Pew Says Youth Turn to TikTok for News, but X Tops Overall

... In a separate TikTok analysis, Pew found “the vast majority of adult TikTok news consumers are under age 50, including 44 percent who are 18 to 29.” And regardless of whether they look to TikTok for news, most users surveyed say they happen to see news-related content there in the course of a visit.

“TikTok users report seeing funny posts (84 percent) and people’s opinions (80 percent) related to current events at higher rates than news articles (57 percent) or breaking news information (55 percent),” according to Pew Research.

Engadget’s takeaway from the Pew study, and one fielded by the Knight Foundation, is that “news on social media is a fractured mess,” with “much of the news content people see on X and TikTok being driven by those platforms’ recommendation algorithms,” and concludes “publishers are getting far less traffic from social media, and news is increasingly filtered through influencers, meme creators and random algorithmically-surfaced accounts.”

See the full story here: https://www.etcentric.org/pew-says-youth-turn-to-tiktok-for-news-but-x-tops-overall/

73% of Entertainment and Marketing Creatives Think AI ‘Will Elevate Content,’ UTA Study Finds

For many in Hollywood, AI has been a swear word. That may be changing.

According to a new study by the talent agency UTA, 73 percent of entertainment and marketing creatives believe generative artificial intelligence “will elevate content,” and 75 percent of those currently using AIsay they are “creating higher-quality work” with it.

This (and other findings) led United Talent Agency to declare this to be “a profound turning point in AI’s adoption in marketing and entertainment.” The industries UTA services (and UTA IQ studies) are shifting from “fear and resistance” to “curiosity, excitement, and cautious optimism,” the report reads, as “respected leaders and professionals openly discuss usage.” ...

For this study, UTA interviewed 293 creative professionals in the marketing and advertising fields and 209 in the entertainment field. The survey was conducted in mid-May 2024. ...

See the full story here: https://www.indiewire.com/news/business/73-entertainment-marketing-creatives-ai-will-elevate-content-uta-study-1235018413/

London cinema praised for scrapping AI-written film after public backlash

A cinema in central London has been praised for cancelling its screening of a film written using artificial intelligence a day after it was announced, following intense public criticism.

The Prince Charles Cinema in Soho was scheduled to host the premiere of The Last Screenwriter, which was penned by ChatGPT, on 23 June (Sunday). This listing raised concerns among filmgoers about “the use of AI in place of a writer”.

The Last Screenwriter follows a character called Jack who fears for his job after discovering an AI script writing programme. When Jack experiments with the software, he begins to realise it matches his own writing skill and even surpasses his ability to empathise with others. ...

See the full story here: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/cinema-ai-written-film-scrapped-backlash-b2565250.html

4 New Things I Saw at AWE 2024 That Will Make You Want AR and VR in Your Life

Productivity, immersion, creativity, UI options

See the full story here: https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/4-new-things-i-saw-at-awe-2024-that-will-make-you-want-ar-and-vr-in-your-life/

The Vatican Library Explores Virtual Reality Technology to Enhance Visitor Experience

This innovative approach marks a significant departure from traditional methods of preservation and conservation, signaling a new era in the dissemination of historical knowledge. By embracing technology, the Vatican Library is not only safeguarding its treasures for future generations but also ensuring that they remain relevant and accessible in an increasingly digital world. ...

The Vatican Library was founded in 1475 by Pope Sixtus IV and has since been a cornerstone of preservation and research in the fields of theology, philosophy, history, and culture. ...

See the full story here: https://smartphonemagazine.nl/en/2024/06/18/the-vatican-library-explores-virtual-reality-technology-to-enhance-visitor-experience/

OpenAI co-founder Sutskever sets up new AI company devoted to ‘safe superintelligence’

Sutskever, a respected AI researcher who left the ChatGPT maker last month, said in a social media post Wednesday that he's created Safe Superintelligence Inc. with two co-founders. The company's only goal and focus is safely developing "superintelligence” - a reference to AI systems that are smarter than humans.

The company vowed not to be distracted by “management overhead or product cycles,” and under its business model, work on safety and security would be “insulated from short-term commercial pressures,” Sutskever and his co-founders Daniel Gross and Daniel Levy said in a prepared statement. 

The three said Safe Superintelligence is an American company with roots in Palo Alto, California, and Tel Aviv, “where we have deep roots and the ability to recruit top technical talent.” ...

