The week's developments on the intersection of AI and creative content | 11.06.24

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This week, South Korea launched their Bifan AI film festival, featuring 15 AI generated short films from the US, Asia, and Europe, competing for $11,000 in prizes. Meanwhile, recent surveys reveal that 36% of the UK are using gen-AI tools, and 79% of US entertainment companies are exploring generative AI. Is it finally time for regulation?

In music, Stability AI introduced a new sound generator to create drum beats, riffs and ambient noises, and people are using text-to-music tools to create hateful songs (no surprises there).

We cover these stories, plus Ashton Kutcher’s AI controversy, the art app challenging instagram, and non-AI generative art.

— Charlie and the Research and Intelligence Team

PS. You are now able to sign up for the super early bird offer (75% off) to the CogX AI Summit in London on October 7th here.

Cinema and Industry

🎬 Korea’s Bifan launches first AI film festival. The festival will feature 15 short films from the US, Asia, and Europe. Competing for a share of $11,000, the AI films will be showcased from June 7-14, with additional AI events running alongside the festival.

• Highlighted entries include Hansl Von Kwon’s One More Pumpkin, Dave Clark’s Another, and Adam Cole’s Kiss/Crash. 

🎨 Gen AI usage in the UK rises to 36%. 18 million people have used generative AI tools, up from 26% in 2023. Despite growing adoption, many users remain under-informed about its workings and limitations, requiring governance in creative industries to mitigate risks.

🎥 Ashton Kutcher thinks AI is good, people are not happy. Kutcher has praised AI's potential to create films, suggesting gen-AI tools like Sora could render entire movies. Critics noted Kutcher's venture capitalist ties to AI, questioning his motives. 

📊 What media & entertainment execs think about genAI. A recent survey reveals that 79% of US media companies are exploring, testing, or using the tech. 49% have implemented it in various areas, primarily for concept design, visual effects and marketing.

Arts and Entertainment

🎵 Stability AI releases sound generator. Trained on 486,000 royalty-free samples, Stable Audio Open produces audio up to 47 seconds long, ideal for creating drum beats, instrumental riffs, and ambient noises. However, it struggles with full songs and melodies.

🎨 The art app challenging Instagram and AI. Cara is growing in popularity as an Insta alternative due to its focus on artists and explicit filtering of AI images, ensuring authentic creativity by not hosting AI portfolios until ethical and data privacy issues are resolved. 

🖌️ Pablo Delcan’s non-AI generative art model. Prompt-Brush is a unique twist on generative art, relying on human creativity rather than AI. Although initially launched as a joke, it’s evolved into Delcan drawing prompts suggested by friends and sending them back. 

🎧 People are using AI to create hateful songs, obviously. Malicious actors are exploiting generative tools to produce homophobic, racist, and propagandistic music, and it's on the rise. Despite safeguards, users are still finding ways to bypass filters.

In case you missed it

Watch the AI film that rewrites itself before every screening, by Filmmaker Gary Hustwit.

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🚀 You are now able to sign up for the super early bird offer (75% off) to the CogX AI Summit in London on October 7th here.