philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Here’s how people are actually using AI

... We’re seeing a giant, real-world experiment unfold, and it’s still uncertain what impact these AI companions will have either on us individually or on society as a whole, argue Robert Mahari, a joint JD-PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab and Harvard Law School, and Pat Pataranutaporn, a researcher at the MIT Media Lab. They say we need to prepare for “addictive intelligence”, or AI companions that have dark patterns built into them to get us hooked. ... They look at how smart regulation can help us prevent some of the risks associated with AI chatbots that get deep inside our heads. ...

There’s already evidence that we’re connecting on a deeper level with AI even when it’s just confined to text exchanges. Mahari was part of a group of researchers that analyzed a million ChatGPT interaction logs and found that the second most popular use of AI was sexual role-playing. Aside from that, the overwhelmingly most popular use case for the chatbot was creative composition. People also liked to use it for brainstorming and planning, asking for explanations and general information about stuff.  ...

Some of the most embarrassing failures of chatbots have happened when people have started trusting AI chatbots too much, or considered them sources of factual information.  ...

See the full article here: https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/08/12/1096202/how-people-actually-using-ai/

Sphere to Spend $80 Million on Adapting The Wizard of Oz: Report

...

According to The New York Post, the venue is in talks with Warner Bros. Discovery to adapt the 1939 classic into a format that could be screened within the state-of-the-art, all-encompassing, LED-covered arena. In addition to expanding the visuals, the process would cut the film’s runtime from 102 minutes to 80. The whole production would likely cost around $80 million. (Notably, when adjusted for inflation, the original budget of The Wizard of Oz was just $25 million.)

While the price tag seems high (though, not in comparison to Sphere’s $2.3 billion construction cost), an anonymous source explained to The New York Post that the venue makes substantially more profit on original content than concerts. For example, should the Wizard of Oz deal go through, Warner Bros. Discovery will receive about 5% of the gross profit, according to The Post’s sources. ...

See the full story here: https://consequence.net/2024/08/sphere-the-wizard-of-oz/amp/

SAG President Fran Drescher slams ‘AI fraudsters’ as congressional bill on deepfakes receives massive support

... "Game over A.I. fraudsters! Enshrining protections against unauthorized digital replicas as a federal intellectual property right will keep us all protected in this brave new world," SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in a statement on the union’s website. "Especially for performers whose livelihoods depend on their likeness and brand, this step forward is a huge win!" ...

"What might surprise some people is that the technology companies, alongside the motion picture organizations, professional associations and creators, are actually for this bill," she told Fox News Digital. "So, why would an Open AI or Disney or an IBM Alliance WatsonX, why would they be interested? Well, it's because it's going to put some guardrails around the established market. And what's happening with these deepfakes is people are creating a substitute market. And this substitute market has no rules and no monetization."

Coons’ website summarizes the bill, explaining it would "hold individuals or companies liable for damages for producing, hosting, or sharing a digital replica of an individual performing in an audiovisual work, image, or sound recording that the individual never actually appeared in or otherwise approved – including digital replicas created by generative artificial intelligence (AI)." ...

See the full story here; https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/sag-president-fran-drescher-slams-ai-fraudsters-congressional-bill-deepfakes-receives-massive-support

The New A.I. Deal: Buy Everything but the Company

In 2022, Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas left their jobsdeveloping artificial intelligence at Google. They said the tech giant moved too slowly. So they created Character.AI, a chatbot start-up, and raised nearly $200 million.

Last week, Mr. Shazeer and Mr. De Freitas announced that they were returning to Google. They had struck a deal to rejoin its A.I. research arm, along with roughly 20 percent of Character.AI’s employees, and provide their start-up’s technology, they said.

But even though Google was getting all that, it was not buying Character.AI.

Instead, Google agreed to pay $3 billion to license the technology, two people with knowledge of the deal said. About $2.5 billion of that sum will then be used to buy out Character.AI’s shareholders, including Mr. Shazeer, who owns 30 percent to 40 percent of the company and stands to net $750 million to $1 billion, the people said. What remains of Character.AI will continue operating without its founders and investors.

The deal was one of several unusual transactions that have recently emerged in Silicon Valley. While big tech companies typically buy start-ups outright, they have turned to a more complicated deal structure for young A.I. companies. It involves licensing the technology and hiring the top employees — effectively swallowing the start-up and its main assets — without becoming the owner of the firm.

These transactions are being driven by the big tech companies’ desire to sidestep regulatory scrutiny while trying to get ahead in  ...

