The week's developments on the intersection of AI and creative content | 28.11.23

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AI in music and video made waves this week. Stability AI unveiled its first open-source foundational model for video generation, while Ringo Starr shot down rumours of AI mimicking John Lennon's voice in their brand new Beatles track. Meanwhile, SAG-AFTRA published its post-strike deal highlighting over $1bn in new compensation and AI protections.

Elsewhere, Sony Music held back from licensing its artists' voices to YouTube's new "Dream Track" AI experiment, while rivals UMG and WMG participated cautiously. Could conflicting views on copyright law between Google and music companies jeopardise future collaboration on GenAI?

We cover these stories and more in today’s edition — from the latest details on Microsoft's new Azure AI Speech to The Orb and David Gilmour’s pioneering AI collaboration.

- Charlie and the Research and Intelligence Team

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Cinema and Industry

📜 SAG-AFTRA released a detailed 128-page post-strike contract revealing the new agreement terms settled with the studios. Highlights include over $1 billion in new compensation, AI guardrails, and streaming residuals. 

🎥 Stability AI ventures into video generation with Stable Video Diffusion, an open-source model animating images into videos. Users can explore two distinct models, SVD for standard animation and SVD-XT for higher frame rate creations. 

🎤️ Ringo Starr denies rumours of AI’s role in replicating John Lennon's voicefor the Beatles' song 'Now and Then.' According to the Beatles drummer, AI was only used to isolate Lennon's original vocals from a demo recorded in the 1990s. 

⚖️ Sony artists distance themselves from YouTube's voice-cloning AI project'Dream Track' after a controversial filing by Google — YouTube's parent company — seeking flexible music copyright use for its AI training systems.

Arts and Entertainment

🎙️ The Orb and David Gilmour unveil a new collaboration with AI startup Vermillio, allowing fans to generate custom remixes of their album 'Metallic Spheres in Colour'. This unique project uses AI to translate emotions into personalised music tracks and album covers.

👤 Microsoft unveils Azure AI Speech, a new tool for creating photorealistic avatars and voices. The platform allows users to select from preloaded avatars or upload their own footage to replicate a specific person's voice and likeness.

🎬 AI art exhibition HyperCinema goes live in New Zealand, offering a unique, audience-centered cinematic experience. The exhibition showcases dynamic AI-generated portraits personalised to match the appearance of each participantt.

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In case you missed it

Watch Stability AI showcase Stable Video Diffusion — their latest open-source model — capable of transforming images into four-second videos:

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