Meta And Alphabet Offer Millions Of Dollars To Hollywood For AI Partnership
- Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
- Fact-Checked by
Meta and Alphabet are in discussions with Hollywood Studios to license content for artificial intelligence technologies. According to Bloomberg , “people familiar with the matter” confirmed this information and explained the tech giants are interested in video generation software and have offered tens of millions of dollars for a partnership.
This story came out days after Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson requested OpenAI clarify how the Sky chatbot voice, which sounds eerily like her own, was developed. The story raised awareness of AI use and the human right to protect their own identity.
OpenAI has also been in discussions with Hollywood to reach business agreements in the past few weeks.
“Hollywood Studios are keen to discuss ways to use AI to reduce costs while also protecting themselves from having their work stolen,” explains reporter Lucas Shaw in the article. “They are wary of giving films and TV shows to tech companies without control over how that content is used.”
According to a recent discussion on Bloomberg Television , Disney and Netflix have denied the request for agreements with the tech giants, but Warner Bros. is “weighing a decision.”
Bloomberg’s reporter Alex Webb explains that, for tech companies invested in developing generative AI products, “this is really about how to find the next wave of data to train a new generation” of AI. What Hollywood studios would gain with the alliance—besides money upfront— is a powerful technology to improve productions at a lower cost and create better content, like enhanced special effects.
AI tools are already used in video production and have amazed prominent figures in the industry. American actor and filmmaker Tyler Perry put his $800 million studio investment on hold after seeing Sora ( OpenAI’s text-to-video software ) perform.
While Hollywood could have the right to license a movie to a tech company, the fear of the consequences extends to relationships with creative partners. Not all actors have similar considerations regarding AI, and it could rekindle tensions with the union of Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) after recent strikes surrounding similar subject matter.
Social Media Platform X Will Hide Likes From Posts
- Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
- Fact-Checked by
Haofei Wang, X’s Director of Engineering, has confirmed through the social media platform that “likes” will soon become a private feature, meaning only authors of the posts will be able to see them. The information was disclosed after MacRumors researcher Aaron Perris shared images of the new look on X after enabling the new feature that hides the likes on the iOS application.
“Yeah, we are making likes private,” wrote Wang referencing Perris’ post. “Public likes are incentivizing the wrong behavior. For example, many people feel discouraged from liking content that might be ‘edgy’ in fear of retaliation from trolls, or to protect their public image.”
Wang explains that by protecting users’ likes privacy, they will have more freedom and it will help the algorithm provide more relevant content. Currently, anyone on the platform can go to a user’s profile and see their likes in chronological order.
“Soon you’ll be able to like without worrying who might see it. Also, a reminder that the more posts you like, the better your ‘For you’ algorithm will become,” wrote Wang.
User Opinions on the New Update
This new update was reported only days after X changed Twitter’s URL to X.com , and is part of an ongoing, complex rebranding process that has already made multiple users debate and rage. This time many reacted and shared opinions and concerns.
“Or, hear me out, you can leave it the way it is since literally nobody asked for this,” commented one user on Wang’s post. “I’m okay with this for other people’s posts but it’s really important that people can see who liked their posts,” said another one, “kill the dopamine, kill the app.”
Enrique Barragan, X Senior Software Engineer, joined the discussion to provide more details . Barragan explained that the authors will be able to see who liked their posts, as well as like counts and replies, but will not be able to see who liked someone else’s post or a user’s Like tab on their X profile.
Scientific studies do actually show that social media’s success is very much a result of the dopamine-inducing ability to get the most like possible. “Every notification, whether it’s a text message, a “like” on Instagram, or a Facebook notification, has the potential to be a positive social stimulus and dopamine influx,” explains a document from Harvard’s Science in the News .
But X is not the first platform to make adjustments to the likes feature. A few years ago, Instagram also updated the likes feature to let users hide their likes count to “depressurize people’s experience.”
X has not disclosed when this big change will happen nor made an official announcement, but since two members of the company have confirmed the update publicly, users should expect this new change soon.
