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Celebrities and Hollywood executives have found themselves at odds over the use of Artificial Intelligence like ChatGPT, even as its already happening at every level of moviemaking, eliminating human accountability and judgment.

Stars like Harrison Ford , Keanu Reeves and more have started to speak out about AI using their likeness and voice. While some celebs have been willing to sell their rights to AI companies, others have taken steps to protect their image in contracts, Fox News noted.

They have this artificial intelligence program that can go through every foot of film that Lucasfilm owns, Ford said of George Lucas production company, making him look younger in the final film in the Indiana Jones franchise.

I did a bunch of movies for them, he added. They have all this footage, including film that wasnt printed. So they can mine it from where the light is coming from, from the expression. I dont know how they do it. But thats my actual face. Then I put little dots on my face, and I say the words, and they make [it]. Its fantastic. The danger is less about AI in the creation of documentary, the actual production, and more in the curation of it, says Amit Dey, executive vp nonfiction at MRC https://t.co/vawj91Cx5t

The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) May 4, 2023

Reeves, who famously played a character who fought AI in The Matrix in the 1999 sci-fi thriller, isnt as keen on the technology. He said he realized a while ago he needed to have legal protection to prohibit digital manipulation of performances without his consent.

I dont mind if someone takes a blink out during an edit, Reeves told Wired. But, early on, in the early 2000s, or it might have been the 90s, I had a performance changed. They added a tear to my face, and I was just like, Huh?! It was like, I dont even have to be here.'

Its going to be interesting to see how humans deal with these technologies, he added. Theyre having such cultural, sociological impacts and the species is being studied. Theres so much data on behaviors now. Technologies are finding places in our education, in our medicine, in our entertainment, in our politics, and how we war and how we work.

People are growing up with these tools, the John Wick star continued. Were listening to music already thats made by AI in the style of Nirvana. Theres NFT digital art. Its coolbut theres a corporatocracy behind it thats looking to control those things. Culturally, socially, were gonna be confronted by the value of real, or the non-value. And then whats going to be pushed on us? Whats going to be presented to us?

In Hollywood right now, the Writers Guild of America(WGA) is striking and many of your favorite shows are on hold as TV and Film screenwriters express unease and concerns over chatbots rewriting or writing scripts, Fortune.com noted. The strike is also over an increase in pay and larger contributions to benefits.

Writer, director, and actress Justine Bateman issued a warning to those in the business amid the strike when she tweeted that AI has to be addressed now or never. I believe this is the last time any labor action will be effective in our business. If we dont make strong rules now, they simply wont notice if we strike in three years, because at that point they wont need us.

Actors, you must have iron-clad protection against the AI use of your image and voice in the SAG MBA or your profession is finishedshe added.

AI is terrifying, Danny Strong, the Dopesick and Empire creator said. Now, Ive seen some of ChatGPTs writing and as of now Im not terrified because Chat is a terrible writer. But who knows? That could change.

Michael Winship, president of the WGA East and a news and documentary writer said, Were not totally against AI. There are ways it can be useful. But too many people are using it against us and using it to create mediocrity. Theyre also in violation of copyright. Theyre also plagiarizing.

In a recent Vice article, voice actors spoke out about having to sign their rights away to these tech companies using voice-generating artificial intelligence.

Its disrespectful to the craft to suggest that generating a performance is equivalent to a real human beings performance, SungWon Cho, a game and animation voice actor said.

Sure, you can get it to sound tonally like a voice, and maybe even make it sound like its capturing an emotion, but at the end of the day, it is still going to ring hollow and false, he added. Going down this road runs the risk of people thinking that voice-over can be replaced entirely by AI, which really makes my stomach turn.

Film producer Emmet McDermott recently wrote that writers should be concerned about protections against AI in the documentary and nonfiction space, the Hollywood Reporter noted.

The greatest threat to broader culture posed by ambient machinery isnt the bottom-up, AI-generated art populating social media (think: Wes Anderson Directs Star Wars), McDermott wrote.

It is the top-down, AI-powered platforming of art, which were already seeing across the media landscape algorithms deciding, on a global scale, which stories to tell and how and it is especially insidious in the realm of nonfiction, he added.

Actor-screenwriter Clark Gregg said that whats especially scary about [AI] is nobody, including a lot of the people who are involved with creating it, seem to be able to explain exactly what its capable of and how quickly it will be capable of more.

Amit Dey, executive vp nonfiction at MRC said, Its one thing if human-made films are competing in the market against robot-made films. Its another thing entirely when data in the form of artificial intelligence, or proprietary algorithms, shape the decisions around what human audiences are exposed to. In other words, what gets boughtwhat stories get told.

