philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

New 2025 California laws: Artificial intelligence, octopuses, cannabis cafes and more

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

(SB 926) Deepfakes
Makes it a crime to create and distribute sexually explicit images of a real person that are artificially generated but made to appear authentic with the purpose of causing that person emotional distress.

(SB 981) Sexually Explicit Images
Requires that social media platforms establish a mechanism for users who are California residents to report sexually explicit images that were created or altered digitally but made to appear authentic. Social media companies must take down the content while they investigate the complaint.

(AB 1836 & 2602) Digital Likeness
Protects deceased actors and performers from having their image, likeness or voice reproduced without authorization by artificial intelligence. The law requires consent from the actor's estate before their likeness can be digitally replicated. A similar law (AB 2602) allows performers to back out of existing contracts if the language is vague enough to allow studios to digitally clone their image or voice in the future without expressed consent.

...

See the full story here: https://abc7news.com/post/new-2025-california-laws-artificial-intelligence-protection-octopuses-cannabis-cafes-more/15652909/

China stamps out tech misuse to preserve national literature and ideology

... The Chinese government says AI's "peculiar adaptations" from classic television dramas based on Chinese literature are "highly deceptive." ...

The National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA), the agency that oversees state broadcasting, last week issued a notice calling on its supervisory bodies to clean up videos that use AI to create jokes derived from Chinese cultural touchstones. ...

The broadcast watchdog said these AI-remastered jokes "seek to gain traffic without boundaries and disrespect classic intellectual properties."

It added that they "challenge traditional cultural perceptions, go against the core spirit of the original works and may constitute copyright infringement." ...

The call to clean up AI-remastered content aligns with China's campaign to control online information and clean up information it deems undesirable, such as that deemed contrary to traditional values or related to materialism, extreme individualism and "historical nihilism."

Historical nihilism is a term coined by the Communist Party for challenges to its official version of history, which it sees as undermining its legitimacy. ...

Beijing has taken many efforts to regulate AI, including its "Administrative Provisions on Deep Synthesis in Internet-based Information Services" implemented in January 2023, which require clear labelling of content that could confuse or mislead the public. ...

See the full story here: https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/12/501_388504.html

Drake’s Tour Down Under: A Tech-Infused Spectacle! Discover the Future of Live Concerts.

....

This tour, simply named “Drake: Future Vision,” will feature innovative tech solutions that transform how audiences engage with the artist. Fans will be equipped with AR glasses that offer additional layers of interactive content, from dynamic lyrics floating in real-time to intricate visual effects that extend beyond the physical stage.

Moreover, leveraging the power of 5G technology, concert-goers will experience ultra-immersive VR content, allowing them to virtually step on stage alongside the artist, or even explore Drake’s hometown of Toronto through meticulously reconstructed 3D environments.

This tour marks a significant shift in the live music industry, focusing on delivering a blend of physical and digital experiences. Entertainment tech startups across Australia are excitedly collaborating with Drake’s team to bring these concepts to life, marking a potential pivot point in global concert trends. ...

The tour’s most notable innovation includes providing fans with AR glasses that offer real-time interactive content...

See the full story here: https://www.qhubo.com.ni/news2/drakes-tour-down-under-a-tech-infused-spectacle-discover-the-future-of-live-concerts/11651/

Leading AI Companies Get Lousy Grades on Safety 

A new report from the Future of Life Institute gave mostly Ds and Fs

The just-released AI Safety Index graded six leading AI companies on their risk assessment efforts and safety procedures... and the top of class was Anthropic, with an overall score of C. The other five companies—Google DeepMind, Meta, OpenAI, xAI, and Zhipu AI—received grades of D+ or lower, with Meta flat out failing. 

“The purpose of this is not to shame anybody,” says Max Tegmark, an MIT physics professor and president of the Future of Life Institute, which put out the report. “It’s to provide incentives for companies to improve.” ...

The Future of Life Institute is a nonprofit dedicated to helping humanity ward off truly bad outcomes from powerful technologies, and in recent years it has focused on AI. In 2023, the group put out what came to be known as “the pause letter,” which called on AI labs to pause development of advanced models for six months, and to use that time to develop safety standards. Big names like Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak signed the letter (and to date, a total of 33,707 have signed), but the companies did not pause. ...

All six companies scaled particularly badly on their existential safety strategies. The reviewers noted that all of the companies have declared their intention to build artificial general intelligence(AGI), but only Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and OpenAI have articulated any kind of strategy for ensuring that the AGI remains aligned with human values. ...

