philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Looking Glass Factory CEO Discusses 3D Spatial Monitors and the Accessiblity of AR wearables, VR Headsets

Shawn Frayne, CEO and Co-Founder of Looking Glass Factory speaks exclusively on the new rising tech trend

Looking Glass Factory is developing its spatial monitors with enterprise clients and consumers in mind. “We make the only commercially available way for more than one person to see something in 3D without a headset,” remarked Frayne.

Last month, Looking Glass unveiled new products to kick off its journey. The company is now distributing 16-inch and 32-inch XR displays for enterprise and rolling out the Looking Glass Go, a more straightforward consumer display device. ...

See the full story here: https://www.xrtoday.com/augmented-reality/looking-glass-factory-ceo-discusses-3d-spatial-monitors-and-the-accessiblity-of-ar-wearables-vr-headsets/

This Seattle theater company plans to use AI in its play

In Elmer Rice’s 1923 play “The Adding Machine,” an office drone is plunged into existential crisis when his accounting job is replaced by mechanical technology. A hundred years later, artificial intelligence promises (or threatens) to do much more: write all our emails, create all our spreadsheets. And maybe, perform in all our plays?

How might that work? Consider The Feast’s staging of Rice’s play, a production dubbed “The Adding Machine: A Cyborg Morality Play,” opening Sept. 14 (previews begin Sept. 12) at The Lee Center for the Arts on Seattle University’s campus. ...

The production will involve generative AI in its scenic and costume design and will employ chatbot tools, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, to create characters that interact with the play’s five human actors. Throughout the play, actors will prompt the AI tools onstage and receive responses via text or voice in real time. While the play’s structure and around 80% of its text will remain fixed from show to show, the rest will require the cast to improvise in these interactions. ...

See the full story here: https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/theater/this-seattle-theater-company-plans-to-use-ai-in-its-play/

South Korea summit to target ‘blueprint’ for using AI in the military

South Korea convened an international summit on Monday seeking to establish a blueprint for the responsible use of artificial intelligence in the military, though any agreement is not expected to have binding powers to enforce it.

More than 90 countries including the United States and China have sent government representatives to the two-day summit in Seoul, which is the second such gathering.

At the first summit, held in Amsterdam last year, the United States, China and other nations endorsed a modest "call to action" without legal commitment. ...

South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul said discussions would cover areas such as a legal review to ensure compliance with international law and mechanisms to prevent autonomous weapons from making life-and-death decisions without appropriate human oversight. ...

The Seoul summit, co-hosted by the Netherlands, Singapore, Kenya and the United Kingdom, aims to ensure ongoing multi-stakeholder discussions in a field where technological developments are primarily driven by the private sector, but governments are the main decision makers.

About 2,000 people globally have registered to take part in the summit, including representatives from international organizations, academia and the private sector, to attend discussions on topics such as civilian protection and AI use in the control of nuclear weapons. ...

See the full story here: https://www.voanews.com/a/south-korea-summit-to-target-blueprint-for-using-ai-in-the-military/7776624.html

Cinépolis Opens First MacroXE ScreenX Theatre

Cinépolis, the leading Mexican film exhibition company, and CJ 4DPlex have announced the opening of the first MacroXE ScreenX theatre at its Escala Morelia complex (Plaza Morelia), in the state of Morelia, Michoacán.

The opening at Cinépolis Escala Morelia is in addition to the two theatres already available in the country; and that, due to the characteristics of the format, becomes a truly differentiated experience that revolutionizes traditional cinema. ScreenX implements a 270º multi-projection system. The combining of MacroXE’s immersive sound and 19-meter center screen with ScreenX will create a unique premium experience for the Cinepolis movie goers. ...

See the full story here: https://www.digitalcinemareport.com/news/cinépolis-opens-first-macroxe-screenx-theatre

OpenAI searches for an answer to its copyright problems

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And OpenAI may lose because of the licensing deals it negotiated. Those deals created a market for the publishers’ data, and under copyright law, if you’re disrupting such a market, well, that’s not fair use. This particular line of argument most recently came up in a Supreme Court case about an Andy Warhol painting that was found to unfairly compete with the original photograph used to create the painting.

The legal questions aren’t the only ones, of course. There’s something even more basic I’ve been wondering about: do people want answer engines, and if so, are they financially sustainable? Search isn’t just about finding answers — Google is a way of finding a specific website without having to memorize or bookmark the URL. Plus, AI is expensive. OpenAI might fail because it simply can’t turn a profit. As for Google, it could be broken up by regulators because of that monopoly finding. ...

See the full story here: https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/30/24230975/openai-publisher-deals-web-search?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Mickey Mouse Smoking: How AI Image Tools Are Generating New Content-Moderation Problems

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A newly released AI image generator from Elon Musk’s xAI does. The startup was criticized by tech-industry watchdogs after it unveiled a large language model called Grok-2 with image-generating capabilities earlier in August. 

