philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

Say farewell to the AI bubble, and get ready for the crash

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The cheerless rollout of GPT-5 could bring the day of reckoning closer. “AI companies are really buoying the American economy right now, and it’s looking very bubble-shaped,” Hanna told me. 

The rollout was so disappointing that it shined a spotlight on the degree that the whole AI industry has been dependent on hype. ...

One problem underscored by GPT-5’s underwhelming rollout is that it exploded one of the most cherished principles of the AI world, which is that “scaling up” — endowing the technology with more computing power and more data — would bring the grail of artificial general intelligence, or AGI, ever closer to reality. 

That’s the principle undergirding the AI industry’s vast expenditures on data centers and high-performance chips. ...

As Bender and Hanna point out in their book, AI promoters have kept investors and followers enthralled by relying on a vague public understanding of the term “intelligence.” ...

“What I had not realized,” Weizenbaum wrote in 1976, “is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people.” ...

Some economists are dashing cold water on predictions of economic gains more generally.  ...

“Claims around consciousness and sentience are a tactic to sell you on AI,” Bender and Hanna write. So, too, is the talk about the billions, or trillions, to be made in AI. As with any technology, the profits will go to a small cadre, while the rest of us pay the price ... unless we gain a much clearer perception of what AI is, and more importantly, what it isn’t.

See the full story here: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-08-20/say-farewell-to-the-ai-bubble-and-get-ready-for-the-crash

Could this movie based on a Hindu epic become India’s ‘Avatar?’

... Rather, the goal is to turn “Ramayana,” with its grand-scale adventure story and high-tech computer-generated effects, into a full-blown international blockbuster, filmed specifically for Imax’s giant screens in what is intended to be the largest-ever rollout for an Indian film, according to its backers. ...

While Hollywood studio bosses talk about reaching all four demographic “quadrants” (men and women, young and old) with their tentpole movies, Malhotra wants to draw two additional categories: believer and nonbeliever. For such a so-called six-quadrant movie to work, to use Malhotra’s terminology, it would have to succeed in the U.S. ...

It’s a major gamble for Malhotra, who founded Prime Focus in Mumbai in 1997. ...

“Ramayana” is directed by Nitesh Tiwari, the man behind 2016’s “Dangal,” the highest-grossing Bollywood film ever, including huge sales in China. Hans Zimmer and prolific Indian musician-composer A.R. Rahman (“Slumdog Millionaire”) are collaborating on the score, while the visual effects and production design team includes veterans from “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “Avengers: Endgame” and the “Lord of the Rings” franchise.

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For the new version, Malhotra wants to eliminate any language barriers. DNEG is using syncing technology from its Brahma AI unit to seamlessly present the film in local languages for international audiences. In the U.S., for example, the movie will screen in English. ...

See the full story here: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/newsletter/2025-08-19/could-this-movie-based-on-a-hindu-epic-become-indias-avatar

AI will replace most humans, but then what?

 Is technology more job augmenting or job replacing? This has been a long-standing debate. But recent academic work suggests that technology has been a net destroyer of jobs for decades.

Artificial intelligence and robotics could rapidly accelerate this trend, with significant implications for inflation, the size of government and U.S.-China relations. ...

David Autor, an economist at MIT and winner of the 2005 John Clark Bates Medal, argues that since 1980, the jobs replaced by automation have not been fully offset by new jobs created.

This reflects the pace of technological change and the fact that advancements are now increasingly focused on “professional, technical, and managerial occupations,” Autor notes, rather than lower-skilled work. ...

But aging, like natural evolution in general, is gradual, while computational and technological evolution accelerates at an exponential pace. Because of the convexity in technological advances, it’s hard not to bet on technology rather than workers.

See the full story here: https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/ai-will-replace-most-humans-then-what-2025-08-19/

MIT report: 95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing

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Despite the rush to integrate powerful new models, about 5% of AI pilot programs achieve rapid revenue acceleration; the vast majority stall, delivering little to no measurable impact on P&L. The research—based on 150 interviews with leaders, a survey of 350 employees, and an analysis of 300 public AI deployments—paints a clear divide between success stories and stalled projects. ...

Startups led by 19- or 20-year-olds, for example, “have seen revenues jump from zero to $20 million in a year,” he said. “It’s because they pick one pain point, execute well, and partner smartly with companies who use their tools,” he added.

But for 95% of companies in the dataset, generative AI implementation is falling short. The core issue? Not the quality of the AI models, but the “learning gap” for both tools and organizations. While executives often blame regulation or model performance, MIT’s research points to flawed enterprise integration. Generic tools like ChatGPT excel for individuals because of their flexibility, but they stall in enterprise use since they don’t learn from or adapt to workflows, Challapally explained. ...

See the full story here: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mit-report-95-generative-ai-105412686.html

IBM Study: Sports Fans Demand More Dynamic Digital Content, Powered by AI

- Most fans surveyed agree that AI-powered features will have a significant impact on how they consume sports 

- More than half surveyed want AI-driven sports commentary and insights for past, current and future events

- Mobile sports apps are becoming essential to the fan experience, particularly among fans attending events in-person

See the full PR here: https://newsroom.ibm.com/2025-08-18-ibm-study-sports-fans-demand-more-dynamic-digital-content,-powered-by-ai

TikTok tweaks guidelines with new rules for LIVE creators, AI content, and more

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A key addition highlights TikTok's stance on commercial content. The platform now states that creators must disclose commercial partnerships. Moreover, it warns that any content directing users to purchase products outside TikTok will see its visibility reduced in regions where TikTok Shop is operational - signalling the company's strong push to keep transactions within its ecosystem.

