philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

MIT group releases white papers on governance of AI

Providing a resource for U.S. policymakers, a committee of MIT leaders and scholars has released a set of policy briefs that outlines a framework for the governance of artificial intelligence. The approach includes extending current regulatory and liability approaches in pursuit of a practical way to oversee AI.

The aim of the papers is to help enhance U.S. leadership in the area of artificial intelligence broadly, while limiting harm that could result from the new technologies and encouraging exploration of how AI deployment could be beneficial to society.

The main policy paper, “A Framework for U.S. AI Governance: Creating a Safe and Thriving AI Sector,” suggests AI tools can often be regulated by existing U.S. government entities that already oversee the relevant domains. The recommendations also underscore the importance of identifying the purpose of AI tools, which would enable regulations to fit those applications. ...

“We felt it was important for MIT to get involved in this because we have expertise,” says David Goldston, director of the MIT Washington Office. “MIT is one of the leaders in AI research, one of the places where AI first got started. Since we are among those creating technology that is raising these important issues, we feel an obligation to help address them.” ...

Purpose, intent, and guardrails

The main policy brief outlines how current policy could be extended to cover AI, using existing regulatory agencies and legal liability frameworks where possible. The U.S. has strict licensing laws in the field of medicine, for example. It is already illegal to impersonate a doctor; if AI were to be used to prescribe medicine or make a diagnosis under the guise of being a doctor, it should be clear that would violate the law just as strictly human malfeasance would. ...

While the policy framework involves existing agencies, it includes the addition of some new oversight capacity as well. For one thing, the policy brief calls for advances in auditing of new AI tools, which could move forward along a variety of paths, whether government-initiated, user-driven, or deriving from legal liability proceedings. ...

“AI enables things humans cannot do, such as surveillance or fake news at scale, which may need special consideration beyond what is applicable for humans,” Ozdaglar says. “But our starting point still enables you to think about the risks, and then how that risk gets amplified because of the tools.” ...

As Goldston puts it, the committee releasing these papers is “is not a group that is antitechnology or trying to stifle AI. But it is, nonetheless, a group that is saying AI needs governance and oversight. That’s part of doing this properly. These are people who know this technology, and they’re saying that AI needs oversight.” ...

Read the full article here: https://news.mit.edu/2023/mit-group-releases-white-papers-governance-ai-1211

This A.I. Subculture’s Motto: Go, Go, Go

... The battle between the e/accs and the Effective Altruists is one of many quasi-religious schisms breaking out in San Francisco’s A.I. scene these days, as insiders argue about how quickly the technology is progressing, and what should be done about it.

E/acc prefers the all-gas, no-brakes approach. Its adherents favor open-sourcing A.I. software rather than having it be controlled by big corporations, and unlike Effective Altruists, they don’t see powerful A.I. as something to be feared or guarded against. They believe that A.I.’s benefits far outweigh its harms, and that the right thing to do with such important technology is to get out of the way and let it rip. ...

Initially, I wrote the movement off as a fringe novelty — a bunch of Twitter-addicted techies with persecution complexes turning warmed-over Ayn Rand into edgy memes.

But a few months later, tech luminaries like Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, started showing up in e/acc’s Twitter Spaces, and proclaiming that he, too, believed in effective accelerationism. ...

Critics have pointed to the fact that some of e/acc’s leaders, including Mr. Verdon, seem to actually agree with the Effective Altruists that a rogue A.I. could wipe out humanity, but aren’t bothered by the idea, since superhuman A.I. could represent a logical next step in evolution.  ...

See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/technology/ai-acceleration.html?fbclid=IwAR2sqGN1Hs1klDA-GF48Qw2_YGpqkH_tmEdO4fKE0jXRput-1xH8wGKD6mc

The Race to Dominate A.I.

Though the companies were concerned that their A.I. chatbots were inaccurate or biased, they put those worries to the side — at least for the moment. As one Microsoft executive wrote in an internal email, “speed is even more important than ever.” It would be, he added, an “absolutely fatal error in this moment to worry about things that can be fixed later.”

A.I. has since sneaked into daily life, through chatbots and image generators, in the word processing programs you might use at work, and in the seemingly human customer service agents you chat with online to return a purchase. People have already used it to create sophisticated phishing emails, cheat on schoolwork and spread disinformation. ...

That one person could be so central to the future of A.I. — and perhaps humanity — is a symptom of the lack of meaningful oversight of the industry. ...

European regulators this week are in marathon sessions to write the world’s strictest A.I. regulations, and they will be worth watching. In the meantime, companies continue to push ahead. On Wednesday, Google demonstrated a powerful new A.I. system called Gemini Ultra, even though Google hasn’t yet completed its customary safety testing. The company promised it would be out in the world early next year. ...

See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/briefing/ai-dominance.html

Democrats and Republicans see role for government in development of AI

... “Government cannot govern AI if it does not understand AI,” said Daniel Ho, a professor at Stanford Law School, at the hearing. ...

President Biden’s Oct. 30 executive order on AI lays out 150 requirements, as tracked by Stanford, meaning there are major workforce demands for implementation. Yet among other persistent skills gaps in cyber and IT, Ho said that fewer than 1% of AI PhDs pursue a career in public service. ...