Musk, who has described himself as a free-speech absolutist, has criticized Google for the ahistoric images its AI tool produced.

His image generator, which is powered by a German startup called Black Forest Labs and only available to paying subscribers on the X social-media platform, has produced images of politicians in compromising or unsavory situations and others of copyrighted characters such as Mickey Mouse doing offensive things like saluting Adolf Hitler.  ...

A day before the Democratic National Convention began in August, Trump posted what appeared to be an AI-generated image of Harris giving a speech in Chicago, where the convention was held, with a red flag with a hammer and sickle hanging in the background, implying Harris is a Communist.  ...

Another problem is that people quickly learn how to get around keywords that have been banned in an effort to keep certain content off platforms, said Pinar Yildirim, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. ...

See the full story here: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/mickey-mouse-smoking-how-ai-image-tools-are-generating-new-content-moderation-problems-da90148e

‘Get to know your enemy.’ How Hollywood workers are learning to use AI

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Curious Refuge burst onto the scene in April 2023 when it released an AI-generated trailer for a fake “Star Wars” movie in the vibrant, symmetrical style of director Wes Anderson that went viral on social media, inspiring awe in some — and inducing dread among others.

“It’s natural to see something new and to feel a sense of fear,” said Caleb Ward, co-founder and chief executive of Curious Refuge.

“I would encourage them to check out the tools and see what they’re capable of doing. ... These are not automatic processes of just typing in a prompt, clicking a button, and then you get something amazing. This is a storytelling process ... and it requires really good taste and storytelling [skills] to make something interesting.” ...

Ward said that his company guides hundreds of people through its AI training each month. Their AI Filmmaking course costs $749, with scholarships available depending on circumstances. ...

See the full story here: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2024-09-02/hollywood-workers-artificial-intelligence-ai-training

Tech titans target OpenAI deal, including Nvidia

Some of the biggest players in the tech sector are getting together with ChatGPT developer OpenAI. ...

"I think it was definitely a surprise for all of us how much people began using it," Agarwal said. "We work on these models so much, we forget how surprising they can be for the outside world sometimes."

Within five days of its release, the chatbot had attracted over one million users.

By comparison, it took Instagram about 2.5 months to reach one million downloads, while Netflix had to wait around 3.5 years to reach one million users, according to Exploding Topics, which cited Statista, Reuters, and Similarweb. ...

In June, Apple  (AAPL) named OpenAI the first official partner for its AI platform, Apple Intelligence. Apple's new AI will feature an improved Siri voice assistant, text proofreading, and custom emoji creation. ...

Llama models have been downloaded almost 350 million times since Meta began releasing them publicly last year, an increase from the 300 million downloads the company announced when it released the biggest version of its latest Llama 3 model in late July. ...

Gemini, formerly known as Bard, is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Google and rolled out last year. ...

See the full story here: https://www.thestreet.com/technology/nvidia-isnt-the-only-tech-titan-targeting-openai-deal

‘A tech firm stole our voices – then cloned and sold them’

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This particular podcast had a unique hook – they interviewed an AI-powered chat bot, equipped with text-to-speech software, to ask how it thought the use of AI would affect jobs in Hollywood.

But, when it spoke, it sounded just like Mr Lehrman.

"We needed to pull the car over," he said.

"The irony that AI is coming for the entertainment industry, and here is my voice talking about the potential destruction of the industry, was really quite shocking."

That night they spent hours online, searching for clues until they came across the site of text-to-speech platform Lovo. Once there, Ms Sage said she found a copy of her voice as well.

"I was stunned," she said. "I couldn't believe it."

"A tech company stole our voices, made AI clones of them, and sold them possibly hundreds of thousands of times."

They have now filed a lawsuit against Lovo. The firm has not yet responded to that or the BBC's requests for comment. ...

In their lawsuit, the couple set out how they say Lovo obtained just such a recording from them.

They allege anonymous Lovo employees contacted them to record audio assets on Fiverr, the popular freelance talent website, where they were selling their services to provide audio for television, radio, video games, and other media. ...

See the full story here: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3d9zv50955o

Anchorage police to incorporate virtual reality into training with emphasis on de-escalation

... The Anchorage Assembly approved the federally funded contract on Tuesday for up to $202,000. The vendor is a Toronto-based startup called ChimeraXR. It markets its products as “modern, realistic and immersive tactical training systems.” ...

The federal grant for APD’s VR system was created as a result of federal legislation stemming from George Floyd's killing at the hands of Minneapolis police in 2020. ...

The Justice Department says the system can’t be used solely for tactical firearms training or use-of-force training. It must fit into a larger program that covers de-escalation, implicit bias and the duty to intervene when another officer uses excessive force. Patzke said those elements are continually reinforced in training for new and experienced officers. ...

See the full story here: https://alaskapublic.org/2024/08/30/anchorage-police-to-incorporate-virtual-reality-into-training-with-emphasis-on-de-escalation/