However, CEO Bryn Mooser of XTR has defended using AI after creating a proprietary algorithm which he called a valuable tool to help guide his development process.

We had always been thinking of it as a tool, and as a tool its incredibly useful, Mooser said. What conversations are trending. What people are talking about. We built it so we could overlay that with historical data in the documentary business.

What works, what doesnt, he added. Its application as a tool to enhance what filmmakers can do is incredibly powerful and important. And my hope would be that its embraced.

Others have noted that it is Hollywood themselves that has been warning us for decades about the dangers of getting too close to AI, Gizmodo noted.

Such films they mentioned that bring this idea home include the 2014 Ex-Machina, 2001s Artificial Intelligence, Ghost in the Shell in 1995, and of course Disneys 1982 Tron. The theme with so many of these sci-fi films is that AI can eventually develop its own autonomy and then the battle between humans and machines changes forever.

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Donald Trump threatens to revoke Rosie O’Donnell’s US citizenship

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Donald Trump threatens to revoke Rosie O'Donnell's US citizenship

Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.

In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”

He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.

O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.

“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.

“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”

Rosie O'Donnell arrives at the ELLE Women in Hollywood celebration on Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
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Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP

O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.

She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.

O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.

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Will Trump address parliament on UK state visit?

This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.

But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.

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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.

“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.

“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”

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UK

Justice system ‘frustrating’, Met Police chief says – as he admits London’s ‘shameful’ racism challenge

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Justice system 'frustrating', Met Police chief says - as he admits London's 'shameful' racism challenge

It is “shameful” that black boys growing up in London are “far more likely” to die than white boys, Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley has told Sky News.

In a wide-ranging interview with Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, the commissioner said that relations with minority communities are “difficult for us”, while also speaking about the state of the justice system and the size of the police force.

Sir Mark, who came out of retirement to become head of the UK’s largest police force in 2022, said: “We can’t pretend otherwise that we’ve got a history between policing and black communities where policing has got a lot wrong.

“And we get a lot more right today, but we do still make mistakes. That’s not in doubt. I’m being as relentless in that as it can be.”

He said the “vast majority” of the force are “good people”.

However, he added: “But that legacy, combined with the tragedy that some of this crime falls most heavily in black communities, that creates a real problem because the legacy creates concern.”

Sir Mark, who also leads the UK’s counter-terrorism policing, said black boys growing up in London “are far more likely to be dead by the time they’re 18” than white boys.

“That’s, I think, shameful for the city,” he admitted.

“The challenge for us is, as we reach in to tackle those issues, that confrontation that comes from that reaching in, whether it’s stop and search on the streets or the sort of operations you seek.

“The danger is that’s landing in an environment with less trust.

“And that makes it even harder. But the people who win out of that [are] all of the criminals.”

Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said racism is still an issue in the force
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Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley

The commissioner added: “I’m so determined to find a way to get past this because if policing in black communities can find a way to confront these issues, together we can give black boys growing up in London equal life chances to white boys, which is not what we’re seeing at the moment.

“And it’s not simply about policing, is it?”

Sir Mark said: “I think black boys are several times more likely to be excluded from school, for example, than white boys.

“And there are multiple issues layered on top of each other that feed into disproportionality.”

‘We’re stretched, but there’s hope and determination’

Sir Mark said the Met is a “stretched service” but people who call 999 can expect an officer to attend.

“If you are in the middle of a crisis and something awful is happening and you dial 999, officers will get there really quickly,” Sir Mark said.

“I don’t pretend we’re not a stretched service.

“We are smaller than I think we ought to be, but I don’t want to give a sort of message of a lack of hope or a lack of determination.”

“I’ve seen the mayor and the home secretary fighting hard for police resourcing,” he added.

“It’s not what I’d want it to be, but it’s better than it might be without their efforts.”

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‘Close to broken’ justice system facing ‘awful’ delays

Sir Mark said the criminal justice system was “close to broken” and can be “frustrating” for police officers.

“The thing that is frustrating is that the system – and no system can be perfect – but when the system hasn’t managed to turn that person’s life around and get them on the straight and narrow, and it just becomes a revolving door,” he said.

“When that happens, of course that’s frustrating for officers.

“So the more successful prisons and probation can be in terms of getting people onto a law-abiding life from the path they’re on, the better.

“But that is a real challenge. I mean, we’re talking just after Sir Brian Leveson put his report out about the close-to-broken criminal justice system.

“And it’s absolutely vital that those repairs and reforms that he’s talking about happen really quickly, because the system is now so stressed.”

Giving an example, the police commissioner went on: “We’ve got Snaresbrook [Crown Court] in London – it’s now got more than 100 cases listed for 2029.”

