Media & Entertainment

Streamflation, a portmanteau of "streaming" and "inflation," is an apt name for the streaming industry's relentless pursuit of the highest price you'd ever be willing to pay for a streaming service. In practice, content prices never come down - so you could argue that there's nothing to see here. But there is. Continue Reading →

As AI's capabilities increasingly blur the lines between human originality and machine-generated derivatives, traditional copyright frameworks appear increasingly antiquated. The once-clear demarcations of ownership, originality, and rights are now mired in ambiguity. How might we rewrite today's copyright regulations to enable a future that respects both human ingenuity and the undeniable contributions of generative AI models? Continue Reading →

Does generative AI pose a threat to the rich tapestry of human expression? Are we on an inevitable path toward digital monoculturalism? This essay was written in the fall of 2016. Considering how quickly generative AI content creation tools and copilots are being woven into the fabric of our lives, now would be a very good time to start thinking about what our human-created cultures truly mean to us. Continue Reading →

IMAGE: Vintage American anti-capitalist poster, circa 1938. Source: r/antiwork A few years ago, I received an invitation to walk in the Labor Day Parade. It got me thinking about labor law as an alternative path to meaningful data privacy regulation. Today, as we begin to think hard about how to approach AI regulation, I started Continue Reading →

Meta AI has introduced AudioCraft, a text-to-music AI model that does an impressive job of composing, arranging, orchestrating, and playing in a wide range of musical styles. Not only can it create or mimic a melody, but it also engineers and produces fully finished work, some of which is already suitable for commercial use – and this is only V1. Imagine where the state-of-the-art will be a year from now. Continue Reading →

In a stunning display of AI prowess, Meta AI has introduced AudioCraft, a single-stop code base that does an impressive job of composing, arranging, orchestrating, producing and playing music. AudioCraft is not just an AI that can mimic a melody. It's a sophisticated system that can create music, sound effects, and even handle audio compression. Continue Reading →

Can you name the three most famous Impressionist artists? Or describe the color palette and techniques that define Color Field Painting or Naive Art? Your ability to answer these questions will have a big impact on your experience with text-to-image generators like Midjourney. But what if you haven’t been to art school or spent years studying art history? Continue Reading →

Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, has open-sourced LLAMA 2, its advanced AI model. Zuck might be onto something here. Let's explore what LLAMA 2 brings to the table, its potential applications, and the implications of this open-source move for the AI community at large. Continue Reading →

Large Language Models (LLMs) are transforming the way we interact with technology. These models, developed by leading tech companies such as OpenAI, Replicate, Cohere, Hugging Face, and Anthropic, to name a few, are pushing the boundaries of what's possible in natural language processing. Here's a short overview of the most popular LLMs from these companies, exploring their unique capabilities and best use cases. Continue Reading →

For the past several years I've been publishing various versions of the "11 Hottest Tech Trends of 1776." This year, I thought it would be fun to ask ChatGPT for some help. So I asked it to read the previous versions of the article and if it could "think of any other technological advancements between 1750 and 1800 that would be a good addition to this story." It could and it did. So here, for your Independence Day reading pleasure, are the 18 hottest tech trends circa 1776. Continue Reading →