Read the full story here: https://www.federaltimes.com/federal-oversight/congress/2023/12/07/democrats-and-republicans-see-role-for-government-in-development-of-ai/

AI And A-listers: Sundance Festival Line-up Unveiled

Kristen Stewart is among several Hollywood stars heading to next month's Sundance festival. But artificial intelligence -- the subject of, and technology behind, several new films -- could steal the show.

Among the line-up for Utah's influential indie movie fest are a "generative" music film that plays differently on each viewing, two documentaries about loved ones using AI to communicate after death, and an interactive "digital griot" that will teach audiences how to vogue.

"One of the things that was striking to see, as we were going through these films and talking about them as a team, was how AI just kept popping up," Sundance director of programming Kim Yutani told AFP.

"Whether it be in a documentary, whether it be influencing a documentary... that's going to be a really interesting part of the festival this year." ...

Among Sundance's new offerings are "Eno," which explores musician Brian Eno's career and creative process, using a "generative engine" to mesh together near-infinite different versions of a film from hundreds of possible scenes.

The technology uses prompts and keywords to find and create associations between scenes, changing or reshuffling the lineup each night, just as a touring band might do at each new gig...

See the full story here: https://www.barrons.com/articles/ai-and-a-listers-sundance-festival-line-up-unveiled-1628627f

The race to 5G is over — now it’s time to pay the bill

... Instead, there’s one 5G use case where the big three networks are finding traction, and it comes up over and over again in their earnings reports: fixed wireless access, or FWA. If you’re keeping score at home, that’s internet that comes to your house over radio waves rather than a cable. T-Mobile and Verizon have aggressively expanded their FWA offerings over the past couple of years, and even “fiber is everything” AT&T is getting in on the action with Internet Air. ...

https://www.theverge.com/23991136/5g-network-att-verizon-tmobile-cost-competition

Google Gemini gets us closer to the AI of our imagination, and it’s going to change everything

... What matters here is that Google is finally showing what you can do when you have the world's information and industry-leading AI development. Microsoft and OpenAI have the best-known AI, but they've never had access to the same kind of data and knowledge graph as Google. I always assumed that was an advantage; and now, it seems, Google has finally figured that out, too. ...

Watch a video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIZAiXYceBI

See the full story here: https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/google-gemini-gets-us-closer-to-the-ai-of-our-imagination-and-its-going-to-change-everything

Experts on A.I. Agree That It Needs Regulation. That’s the Easy Part.

...

In October, the White House issued a lengthy executive order on A.I., but without an enforcement mechanism, something Mr. Benifei sees as necessary. “Obviously, it’s a delicate topic,” he said. “There is a lot of concern from the business sector, I think rightly so, that we do not overregulate before we fully understand all the challenges.” But, he said, “we cannot just rely on self-regulation.” The development and use of A.I., he added, must be “enforceable and explainable to our citizens.”

Other task force members were far more reluctant to embrace such broad regulation. Questions abound, such as who is responsible if something goes wrong — the original developer? A third-party vendor? The end user? ...

Transparency is key, all agreed, and so are partnerships between government, industry and university research. “If you are not very transparent, then academia gets left behind and no researchers will come out of academia,” said Rohit Prasad, senior vice president and head scientist at Amazon Artificial General Intelligence. ...

In addition, she said, “It’s not just about regulation. It really has to do with investment in the public sector in a deep and profound way,” noting that she has directly pleaded with Congress and President Biden to support universities in this area. Academia, she said, can serve as a trusted neutral platform in this field, but “right now we have completely starved the public sector.” ...

See the full story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/business/dealbook/artificial-intelligence-regulation.html

Runway ML and Getty Images set their sights on Hollywood

Runway ML, a leading AI video creation platform, has joined forces with Getty Images, the world’s premier visual content provider, to develop innovative AI video models tailored for the entertainment and advertising industries.

The collaboration of Runway ML and Getty Images aims to develop cutting-edge AI video models that will empower Hollywood studios, advertising agencies, and media companies to produce high-quality, captivating video content at an unprecedented scale. ...

Yes, this collaboration is really exciting but it has two big main problems: Not being able to appeal to a wide audience and using Art and AI in the same sentence. ...

See the full story here: https://dataconomy.com/2023/12/05/runway-ml-and-getty-images-ai-hollywood/

Rapper Bad Bunny lashes out over viral AI copycat hits

Puerto Rican rapper and singer Bad Bunny's voice quickly went viral last month. However, the songs circulating did not belong to him. ...

Chilean artist Maurico Bustos launched the trend with the song NostalgIA - a play on the Spanish abbreviation for AI. It was written and recorded by Bustos using artificial intelligence to modify Bad Bunny's vocals, producing a viral track that prompted parodies and copycat versions on TikTok.

Bad Bunny told his 20 million WhatsApp followers to leave if they liked "this shitty song that is viral on TikTok ... I don't want you on tour either." ...

See the full story here: https://www.wionews.com/entertainment-news/rapper-bad-bunny-lashes-out-over-viral-ai-copycat-hits-666653