Sir Mark asked Trevor Phillips to imagine he had been the victim of a crime, saying: “We’ve caught the person, we’ve charged him, ‘great news, Mr Phillips, we’ve got him charged, they’re going to court’.

“And then a few weeks later, I see the trial’s listed for 2029. That doesn’t feel great, does it?”

Asked about the fact that suspects could still be on the streets for years before going to trial, Sir Mark conceded it’s “pretty awful”.

He added: “If it’s someone on bail, who might have stolen your phone or whatever, and they’re going in for a criminal court trial, that could be four years away. And that’s pretty unacceptable, isn’t it?”

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Challenge to reform the Met

The Met chief’s comments come two years after an official report found the force is institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic.

Baroness Casey was commissioned in 2021 to look into the Met Police after serving police officer Wayne Couzens abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard.

She pinned the primary blame for the Met’s culture on its past leadership and found stop and search and the use of force against black people was excessive.

At the time, Sir Mark, who had been commissioner for six months when the report was published, said he would not use the labels of institutionally racist, institutionally misogynistic and institutionally homophobic, which Baroness Casey insisted the Met deserved.

However, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who helped hire Sir Mark – and could fire him – made it clear the commissioner agreed with Baroness Casey’s verdict.

A few months after the report, Sir Mark launched a two-year £366m plan to overhaul the Met, including increased emphasis on neighbourhood policing to rebuild public trust and plans to recruit 500 more community support officers and an extra 565 people to work with teams investigating domestic violence, sexual offences and child sexual abuse and exploitation.

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UK

UK measles cases rising among children – with leading NHS hospital ‘concerned’

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UK measles cases rising among children - with leading NHS hospital 'concerned'

A leading NHS hospital has warned measles is on the rise among children in the UK, after treating 17 cases since June.

Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool said it is “concerned” about the increasing number of children and young people who are contracting the highly contagious virus.

It said the cases it has treated since June were for effects and complications of the disease, which, in rare cases, can be fatal if left untreated.

“We are concerned about the increasing number of children and young people who are contracting measles. Measles is a highly contagious viral illness which can cause children to be seriously unwell, requiring hospital treatment, and in rare cases, death,” the hospital said in a statement to Sky News.

In a separate open letter to parents and carers in Merseyside earlier this month, Alder Hey, along with the UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA) and directors of Public Health for Liverpool, Sefton and Knowsley, warned the increase in measles in the region could be down to fewer people getting vaccinated.

The letter read: “We are seeing more cases of measles in our children and young people because fewer people are having the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles and two other viruses called mumps and rubella.

“Children in hospital, who are very poorly for another reason, are at higher risk of catching the virus.”

What are the symptoms of measles?

The first symptoms of measles include:

• A high temperature

• A runny or blocked nose

• Sneezing

• A cough

• Red, sore or watery eyes

Cold-like symptoms are followed a few days later by a rash, which starts on the face and behind the ears, before it spreads.

The spots are usually raised and can join together to form blotchy patches which are not usually itchy.

Some people may get small spots in their mouth too.

What should you do if you think your child has measles?

Ask for an urgent GP appointment or call 111 if you think your child has measles.

If your child has been vaccinated, it is very unlikely they have measles.

You should not go to the doctor without calling ahead, as measles is very infectious.

If your child is diagnosed with measles by a doctor, make sure they avoid close contact with babies and anyone who is pregnant or has a weakened immune system.

The skin of a patient after 3 days of measles infection
Image:
The skin of a patient after three days of measles infection

It comes after a Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) report released earlier this month determined that uptake of vaccines in the UK has stalled over the last decade and is, in many cases, declining.

It said none of the routine childhood vaccinations have met the 95% coverage target since 2021, putting youngsters at risk of measles, meningitis and whooping cough.

The MMR vaccine has been available through the NHS for years. Two doses gives lifelong protection against measles, mumps and rubella.

File photo of a MMR vaccine
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Two doses of the MMR vaccine give lifelong protection against measles, mumps and rubella. Pic: iStock

According to the latest NHS data, Liverpool was one of the cities outside London with the lowest uptake of the MMR vaccination in 2023-2024.

By the time children were five years old, 86.5% had been give one dose, decreasing to 73.4% for a second dose.

The RCPCH report put the nationwide decline down to fears over vaccinations, as well as families having trouble booking appointments and a lack of continuous care in the NHS, with many seeing a different GP on each visit.

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In the US, measles cases are at their highest in more than three decades.

Cases reached 1,288 on Wednesday this week, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, with 14 states battling active outbreaks.

The largest outbreak started five months ago in communities in West Texas, where vaccination uptake is low. Since then, three people have died – including two children in Texas and an adult in New Mexico – with dozens more in hospital.

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