Technology

On this day in June 1965, Sony Corporation made a bold leap into consumer electronics by introducing one of the world’s first home video tape recorders to the U.S. market. The device, known as the CV-2000 Videocorder, carried a suggested retail price of $995 and promised to revolutionize how families captured and replayed moving images in their living rooms. It marked a significant milestone as the first fully transistorized video tape recorder designed with home users in mind. 

Source: 61 Years Ago Today: Sony Brings Video Recording into American Homes

Martin Scorsese, the living embodiment of cinema as high art and a conscience for modern Hollywood, on Tuesday threw his weight behind an A.I. start-up that specializes in image generation. In a statement and an accompanying video made in his New York City office, Mr. Scorsese discussed how he had used technology from Black Forest Labs, a fast-rising A.I. venture, during preproduction for a new film. Black Forest Labs said Scorsese had signed on last year as a partner and an adviser.

Source: Martin Scorsese Is Embracing A.I.

Some have contended that AI may be having its Napster moment, when the music file-sharing software upended the economics and gatekeeping structures of the music industry in the late 90s by enabling millions of users to download and distribute copyrighted songs online. Now, generative AI is forcing book publishing into a long overdue reckoning over what counts as original human work and how the tech should be ethically deployed or disclosed at all stages of the book production pipeline. 

Source: Book publishing’s AI panic is here. And nobody knows what to do about it

For the past several years, the AI industry has largely operated on the premise that intelligence lives in language. Large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude reflect that bet. Runway, alongside other competitors, is making a different one. Its founders believe the next form of AI intelligence won’t be built from text, but from video and world models that learn how the world works, not just how humans describe it. 

Source: Runway started by helping filmmakers — now it wants to beat Google at AI

AI film-makers stand on the brink of a breakthrough that backers believe will unleash a new wave of creativity. A new cadre, no longer blocked by red lights from studios, feel liberated. They don’t care that the Oscars and the Cannes film festival have in recent weeks ruled AI out of the running for some of their most prestigious prizes. But the rising movement triggers despair for critics who fume about “ugly slop” and “AI sludge”, robots replacing human creativity and copyright piracy in AI model training.

‘There are no rules’: spotlight on Gossip Goblin as AI film-making enters new era

Yes, celebrities are making all sorts of cringey comments on AI, but lambasting them for acknowledging the technology is here, likely already endemic, and even comes with some compelling use cases isn’t progressing the conversation. AI is currently shaping our digital and material lives in ways that are useful and exciting and noxious and terrifying, often through mechanisms that are mostly beyond the consumptive or creative purview of any one person.

Source: The Demi Moore-AI Debate Is Missing the Point