See the full story here: https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/openai-founder-sutskever-sets-new-ai-company-devoted-111268590

Apple joins the race to find an AI icon that makes sense

... The thing is, no one knows what AI looks like, or even what it is supposed to look like. It does everything but looks like nothing. Yet it needs to be represented in user interfaces so people know they’re interacting with a machine learning model and not just plain old searching, submitting, or whatever else. ...

See the full story here: https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/15/apple-joins-the-race-to-find-an-ai-icon-that-makes-sense

What Apple’s AI Tells Us: Experimental Models⁴

I wanted to give some quick thoughts on the Apple AI (sorry, “Apple Intelligence”) release. I haven’t used it myself, and we don’t know everything about their approach, but I think the release highlights something important happening in AI right now: experimentation with four kinds of models - AI models, models of use, business models, and mental models of the future. What is worth paying attention to is how all the AI giants are trying many different approaches to see what works. ...

AI Models

... You may not have seen that GPT-4 (the old, pre-turbo version with a small context window), without specialized finance training or special tools, beat BloombergGPT on almost all finance tasks. This demonstrates a pattern: the most advanced generalist AI models often outperform specialized models, even in the specific domains those specialized models were designed for. ... That means that if you want a model that can do a lot - reason over massive amounts of text, help you generate ideas, write in a non-robotic way — you want to use one of the three frontier models: GPT-4o, Gemini 1.5, or Claude 3 Opus. ...

But these models are expensive to train and slow and expensive to run, which leaves room for much smaller models that aren’t as good as the frontier models but can run cheaply and easily - even on a PC or phone. ...

Models of Use

Large Language Models are Swiss army knives of the mind - they can help with a wide range of intellectual tasks, though they do some badly (the toothpick in the Swiss army knife), and some not at all. Knowing what they are good or bad at is a process of learning by doing and acquiring expertise. ...

Contrast this with Apple’s narrow focus on making AI get stuff done for you. ... They do a really good job of providing easily understood “it just works” (mostly) integration of AI into work in easy ways. But both the Apple and app-specific Copilot models are constrained, which limits their upside, as well as their downside. ...

Business Models

The best access to an advanced model costs you $20 a month...

Apple sounds like they will start with free service as well, but may decide to charge in the future. The truth is that everyone is exploring this space, and how they make money and cover costs is still unclear...

What every one of these companies needs to succeed, however, is trust. ... But Apple goes many steps further, putting extra work into making sure it could never learn about your data, even if it wanted to. ...

 Between the limited use cases and the privacy focus, this is a very “ethical” use of AI (though we still know little about Apple’s training data). We will see if that is enough to get the public to trust AI more.

Models of the Future

... While Apple is building narrow AI systems that can accurately answer questions about your personal data (“tell me when my mother is landing”), OpenAI wants to build autonomous agents that would complete complex tasks for you (“You know those emails about the new business I want to start, could you figure out what I should do to register it so that it is best for my taxes and do that.”). The first is, as Apple demonstrated, science fact, while the second is science fiction, at least for now. ...

Having companies take many approaches to AI is likely to lead to faster adoption in the long term. And, as companies experiment, we will learn more about which sets of models are correct.

Read the full post here: https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/what-apples-ai-tells-us-experimental

Apple Intelligent AI announcement at this link

https://urldefense.com/v3/https://shellypalmer.us3.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c45bf0ae5539b15b901766ddd&id=a96c5a4a11&e=3ce5196977;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!ozO6thz0gHsSrArO14xcIdjcteIlfaISEOYpq7XxHKBUCiaAF8VLdzsIdVi3zn4BWBtvlNdafsJ4ug$

Talentir, the most anticipated Web3 creative project in 2024

... Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) within the crypto space have swiftly recognized the financial advantages of Talentir. They are delighted to receive their earnings directly in their wallets, bypassing the need for intermediaries. On average, creators earn between 15% and 30% more when they join Talentir, thanks to the platform's efficiency and reduced transaction costs. The unique setup of Talentir helps Creators worldwide with their withholding taxes as Talentir specializes in revenue optimization. ...

See the full PR here: https://www.morningstar.com/news/globe-newswire/9151248/6500-growth-in-one-month-talentir-the-most-anticipated-web3-creative-project-in-2024