India-based Rephrase.ai, which uses generative AI to create videos from a text prompt, has been acquired by an unnamed Big Tech firm that is almost surely Adobe. Rephrase says it has over 50,000 users. The new capabilities will presumably be integrated into Adobe’s existing design tools.
Every now and then, global governments humbly suggest that Big Tech companies might adjust their actions ever so slightly to avoid existential harm if it’s not too much trouble. A group of eighteen countries including the U.S. and Britain took one of those tentative steps this week by offering non-binding recommendations for building AI systems that are “secure by design”. It’s not clear whether the Tech Overlords took notice.
Google will pay to carry stories from Canadian news outlets under an agreement announced yesterday. Details are sparse but the process for compliance with government’s C-18 law has been simplified to meet some Google objections. Meta, the only other firm required to make payments under the law, has not changed its decision to block reliable news.
Disney has agreed to license more than 200 characters, costumes, and environments (but not voices or talent likenesses) to OpenAI for Sora, its gen AI video platform. This is highly unusual for Disney, which generally sues AI models for copyright infringement; in fact, it sued Google for that a day before announcing the OpenAI deal. Disney will also invest $1 billion in OpenAI, nicely illustrating how very eager they are to join the AI party.