Accountability for TikTok LIVE

Creators hosting TikTok LIVE sessions face stricter responsibilities. The updated rules stress that hosts are accountable for everything that occurs during a live stream, including third-party tools like auto-translation or text-to-speech services.

If those tools generate harmful or rule-breaking content, TikTok holds the creator responsible. ...

The revisions come as social media giants face increasing regulatory scrutiny under laws like the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), the UK's Online Safety Act (OSA), and the US TAKE IT DOWN Act.

See the full story here: https://www.storyboard18.com/brand-makers/tiktok-tweaks-guidelines-with-new-rules-for-live-creators-ai-content-and-more-78992.htm

Cat soap operas and babies trapped in space: the ‘AI slop’ taking over YouTube

... Nearly one in 10 of the fastest growing YouTube channels globally are showing AI-generated content only, as breakthroughs in the technology spur a flood of artificial content. ...

AI video generation has surged amid the release of powerful tools such as Google’s Veo 3 and Elon Musk’s Grok Imagine. ...

Many of these videos qualify as “AI slop”, which refers to low-quality, mass-produced content that is surreal, uncanny or simply grotesque. But some contain a brief, rudimentary plot – in a sign of the growing sophistication of AI-generated content.

“This enshittification is ruining online communities on Pinterest, competing for revenue with artists on Spotify and flooding YouTube with poor quality content.” ...

See the full story here: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/aug/11/cat-soap-operas-and-babies-trapped-in-space-the-ai-slop-taking-over-youtube

Shelly Palmer: The Godfather of AI Just Proposed the Weirdest Solution Yet

... The real message isn’t about coding maternal instincts; it’s that our entire approach to AI safety may need rethinking. We’re still treating AI like software when we should be treating it like the new form of intelligence it is. ...

See the full story here: https://shellypalmer.com/2025/08/the-godfather-of-ai-just-proposed-the-weirdest-solution-yet/

What Does Palantir Actually Do?

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Xia was one of 13 former Palantir staffers who signed an open letter published in May arguing that the company risks being complicit in authoritarianism by continuing to cooperate with the Trump administration. She and other former Palantir staffers who spoke to WIRED for this story argue that, in order to grapple with Palantir and its role in the world, let alone hold the company accountable, you need to first understand what it really is.

It’s not that former employees literally don’t know what Palantir is selling. In interviews with WIRED, they spoke fluidly about how its software can connect and transform different kinds of data collected by government agencies and corporations. ...

Part of the answer may lie in Palantir’s marketing strategy. Pinto says he believes that the company, which recently began using the tagline “software that dominates,” has cultivated its mysterious public image on purpose. Unlike consumer-facing startups that need to clearly explain their products to everyday users, Palantir’s main audience is sprawling government agencies and Fortune 500 companies. ...

What it’s ultimately selling them is not just software, but the idea of a seamless, almost magical solution to complex problems. ...

Underneath the jargon and marketing, Palantir sells tools that its customers—corporations, nonprofits, government agencies—use to sort through data. What makes Palantir different from other tech companies is the scale and scope of its products. ...

Crucially, Palantir doesn’t reorganize a company's bins and pipes, so to speak, meaning it doesn’t change how data is collected or how it moves through the guts of an organization. Instead, its software sits on top of a customer’s messy systems and allows them to integrate and analyze data without needing to fix the underlying architecture. ...

Palantir’s software is designed with nontechnical users in mind. Rather than relying on specialized technical teams to parse and analyze data, Palantir allows people across an organization to get insights, sometimes without writing a single line of code. All they need to do is log into one of Palantir’s two primary platforms: Foundry, for commercial users, or Gotham, for law enforcement and government users. ...

Customers need to already have the data they want to work with—Palantir itself does not provide any. ...

A former Palantir staffer who has used Gotham says that, in just minutes, a law enforcement official or government analyst can map out who may be in a person’s network and see documents that link them together. They can also centralize everything an agency knows about a person in one place, including their eye color from their driver’s license, or their license plate from a traffic ticket—making it easy to build a detailed intelligence report. They can also use Gotham to search for a person based on a characteristic, like their immigration status, what state they live in, or whether they have tattoos. ...

He’s now deeply worried that an authoritarian state could use this power to “tell any narrative they want” about, say, immigrants or dissidents it may be seeking to arrest or deport. He says that software like Palantir’s doesn’t eliminate human bias. ...

When Gotham users connect disparate pieces of information about a person, it could seem like they are reading their whole life story, rather than just a slice of it.

“It's a really powerful tool,” says one former Palantir employee. “And when it's in the wrong hands, it can be really dangerous. And I think people should be really scared about it.”

See the full story here: https://www.wired.com/story/palantir-what-the-company-does/

Turkish Coffee recipe

Apropos of nothing more than I love Turkish food, here is a great 6 min tutorial on making Turkish Coffee. https://aegeandelight.com/how-to-make-turkish-coffee/#tasty-recipes-3186-jump-target