Matthew McConaughey and Michael Caine have teamed with AI audio company ElevenLabs to produce virtual replications of their famous voices. McConaughey also is investing an undisclosed sum in New York-based ElevenLabs. He’s collaborated with the company since it was founded in 2022. Now McConaughey is using ElevenLabs’ technology to bring a Spanish-language audio version of his newsletter “Lyrics of Livin’” in his own voice.
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Tilly Norwood Creator on Hollywood Backlash, Creating Jobs and Full AI Movies
Eline Van der Velden, the creator of AI actress Tilly Norwood, says the character is a work of art that sparked a conversation. “I didn’t think it was controversial,” she says. The performers’ union, SAG-AFTRA, disagreed, denouncing her for “devaluing human artistry” and threatening actors’ jobs. Van der Velden countered that no one’s job was impacted and that Tilly Norwood required a lot of human artistry, just of a different kind.
Epidemic Sound unveils AI ‘Studio’ tool to generate video soundtracks
The Stockholm-based music licensing platform on Tuesday (November 11) said Studio analyzes uploaded videos and generates a synchronized soundtrack using music from its catalog along with ambient sounds and foley effects. The tool draws on data from more than 3 billion daily plays across online platforms to match audio to video content, Epidemic Sound said, while ensuring that Studio delivers “a cohesive, legally safe soundtrack seamlessly synced to the visuals.”
Source: Epidemic Sound unveils AI ‘Studio’ tool to generate video soundtracks
Wikipedia Urges AI Companies to Stop Website Scraping
The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit behind Wikipedia, issued a call to artificial intelligence (AI) developers and companies to stop scraping information from the Wikipedia site and instead use its paid, opt-in API platform, Wikimedia Enterprise, to “responsibly” access its content. A Monday (Nov. 10) blog post explained that making Wikimedia Enterprise a paid service sustains Wikipedia’s global volunteer editor base and nonprofit funding model.
Source: Wikipedia Urges AI Companies to Stop Website Scraping | PYMNTS.com
Amazon is testing an AI tool that automatically translates books into other languages
The company says the tool can translate entire books between English and Spanish and German to English. Amazon promises that more languages are coming down the pike. It’s available right now in a beta form to select authors enrolled in the Kindle Direct Publishing platform. There’s a broader rollout planned for a later date.
Source: Amazon is testing an AI tool that automatically translates books into other languages
Studio Ghibli and other Japanese publishers want OpenAI to stop training on their work
When ChatGPT’s native image generator was released in March, it became a popular trend for users to prompt for re-creations of their selfies or pet pictures in the style of the studio’s films. Now, as more people get access to OpenAI’s Sora app and video generator, Japan’s Content Overseas Distribution Association (CODA) has requested that OpenAI refrain from using its members’ content for machine learning without permission.
Source: Studio Ghibli and other Japanese publishers want OpenAI to stop training on their work | TechCrunch
AI against the arts
Already, we are seeing the use of AI, with all its negative ramifications for writers, painters, photographers, and musicians, being endorsed because it means that ‘everyone can be an artist’, or, as ACE would have it, a ‘creative practitioner’. This is likely to converge in future with another recent intellectual position, which contends that meritocracy – hitherto regarded as the only way of championing fairness – is itself unfair.
Source: AI against the arts
How AI browsers sneak past blockers and paywalls.
AI browsers present new problems for media outlets, because agentic systems are making it even more difficult for publishers to know and control how their articles are being used. For instance, when we asked Atlas and Comet to retrieve the full text of a nine-thousand-word subscriber-exclusive article in the MIT Technology Review, the browsers were able to do it.
The music industry remains divided on generative AI. Where will that leave us?
The most notable differences in AI strategies are between the major labels and independents. While the majors are working to find solutions that allow for responsible Gen AI use and drive new licensing revenue, many independent artists and smaller labels are firmly against any use of Gen AI in music. However, there are divides even within these factions.
Source: The music industry remains divided on generative AI. Where will that leave us?
OpenAI, valued at $500bn, reportedly working on generative AI music tool
OpenAI is planning to enter the generative AI music space, according to a report at The Information, which says the company is working on a tool that can create music from text or audio prompts. That would bring OpenAI into an increasingly crowded field of AI music generation platforms, which include Suno and Udio – notorious within the music industry for having been sued by the record majors for alleged widespread copyright infringement in training its AI.
Source: OpenAI, valued at $500bn, reportedly working on generative AI music tool