☕ So cinematic

AI moviemaking grows up.

May 15, 2024 It's Wednesday. After a summer of strikes, it was time to check in on the status of using AI in movies. Tech Brew's Patrick Kulp went to tech startup Runway's second annual AI Film Festival to get the lay of the land. In today's edition: AI moviemaking grows up at Runway's film festival ChatGPT likes to fight. For military AI researchers, that's a problem How AI is changing the car-buying process for buyers and sellers alike —Patrick Kulp, Kelcee Griffis, Jordyn Grzelewski, Annie Saunders AI Lights, camera, action! Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images In a two-screen movie theater modeled after a 1920s-era cinema on Manhattan's Lower East Side, hundreds of viewers gathered last week to watch short films made in a style that's very much of the 2020s. The occasion was tech startup Runway's second annual AI Film Festival, for which the company invited submissions that feature AI techniques, whether in generating visuals or editing. This year, Runway CEO and co-founder Cristóbal Valenzuela said organizers received around 3,000 entries—10 times the number put forth for the inaugural event—as a sign of how much interest in this technology has exploded over the past year. That boom also changed the backdrop of this year's festival; Runway now has more competition in courting Hollywood with its AI production tools from the likes of OpenAI. Two historic labor strikes have spotlighted frictions around the technology and its use in the entertainment and media industries. And video-generation tech itself has matured from crude distortions to uncanny quasi-realism. Events like the AI Film Festival can help to cut through some of the noise and open up direct dialogues around the technology between filmmakers, according to Valenzuela. The company's more creative-centric background—its three co-founders met in art school—also differentiates it from some of the new entrants in the space, he said. "We've always been in [the video AI] business—it's very natural for us to just do this," Valenzuela told Tech Brew. "We don't have to pretend we like it. We don't have to pretend we want to help artists. We started this company being artists ourselves. And most of [those] who work in our company have artistic backgrounds." Keep reading here.—PK FROM THE CREW Unlock trust Heard of Zero Trust? IT pros everywhere are nodding—and quite possibly sighing. Zero Trust requires that security and IT teams verify every identity, secure every sign-in, and ensure the health of every device. That's…a lot. The problem? Traditional IAM tools aren't equipped to do it. The ways we approach access management must evolve to effectively secure today's hybrid/remote world. 1Password's webinar with IT Brew on June 5 will explore these pressing topics and discuss how extended access management can help. Register for the webinar. AI A(I)rms race Matejmo/Getty Images Even though they're still fairly new, AI-powered large language model chatbots have taken on many roles: customer service rep, traffic-ticket negotiator, maybe even wedding vow author. But there's one big job AI isn't ready for: five-star general. Jacquelyn Schneider, a fellow at the Hoover Institution public policy think tank, runs war games that simulate conflict scenarios, and she's been documenting the results as AI plays alongside human participants. In a policy brief released this month, she and several co-authors observed that three of OpenAI's ChatGPT versions as well as models by Anthropic and Meta all "show forms of escalation and difficult-to-predict escalation patterns that lead to greater conflict and, in some cases, the use of nuclear weapons." The researchers found that these unpredictable behaviors can vary widely depending on the bot and its version. For example, earlier versions of ChatGPT "are more likely to think of winning in a really kind of absolutist way," Schneider told Tech Brew. Keep reading here.—KG AI Aiding auto sales Pixelseffect/Getty Images Much ink has been spilled on the promises and failures of AI's highest-profile automotive application: self-driving cars. But the much-hyped technology could reshape another aspect of the automotive experience: buying a car. Executives at Cox Automotive, speaking at a Detroit event last week, expressed optimism about the ways they believe AI could make a notoriously time-consuming and difficult process easier on both buyers and sellers. Take a look: Already, Manheim, the Cox-owned wholesale vehicle auction, is deploying AI to collect images and identify damage on vehicles. Manheim has 23 fixed imaging tunnels installed at 13 auction sites, with plans to double the equipment by year's end, Brad Burns, Manheim's AVP of vehicle information, told Tech Brew. Vehicles drive through the tunnel and, in seconds, the equipment captures 2,500 images, including of the vehicle's undercarriage. AI selects the 12 best images. The rest are run through a machine-learning model that can detect damage, speeding up the process of conducting an inspection and generating a vehicle condition report, Burns explained. "Right now, for the most part, the entire process is manual," Burns said. "As we're starting to deploy this technology, certain aspects of it will be presented to [inspectors] just to validate…Subjectivity is a big challenge when it comes to describing the condition of the vehicle because everyone has a different set of eyes." Keep reading here.—JG FROM THE CREW Discover Miss Excel's secret hacks to unleashing the full power of Microsoft Excel in this free Excel class on optimizing your spreadsheets with lookup functions and shortcuts. The best news: If you can't attend live, you'll also get access to a 48-hour replay when you sign up. Register today for this FREE live workshop and save hours each week. BITS AND BYTES Stat: 100%. That's the new tariff rate for Chinese EVs imported into the US, up from an existing 25%, set to kick in this year, Morning Brew wrote, citing reporting from the Wall Street Journal. Quote: "What I love, more than anything, is the quality that makes AI such a disaster: If it sees a space, it will fill it—with nonsense, with imagined fact, with links to fake websites. It possesses an absolute willingness to spout foolishness, balanced only by its carefree attitude toward plagiarism. AI is, very simply, a totally shameless technology."—Paul Ford, a programmer, software entrepreneur, and writer, in a contributed column to Wired Read: The answer to AI's energy needs could be blowing in the wind (The Verge) Listen: Should this creepy search engine exist? (Search Engine) JOBS Break free from the job-board cycle. CollabWORK connects you with relevant job openings curated specifically for communities you're already part of—like Tech Brew. Find high-quality opportunities and land your next big break by joining CollabWORK today. Senior Product Marketing Manager at LinkedIn (remote) Global Product Marketing Manager at a data communications manufacturer (in person) Senior Software Engineer at an undisclosed organization (hybrid) SHARE THE BREW Share Tech Brew with your coworkers, acquire free Brew swag, and then make new friends as a result of your fresh Brew swag. We're saying we'll give you free stuff and more friends if you share a link. One link. Your referral count: 0 Click to Share Or copy & paste your referral link to others: emergingtechbrew.com/r/?kid=b3968dba Written by Patrick Kulp, Kelcee Griffis, Jordyn Grzelewski, and Annie Saunders Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.   Guide → What is AI?   Guide → What is 5G? 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