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Cinema & AI
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The week's developments on the intersection of AI and creative content | 12.03.24
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This week, the glitz and the glamour of the 96th Academy Awards is just enough to sidestep — if only for a night — the recent industry anxieties brought along by OpenAI’s Sora. However, the Gen-AI cloud looming above can’t be ignored for long, as a disconcerting study reveals people frequently struggle to differentiate between real scenes, and those crafted by Sora. In light of this, how will our ability to trust in film evolve?
Meanwhile, great news for Trekkies as Star Trek becomes an unlikely ally for AI advancement, with chatbots trained on the series showcasing superior maths skills. But bad news for bassists, as Sony introduces an AI that composes personalised, customisable bass lines.
We cover these stories, plus the model using her AI twin to get more work, the dark side of open source image generators, and how to win Runway’s Gen:48 AI film competition, twice.
— Charlie and the Research and Intelligence Team
Cinema and Industry
☁️ A Gen-AI cloud looms over this year's Oscars. The dazzle of the 96th Academy Awards offers a temporary escape, allowing Hollywood to momentarily forget its financial woes and the pervasive "survive to 2025" anxiety, intensified by the emergence of OpenAI's Sora.
📽️ Sora videos are easily mistaken for real footage, according to a recent survey, highlighting the increased realism of AI text-to-video. Participants were shown a mix of actual, and AI-crafted videos and struggled to accurately identify the origins.
🖖 Star Trek is helping AI get smarter, according to a recent report. Chatbots trained on Star Trek phrases outperform others in maths problem-solving. This unique insight opens up a new frontier in AI advancement, for both technology enthusiasts and Trekkies alike.
🎬 Lightrick’s LTX Studio is the world’s first full-featured AI filmmaking platform. It opens up professional-grade filmmaking to a wider audience, with text-to-video tech, eliminating traditional barriers with tools for visualising, planning, and editing their cinematic visions.
Arts and Entertainment
🎸 Bad news for bassists, Sony’s new AI may have you out of a job. Their latest model can generate bass lines tailored to complement a song's style and tonality. The AI produces basslines of any length, and also allows for customization through "style grounding".
🖼️ The dark side of open source AI image generators. Despite efforts to curb misuse, the decentralised nature of open source development presents challenges in enforcing ethical standards: even tools designed to prevent explicit image creation can be repurposed for malicious intents.
💃 “My AI twin may get me more modelling work” A London-based model has created an AI version of herself to ensure her future in the industry, aiming to prove the potential of a coexistence of real models, and AI models in the fashion industry.
🎨 Refik Anadol discusses his immersive AI art. He describes his art as an exploration of the infinite possibilities enabled by AI, believing it will challenge and change existing systems. His new immersive exhibition explores thought-provoking questions like "If a machine can learn, can it hallucinate?"
In case you missed it
Gabe Michael tells the story of how he won Runway’s Gen:48 AI short film competition, twice, and how you can do it too:
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