Police in France have taken five former Ubisoft employees, including vice president of editorial and creative services Tommy Francois and chief creative officer Serge Hascoët, into custody following a long investigation into moral and sexual harassment at the Assassin’s Creed creator. By Wednesday, the five had been taken into custody …
Read More »Everybody's Talking About the Wrong Sam Bankman-Fried Book
Imagine, for a moment, that one of the world’s most beloved and successful journalists had, in 1994, embedded himself in OJ Simpson’s world. Imagine that this writer had been reporting an uplifting rags-to-riches biography of the famous football player for months, only to find himself hunched over scribbling notes in …
Read More »Hannah Diamond Has Cracked the Code of Using AI for Music
Since last November, when OpenAI unleashed the world-conquering ChatGPT, artificial intelligence has stalked creatives like a malignant doppelgänger. You, a presumably human artist, return to work, and AI is there, drawing your comic, writing your script, acting in your place. Your artistry—your identity—has been replaced by a computer program. Hannah …
Read More »How TikTok Is Changing Stage Design
“You can have the world’s best idea, but if it doesn’t fit on the back of a truck then it’s a nonstarter,” says Ray Winkler, who’s been loading ideas onto the backs of trucks for close to 30 years now. Winkler is the CEO of Stufish, where he leads a …
Read More »Patrick Stewart Boldly Explores His Own Final Frontier
Let me just be honest: Patrick Stewart brings out my daddy issues. That keen gaze, alternately steely and compassionate. That warrior-monk profile, disciplined and ascetic. And, of course, the Shakespearean cadences that wash over your mind and soul like a lullaby. For more than three decades, as Star Trek’s Jean-Luc …
Read More »Voice Actors Are Bracing to Compete With Talking AI
Quincy Surasmith is a radio journalist and actor, but you may also hear his voice and never realize it. That’s because he’s been the voice of Thai-speaking cartoons, chattering background crowds, and characters without major speaking roles. It’s not all glamorous. “I’m making grunting noises, getting beat up by some …
Read More »Researchers Tested AI Watermarks—and Broke All of Them
Soheil Feizi considers himself an optimistic person. But the University of Maryland computer science professor is blunt when he sums up the current state of watermarking AI images. “We don’t have any reliable watermarking at this point,” he says. “We broke all of them.” For one of the two types …
Read More »'The Creator' Review: It's AI That Wants to Save Humanity
robots have been depicted in movies for more than a century, but the anxieties about artificial intelligence that they used to convey are no longer theoretical. There’s a bill in US Congress right now to stop AI from gaining control of nuclear weapons, and roughly a dozen militaries around the …
Read More »Netflix Just Shipped Its Last DVD. The Algorithms Won
Collectively, separately, Netflix’s film nerds mourn. On X/Twitter, and in think pieces, and in private moments, they let out a collective sigh knowing that they’ll never see a red-wrapped DVD in their mailboxes again. For some 25 years, the period after Netflix all but obliterated Blockbuster and most mom-and-pop video …
Read More »‘EA Sports FC 24’ Is Just ‘FIFA 24’ in a Different Jersey
Breakups are hard. They can also be freeing. Just ask the producers of EA Sports FC 24. After a messy divorce, the long-running video game FIFA has got a rebrand, bringing a 30-year relationship to an end. In 2021, soccer’s governing body said it would refuse to let EA Sports …
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