Next Industry Up for Disruption : Video Games

WELCOME

This week AI potentially disrupted another field I’m quite passionate about : video games. I love to follow the progression of video games from a technical standpoint. They are the perfect reflection of our technical reality as well as the “zeitgeist” of the people who create and play these games.

If you see how far we’ve come in computer graphics since the early 80s and now … it’s simply incredible.

This week Google’s Deepmind released the news they had developed a model that could generate 2D platformer games just from a text prompt.

It’s very early stage but we can imagine a time where you and I will be able to generate our own virtual worlds with a few sentences.

In a few weeks time i’m off to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco for the Blacklynx Brief and we’re going to be focusing on the impact of not only AI on the game industry but what creative angles developers are using AI for making their games.

Welcome to the Blacklynx Brief !

AI NEWS
Google Deepmind potentially changes the video game industry

• Tyler Perry halted his $800 million film studio expansion due to concerns over job losses driven by AI advancements, highlighted by his reaction to OpenAI's Sora. He has utilized AI in makeup effects for films, indicating significant time and labor savings. Perry advocates for regulatory actions by Hollywood and Congress to protect entertainment industry workers from AI's impact.
  

• Figure AI, a humanoid robotics startup, has raised $675 million in a funding round led by Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, Microsoft, and OpenAI, with significant contributions from other tech leaders. The company, valued at around $2 billion pre-investment, focuses on developing robots for labor shortages in repetitive or risky jobs, recently partnering with BMW. This collaboration among major tech companies indicates a rapid acceleration in the race to market humanoid robots.

• Google DeepMind's new AI system, Genie, can generate interactive video games from text or image prompts without needing to learn game mechanics, trained on over 200,000 hours of 2D platform game footage. Despite its research-only status and current 1 FPS game creation speed, Genie represents significant advancements in AI, enabling users to control characters and objects intuitively. This development highlights the potential for anyone to create virtual worlds and marks a step towards more general AI capabilities.

• French AI startup Mistral released its Mistral Large model, featuring advanced reasoning and multilingual abilities, and introduced 'Le Chat,' a ChatGPT-like chatbot. Mistral Large, cheaper than GPT-4, aims to rival top AI models with its extensive context window and competitive pricing. Additionally, a significant partnership with Microsoft will integrate Mistral's technology into Azure, highlighting Mistral AI's emerging status as a major player in the AI industry.

• Automattic, the company behind Tumblr and WordPress, is facing backlash for reportedly planning to supply AI training data from user posts to OpenAI and Midjourney, including inadvertently shared private content. Despite introducing an opt-out tool, it remains uncertain whether data shared prior will be withdrawn. This incident underlines the escalating tensions over the use of personal content in AI model training, reflecting growing user concerns about privacy and consent.

• Honor, a Huawei spin-off, introduced the Magic 6 Pro smartphone, featuring AI-based eye-tracking capabilities, including an innovative application that allows users to control a car through on-screen commands. The phone, priced at $1,400, is now available globally after its initial release in China. Alongside the phone, Honor unveiled new AI-driven products, including a Chatbot using Meta’s Llama-2 model and AI-powered MagicBook laptops. This move exemplifies the competitive innovation in smartphone technology, emphasizing unique AI features.

• MIT researchers have developed an AI-based method to enhance robot efficiency in warehouses, inspired by traffic navigation solutions. By segmenting robots into groups of around 40, their deep learning model identifies which groups benefit most from re-planning, reducing potential collisions. This approach has demonstrated a 3.5 times speed increase over conventional algorithms in simulations, offering significant improvements in automating large-scale warehouse operations.

• Adobe unveiled Project Music GenAI Control, a prototype AI that generates and edits custom music tracks from text prompts. This tool allows for modifications in patterns, tempo, intensity, and track length, catering to creators like podcasters and broadcasters who lack professional audio experience. While still not released to the public, Adobe's initiative reflects the growing influence of AI in music creation, suggesting that AI-generated songs could soon become mainstream.

• Klarna has reported significant success with its OpenAI-powered customer service chatbot, managing 2.3 million conversations last month. The chatbot, contributing to an anticipated $40 million in profit for 2024, has replaced the workload of approximately 700 full-time employees, reducing average resolution time from 11 to 2 minutes. Klarna has ceased hiring outside of engineering roles following a reduction of 700 staff in 2022, highlighting the profound impact AI is having on customer service and employment structures.

CYBERSECURITY NEWS
And …. Lockbit is back….

• The FBI collaborated with the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium (CCB) to dismantle a harmful botnet utilized by Russian state-sponsored cyber groups such as APT28, Fancy Bear, and Forest Blizzard. The CCB identified and informed affected Belgian companies, assisting them directly to mitigate the botnet's impact, thereby enhancing the security of Belgian networks and contributing to global cyber defense efforts.

• The LockBit ransomware gang is attempting to recover from a law enforcement crackdown that dismantled their operations by launching a new extortion site. Despite significant setbacks, including arrests and the seizure of infrastructure, the group is striving to continue its criminal activities and manage its public image.

• The FTC has fined Avast $16.5 million for selling user browsing data without proper consent, highlighting issues around privacy protection and data anonymization. This settlement includes a ban on Avast from selling browsing data and mandates user consent for future data sales. Additionally, Avast is required to delete stored browsing data and implement a new privacy program. This case sets a significant precedent regarding consumer data privacy and tech company responsibilities.

• The cyberattack on battery maker Varta AG has halted production across its global facilities, underlining the extensive operational and financial impacts cyber incidents can have on businesses. The uncertainty surrounding the attack's resolution showcases the challenges companies face in recovering from such breaches.

• Over the past year, at least 14 state-sponsored hacker groups have targeted Russia and former Soviet Union members such as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan with cyberattacks aimed at espionage or causing destruction. According to a report by F.A.C.C.T., a Russian cybersecurity entity, some of these groups are likely linked to Ukraine amidst its conflict with Russia, while others are operating in the interests of countries like North Korea and China.

• The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) was fined £350,000 ($443,000) by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for a data breach that put Afghan allies at risk. This incident involved an email error that exposed personal information of Afghans who assisted the British military and were seeking relocation to escape the Taliban's resurgence in 2021.
  

• The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), under Chair Lina Khan, announced plans to stringently regulate artificial intelligence tools, focusing on consumer privacy. Speaking to tech executives and startup founders, Khan emphasized the development of clear, manageable regulations and bright line rules concerning the creation, utilization, and management of AI inputs

PODCAST TIP OF THE WEEK
Smashing Security

This week’s podcast recommendation is a quirky little podcast by Carole Theriault and Graham Cluley.

Published weekly it goes over all the security events (like the ones in the section above) but rather than do technical deep dives on it like Security Now, it takes a more humoristic and lighthearted approach.

We really love Graham Cluley’s humor. So if you’re looking to be informed AND amused .. this is your new favorite show.

Listen to it here

BOOK TIP OF THE WEEK
Andy Greenberg - Tracers in the Dark (2022)

This book is amazing. It’s the story of how criminal gangs have moved to cryptocurrency for their nefarious activities and how they find out that Bitcoin for example is infinitely more traceable than fiat money - contrary to popular belief.

It’s non-fiction presented like a thriller. A very intense and powerful read.

Buy it here.

Goodreads Link

Closing Thoughts

That’s it for us this week.

Can I ask you a favor ?

If you’ve gotten to this part , it means you've really read the entire thing.

This means you not only like pain, you like prolonged pain. Just kidding. It means you’re cool.

What would make you even more cool is that you send this link to a few people and tell them to subscribe.

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