“I feel that the leaders of these companies are trapped in a race to the bottom that none of them can get out of, no matter how kind-hearted they are,” Tegmark says. ...

https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-safety

Human Misuse Will Make Artificial Intelligence More Dangerous

... However, in 2025, AI will still pose a massive risk: not from artificial superintelligence, but from human misuse. ...

Other misuses are intentional. In January 2024, sexually explicit deepfakes of Taylor Swift flooded social media platforms. ...

In 2025, it will get even harder to distinguish what’s real from what’s made up. The fidelity of AI-generated audio, text, and images is remarkable, and video will be next. This could lead to the "liar's dividend": those in positions of power repudiating evidence of their misbehavior by claiming that it is fake. In 2023, Tesla argued that a 2016 video of Elon Musk could have been a deepfake in response to allegations that the CEO had exaggerated the safety of Tesla autopilot leading to an accident. ...

Meanwhile, companies are exploiting public confusion to sell fundamentally dubious products by labeling them “AI.” This can go badly wrong when such tools are used to classify people and make consequential decisions about them.  ...

Mitigating these risks is a mammoth task for companies, governments, and society. It will be hard enough without getting distracted by sci-fi worries.

See the full story here: https://www.wired.com/story/human-misuse-will-make-artificial-intelligence-more-dangerous/

OpenAI’s controversial Sora is finally launching today. Will it truly disrupt Hollywood?

...

On Monday, Sora faces its next big test as OpenAI, best known for the ChatGPT text bot, makes it available to the broader public. In the U.S., consumers can use Sora with a ChatGPT Plus subscription, which costs $20 a month. It can generate up to 50 videos of up to 20 seconds long. Customers can get more Sora usage, higher resolution and longer videos with a ChatGPT Pro subscription.

OpenAI executives say Sora will lead to new possibilities for artists and creatives. ...

Sora’s proponents say it could help artists test bold ideas without as many budget constraints. Alexia Adana, a New York-based creative director and visual artist, made the case that it could enable more stories from people, including underrepresented creators, who lack financial resources or equipment. ...

Adana used Sora to create a film concept called “Bloomchild,” which depicted a child made of soil and dirt who blooms and struggles to fit in. She said it was influenced by her own experiences as a person from Jamaica who grew up in the suburbs of Connecticut. ...

“Sora can help, much like a camera, editing equipment, or great performance,” Woodman said in an email. “But without great storytelling and storytellers, it will be just a tool on the shelf. However, those with talent are in for a creative awakening.”

See the full story here; https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2024-12-09/openais-controversial-text-to-video-tool-sora-is-widely-released

Amazon forms an AI agent-focused lab led by Adept’s co-founder

Amazon says that it’s establishing a new R&D lab in San Francisco, the Amazon AGI SF Lab, to focus on building “foundational” capabilities for AI agents. 

The Amazon AGI SF Lab will be led by David Luan, the co-founder of AI startup Adept, and will seek to build agents that can “take actions in the digital and physical worlds,” and “handle complex workflows” using computers, web browsers and code interpreters. ...

See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/09/amazon-forms-a-new-ai-agent-focused-lab-led-by-adept-co-founder/

Apple hints at radically different AGI view than AI competitors

... In other words, Giannandrea isn’t ruling out Apple being involved in AGI-related breakthroughs, but the end goal isn’t AGI, it’s user-facing products to improve people’s lives. And Apple’s AI head thinks some common AGI optimism is ‘very naive.’ ...

See the full article here: https://9to5mac.com/2024/12/09/apple-hints-at-radically-different-agi-view-than-ai-competitors/

“You can’t have a believable performance without an actor,” Jennifer Howell of Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Deep Voodoo told a Red Sea Film Fest market panel. But “other jobs, I think, will shift.”

...

Jacquemin mentioned that the public hasn’t really seen any major AI movies from Hollywood released so far. “The interest from studios has gone up a lot over the past year,” Howell said though. “We have met with all the studios. We are doing productions with a handful of them.” Everyone is still in the earlier stages of trying to figure out how to use it though, she concluded. 

Deep Voodo, which two years ago raised $20 million, has used its technology for such content as YouTube series Sassy Justice and a Kendrick Lamar music video. ...

Echoed Jacquemin:... “I think we will see AI effectively democratizing access,” highlighting: “About 20 years ago, when YouTube was created, it ultimately gave birth to an entirely new generation of storytellers.”

See the full story here: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/ai-pro-con-red-sea-souk-wme-superpowers-vision-deepfake-1236080804/

I went to an AI art awards show and it was an eye-opening experience

This is an interesting AI art competition, with mostly China sponsors, mostly European winners, and a global panel of judges. Pictures of the winning submissions at the link.

See the full story here: https://www.creativebloq.com/art/i-went-to-an-ai-art-awards-show-and-it-was-an-eye-opening-experience