently keep track of users' favorite matches and make suggestions ranging from long-term relationship candidates to date spots. Later on, the wingman may be able to make restaurant reservations and converse with other wingman bots so users have a "robust view" of each other by the time they meet in person, WSJ reported.

The Wall Street Journal listed some preliminary issues with this idea. For one, Grindr needs to ensure this won't be a privacy and safety risk in areas where it isn't safe to be outwardly gay. Furthermore, Grindr sold user location data through ad networks for years, and AI data could pose another privacy risk. ...

See the full story here: https://mashable.com/article/grindr-is-testing-an-artificial-intelligence-wingman-bot-ceo-says

Using AI to buy your home? These companies think it’s time you should.

... Raffi Isanians, the cofounder and CEO of Modern Realty, which calls itself an "AI Realtor for Home Buyers," believes the search part of the process is secondary. Consumers care most about having a human agent help with pricing strategy and negotiations, he said, and Modern has built its model accordingly. ...

Consumers should also find out how their personal information will be used by the systems, Tompkins said. The amount of personal and financial information used to buy a home, from bank statements to credit scores and social security numbers, makes this a critical question. ...

See the full story here: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/real-estate/2024/10/07/should-you-use-ai-to-buy-home/75511235007/?mc_cid=be566960c7&mc_eid=3ce5196977

After killing HoloLens, Microsoft shows it hasn’t given up on AR with military grade headset

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Anduril Industries has a unique approach to the defense industry, similar to Tesla’s disruption in the automotive sector. In just a few years, the company has found success with the military by providing efficient and cost-effective solutions that challenge traditional manufacturing models. Anduril already has a diverse portfolio of products and has become a key supplier to the US military.

Their stated goal is to “transform the defense capabilities of the United States and its allies” through intelligent, affordable and adaptable weaponry. Anduril’s notable projects include Ghost-X, an autonomous reconnaissance drone developed in collaboration with the US Army Aviation Command and DARPA, with the first units expected by the end of the year. They also created Barracuda, a series of AI missiles designed for autonomous use. Using a streamlined manufacturing process that halves the number of parts and doubles the production rate, Anduril claims these missiles are 30% cheaper than their competitors. ...

See the full story here: https://www.techcentral.ie/after-killing-hololens-microsoft-shows-it-hasnt-given-up-on-ar-with-military-grade-headset/

Even the ‘godmother of AI’ has no idea what AGI is

In a wide ranging discussion on Thursday at Credo AI’s responsible AI leadership summit, Fei-Fei Li, a world-renowned researcher often called the “godmother of AI,” said she doesn’t know what AGI is either. At other points, Li discussed her role in the birth of modern AI, how society should protect itself against advanced AI models, and why she thinks her new unicorn startup World Labs is going to change everything.

But when asked what she thought about an “AI singularity,” Li was just as lost as the rest of us.

“I come from academic AI and have been educated in the more rigorous and evidence-based methods, so I don’t really know what all these words mean,” said Li to a packed room in San Francisco, beside a big window overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. “I frankly don’t even know what AGI means. Like people say you know it when you see it, I guess I haven’t seen it. The truth is, I don’t spend much time thinking about these words because I think there’s so many more important things to do…” ...

See the full article here: https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/03/even-the-godmother-of-ai-has-no-idea-what-agi-is/