See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/technology/ai-start-ups-google-microsoft-amazon.html

6G: the catalyst for artificial general intelligence

6G might integrate 5G and AI to merge physical, cyber and sapience spaces, transforming network interactions and enhancing AI-driven decision-making and automation. The semantic approach to communication will train AI while selectively informing on goal achievement, moving towards artificial general intelligence, presenting new challenges and opportunities. ...

See the full story here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44287-024-00090-1

The RIAA, villain of the Napster era, turns its sights on AI firms — ‘It’s a lot more fun now’

... Back in the ‘90s and 2000s, young music fans were aligned with tech firms against labels. Now, you see more fans allied against tech. How have those allegiances changed since you’ve been at the RIAA?

Record companies are not gatekeepers anymore. They don’t control their own distribution. The control is now with the tech platforms. I think we stand on the same side as fans and artists today, because we have the same interests. The Man has changed, and the tech platforms are now The Man. ...

See the full story here: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2024-08-07/the-riaa-villain-of-the-napster-era-turns-it-sights-on-ai-firms-its-a-lot-more-fun-now

Submersive: Meow Wolf co-founder launches immersive spa concept

Meow Wolf co-founder Corvas Brinkerhoff is leaving the company to launch an immersive spa called Submersive in Austin, Texas.

Due to open from 2026, the 25,000-square-foot wellness space will feature immersive art, video projections, lasers and artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

Subversive is described as a new kind of bathhouse that “takes you beyond relaxation into elevated states of consciousness including awe, wonder, inspiration, transcendence, euphoria, and hyper-presence”. 

The new concept is “reinventing the art of bathing” with spaces that “integrate immersive art, neuroscience and social bathing elements to deliver measurable and repeatable state changes”. ...

The plans are for 12 unique and immersive bathing rooms around a main gathering space. The Submersive team is currently working on an AI-powered quiz that could provide an ideal route through these rooms based on a visitor’s state of mind. ...

Brinkerhoff’s goal with Submersive is to “amass the world’s deepest understanding of how multisensory experiences affect us on a physiological level”, he added. ...

See the full story here: https://blooloop.com/immersive/news/submersive-immersive-spa-meow-wolf-corvas-brinkerhoff/

A booming industry of AI age scanners, aimed at children’s faces

...

But the most critical ingredient has been the companies’ growing photo collections of kids in the real world. Sottil, the Incode executive, said the company had paid a contractor to get kids’ facial photos with their parents’ permission across Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America, sometimes in exchange for Amazon gift cards.

Yoti, which collected face data in Nairobi years before “Share to Protect,” had hoped the South Africa project would be well received by parents because of its stated focus on keeping kids safe. “People share photos of their children all the time,” Dawson, the chief policy officer, said at the time.

...

But as Riaan van der Bergh remembered it, many parents refused to sign up because of their “fear of the unknown.” The offer of money for each photo backfired, he added, making it all seem uncomfortably transactional. ...

See the full story here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/07/face-scanning-kids-online-privacy/

Quantum internet on the horizon after hybrid network success

Researchers have designed a new kind of transmitter-receiver which could send entangled photons over an optical fibre.

The concept could see a future “quantum internet” merged with current telecommunications technologies.

Quantum internet could see the strange effect of quantum entanglement be used to make uncrackable encryption. Not even quantum computers – themselves still in the development phase – would be able to crack the security of a quantum internet. ...

This technique combines a mixture of photon frequencies (colours) with the entangled information to be unmixed at the other end.

But the authors of the new study say, “more resource-efficient approaches are required”. ...

“We can change the colour of a laser pulse with a high-speed electrical signal so that it matches the colour of the entangled photons,” explains first author Philip Rübeling, also from the Leibniz University Hannover. “This effect enables us to combine laser pulses and entangled photons of the same colour in an optical fibre and separate them again.”

This method could see today’s internet merged with the quantum internet. ...

See the full story here: https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/internet/quantum-internet-transmitter-optical-fibre

Atlanta museums turn to AI to enhance visitor experience

...

“Our early research has shown that having this mixed-reality platform improves children’s learning by 5 times compared to equivalent tablet or computer games that are only on a screen, while also improving their enjoyment,” said Dr. Nesra Yannier, the creator of NoRILLA, in an interview with CMA in 2021.

Historically, the role of museums was to preserve humanity’s collective heritage, culture, history and art for future generations. In the digital age, however, museums are increasingly adopting tools such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) — which rely on AI technology — to engage visitors beyond traditional exhibition layouts. Additionally, robots and AI chatbots haven seen a rise in activity across notable museums in Europe and the Americas. ...

See the full story here: https://capitalanalyticsassociates.com/atlanta-museums-turn-to-ai-to-enhance-visitor-experience/