Welcome to Lowpass! This week: What Fox Entertainment is telling its employees about using Runway’s AI video generator, and what’s happening to Meta’s hardware ambitions.

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Fox Entertainment embraces generative AI, with some guardrails

Hollywood is stepping up its adoption of generative AI while trying to walk a fine line on potential liabilities related to copyright, privacy and misinformation. One of the latest studios to dip its toes in the water is Fox, whose Fox Entertainment subsidiary has been experimenting with AI videos generated with the help of Runway, according to internal tech help desk pages inadvertently published on the open internet.

Among those documents was an FAQ list that encouraged Fox Entertainment employees to use Runway, even for public-facing output, stating:

“Q: To confirm, Runway is legally cleared for use in actual deliverables? 

A: All Clear! Please use it and share how you are using it because it would be hugely helpful to justifying the spend and fun to show people.”

Fox’s partnership with Runway hasn’t been previously reported. The company moved to password-protect the web pages in question after I reached out; a Fox Entertainment spokesperson declined to comment. Runway did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Fox Entertainment appears to be an enterprise client of Runway, which among other things allows the company to securely upload footage without having to worry that it will be used as public training data. It’s unclear when exactly this partnership began. The web pages I found were marked as published or updated two months ago, and were indexed by Google on February 6.

The FAQ document did indicate that employees should tell Fox’s Broadcast Standards and Practices group if they were using any AI-generated videos in any broadcast or production material. It also reminded employees of Fox’s generative AI usage guidelines, which require them to “consult with [their] manager and Business Unit legal team prior to commercial or external use of any AI generated/manipulated output.” 

“In particular, consumer-facing uses may require legal disclosures (including that AI was used) and must be reviewed prior to publication,” the document added.

A necessary caveat: There is no indication that Fox has actually aired any Runway-generated video assets, or otherwise incorporated AI-generated videos in shows produced by Fox Entertainment, to date. In fact, it is even possible that the help desk documents were published prematurely, or are exaggerating Runway’s purported use beyond internal R&D. Then again, the pages were available to Fox Entertainment employees (and, by chance, everyone else) for more than two months, so take from that what you will.

Either way, it is fascinating to see how a studio like Fox navigates the possibilities and potential pitfalls of generative AI. In an accompanying document outlining the company's generative AI usage guidelines, it addresses difficult issues including:

• Copyright. The guidelines mention the fact that purely AI-generated material does not enjoy copyright protections, adding: “However, AI-generated outputs can provide a starting point for a piece of work that is eligible for protection. Using GenAI to generate ideas as a starting point for work that is compiled by humans and/or has other human-created elements still allows for protection of the human authored portion.”

• Brands and celebrities. Fox employees are advised against generating images or videos that resemble “children, celebrities, politicians, and other public figures (living or dead)” unless they have the explicit permission of the subject to do so.

  They’re also told to avoid brand names and trademarks, as well as anything related to existing third-party IP, including “prompts that seek outputs ‘in the style of’ known third-party materials.” I guess Fox won’t jump on the Studio Ghibli AI train any time soon …

• Misinformation and hallucinations. The authors of the document also appear cognizant of the fact that AI tends to make stuff up, and advise Fox Entertainment staff to carefully review “any and all outputs of GenAI.”

  Further, the document cautions against using generative AI for purposes that could lead to the spread of misinformation, including when it comes to politics and other sensitive topics. 

On that note: Fox Entertainment is a business unit that is completely separate from Fox News, and the leaked documents were not meant for Fox News staff.

Fox does have broader ambitions for AI across many of its businesses. Then-SVP of Data & Commercial Technology Lindsay Silver talked about using generative AI for live sports during an Amazon event in 2023, and the company has built a blockchain-based tool called Verify that is meant to both authenticate content in the age of generative AI, and help Hollywood license its content to generative AI platforms.

Meta earnings: Smart glasses are growing, VR headsets fall behind

Meta executives touted the company’s Ray-Ban smart glasses as a success story during Wednesday afternoon’s earnings call, with Mark Zuckerberg revealing that sales of the glasses tripled over the last year.

Apparently, people also keep using these glasses after buying them, with Meta CFO Susan Li stating that Ray-Ban usage quadrupled over the same time span. “We’re seeing very strong traction with Ray-Ban Meta glasses,” Li said.

Zuckerberg also hinted at plans to release new models, including new technologies, later this year. The company reportedly has plans to release new smart glasses models in partnership with Ray-Ban maker EssilorLuxottica, and is looking to release a first pair of glasses with an integrated display before the end of the year.

Zuckerberg painted the company’s investment in smart glasses as key steps towards Meta’s hardware future. “Glasses are the ideal form factor for both AI and the metaverse,” he said. “They enable you to let an AI see what you see, hear what you hear, and talk to you throughout the day, and they let you blend the physical and digital worlds together with holograms. More than one billion people worldwide wear glasses today, and it seems highly likely that these will become AI glasses over the next five to ten years.”

Meta’s celebration of AI glasses came as it faced a decline in sales of its VR headsets. Meta’s Reality Labs division saw its revenue decline by 6% year-over-year, which Li attributed to “lower Meta Quest sales.” Meta released the cheaper Quest 3s last fall. The headset sold better than many game consoles during the holiday quarter, but interest appears to have cooled off since.

What else

Apple is ordered to stop collecting 27% fee for third-party payments. Wow: A judge just found that Apple disobeyed her order to allow developers to direct consumers to third-party payments platforms, and is asking the DOJ to impose criminal charges.

Podcasters have received more than $100 million from Spotify. The music service now has around 170 million monthly podcast listeners. Spotify also disclosed this week that it now has 268 million paying subscribers, but investors didn’t like the fact that its income was lower than forecast.

Meta lays off VR app developers. The company has laid off an unspecified number of people working in its Oculus Studios division, including some that worked on the fitness app Supernatural.

Netflix is turning Tudum into a variety show. The fan event, which in prior years streamed on YouTube, will air live on Netflix at the end of May.

YouTube is gonna get blurry. The Google-owned video service is testing blurring the thumbnails of mature videos.

You can now use your phone in VR. If you have a Motorola phone and a Quest headset, that is.

EA is laying off 300 employees. That includes 100 people working for Respawn, as the company has reportedly cancelled a new Titanfall game.

That’s it

Remember Moby? The pioneering dance musician just relaunched a website to give away some of his music for free to budding creators. Mobygratis.com hosts 500 tracks that can be used by film students, non-profits and others as they desire, with a few exceptions: You will have to license the music for commercial use (or if you surpass a certain number of streams), and you won’t be able to use it to, and I quote, “advertise right wing politics or causes, or use it to promote meat, dairy, or other animal products.” It’s like a Creative Com-mooohs license. Okay, I’ll see myself out …

Thanks for reading, have a great weekend!

Photo by Justin Aikin on Unsplash