Hi everyone! Welcome to this week’s installment of Tom’s Top 3 Tuesdays, where I highlight three pieces of content (Podcasts/Shows/Songs/Articles/etc.) that I found interesting or noteworthy from the prior week.
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OpenAI recently released Sora 2, their latest AI video generation tool. Users are now able to create videos using simple prompts, and it’s clear that copyrighted I.P. from movies and TV have been used as training data for these AI models.
This has enraged studios, as their content is being bastardized on Sora, without the consent of the rights holders. Here is an example from Matt Belloni, which shows Wednesday Adams and Peter Griffin having dinner.
The industry has dealt with pirating and reposting content in the past—this was a major issue when YouTube was coming to prominence. The difference here, is that OpenAI has created an opt-out system, rather than opt-in. Essentially, OpenAI is requiring studios to individually request that their I.P. be excluded from Sora’s output. This does nothing to prevent OpenAI from training their models on their I.P., just that users can’t generate content that closely resembles the studio’s characters.
This will likely lead to a large legal battle. Studios already have an ongoing suit against Midjourney. Honestly, if I’m one of these studios, I would explore a deal with OpenAI to allow them to use their content with strict parameters and look to extract a lot of money. Fighting technology has never worked out for Hollywood, so I would be looking for ways to effectively ride the wave instead of wiping out.
[Podcast] The Town - Sora 2, AI Actors, and How Hollywood Can Fight Back
This podcast covers a lot of the same information, so if you prefer to listen rather than read, check it out.
I found one part of the episode particularly thought-provoking. Matt, a former entertainment lawyer, put forth one theory he has heard regarding OpenAI’s strategy/intentions:
I’ve heard one theory that OpenAI wants to get sued. They are purposefully putting this out there to hopefully generate a big, industry-wide lawsuit and maybe even a class action, and then it would cause this entire group of rights holders to be treated as the same in one case. Then they can get a settlement and an opt-in from this entire group versus having to get every single actor, artist, studio, character, participant, etcetera, to sign individual opt-ins. And at some point, the industry will cheer and say “We got a billion-dollar settlement from OpenAI,” but the rules of the road will be established. Hollywood will be able to say “We were right,” but it will once again be left behind. And the business of AI will trudge forward with copyrighted materials.
Scary thoughts. Studios better lawyer up.
[YouTube] Matt Clausen - BREAKING | RAKUTEN ADDING BILT
I’m a big fan of Rakuten and Bilt, so this pairing is quite exciting! Rakuten is a platform that allows you to earn rewards for shopping through their portal or using a linked credit card at a partner store or restaurant.
For example, say you wanted to buy that $1,000 Lego Death Star I wrote about a couple weeks back. If you buy that with a credit card, you’d get some amount of cash back or points on that purchase. However, if you go to Rakuten, you’ll see that it is possible to earn an additional 15% back on Lego. All you have to do is click on the Lego tile in Rakuten, and it will take you to the Lego website where you shop as you normally would. Now, on top of those credit card rewards, you’d also earn $150 back on that $1,000 purchase, making it a little bit easier to stomach.
Better yet, Rakuten allows you to cash out your rewards in the form of Amex Membership Rewards points. So that 15% back would actually become 15x MR points, which could then be cashed out at a value of greater than 1 cent per point. Say you’re able to book travel using MR points at 2 cents per point—that 15% back on Lego actually equated to $300 in value.
But I digress.
Now, it looks like Bilt is going to be added as a cash out option, allowing you to earn Bilt points the same way you can currently earn MR points. With Alaska Airlines being a Bilt transfer partner, I am very excited about another way to earn Atmos points. One thing to note, however, is that I will have to weigh the earning rates between Rakuten and the Alaska shopping portal to decide which to use, since the Alaska portal has the added benefit of earning status points.
Anyways, if you are interested in checking out Rakuten (I highly suggest because, hey, free money), then please sign up using my referral link. We both get $50 if you do!
That wraps up this edition of Tom’s Top 3 Tuesdays. If you made it to this point, please drop a 1️⃣, 2️⃣, or 3️⃣ in the comments to let me know what you found most interesting/useful. And as always, please like and consider sharing with a friend who you think would enjoy! I’ll be back next week. ✌️