A Beanie For Your Thoughts

PRESENTED BY EMERGENT

Happy Friday, Future Party. On December 18, both Dune: Part 3 and Avengers: Doomsday are coming out… and neither is refusing to budge. Of course, these movies are made to be on the biggest screen possible, but only one of them scored IMAX screens — Dune, thanks to Denis Villeneuve’s strong relationship with the company. Not to be outdone, Disney has created a new premium large-format theatrical experience it dubs “Infinity Vision”… and it has already certified 75 screens in the US and 300 internationally for the format.

Now, we don’t just have a battle of the blockbusters; we have a battle of the blockbuster experiences.

Universities like USC, NYU, and Chapman are controversially introducing AI into their creative-arts programs.

The Big Picture: There are a lot of questions about how much AI will remake filmmaking (and the creative arts in general), and some schools don’t want to be playing catch-up to train their students for the disruption. But how they’re introducing the tech is creating a lot of debate among students, alumnus, and Hollywood at large.

Behind The Syllabus: Colleges are leaning into AI to stay cutting edge.

Final Project: The deans of these schools position the new AI programs or partnerships as a way for students to take ownership of the tech before it takes ownership of them — a bit of a “if you can’t beat them, join them” attitude. It’s justified as a necessity for preparing students for the job market they’re about to enter.

Yet many students feel like the colleges are blindly diving headfirst into a tech that is already sparking controversy in professional ranks. One Chapman student wrote in the school’s paper that “Students [are] wondering if the school’s intentions in incorporating AI stem from genuine motivation towards innovating the film industry, or pushing a different agenda based on shock value in an attempt to stimulate discussion.”

The answer: it might be a bit of both.

Next Semester: We may start to see a divide between pro-AI and anti-AI film schools, which could craft very different types of artists.

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Tech startup Sabi has come out of stealth with a beanie that can purportedly read the wearer’s mind.

Why It Hits: Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have been steadily growing over the past couple of years, with startups like Neuralink and Synchron making advances in the field. But those companies require you to have a device implanted in your head, which is likely way too invasive for most people. Sabi offers a viable alternative for those who don’t want brain surgery to chat with their tech. 

Between The Fabric: Tech wearables are coming for your dome.

Last Thought: Sabi built an AI system it calls a “brain foundation model” to power the device, which is “trained on extensive neural data from many people to learn fundamental patterns of activity that correlate with inner speech,” according to Wired. Sabi CEO Rahul Chhabra says that the model has thus far been trained on 100,000 hours of brain data from 100 volunteers.

At this point, giving data may be the donating plasma for a new generation.

The Future: Sabi’s beanie may live or die based on how quickly and accurately it can decipher the wearer’s thoughts. So, the company might want to make a very comfy beanie just in case the tech needs to go through a lot of software updates to become usable.

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50% of you voted Maybe, depending on the film in yesterday’s poll: Would you see an interactive movie in theaters?

“It sounds like a very creative idea. It just doesn’t interest me that much.”

“Interactive films are awful. Does no one remember Bandersnatch? I think the concept should be left alone but here we are...”

“I cannot imagine a theater filled with random people interacting toward any clear majority preference. Prolly better to stay home with this one.”

“I worked on an interactive Broadway show, and it was fun to see how the audience determined different paths in parts of the show (not so much fun for the actors!).”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join our Poll Of The Day newsletter, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

🎤 Karol G spent three times as much as she was paid to put on her headlining performance at Coachella… and it paid off with the jump in streams and exposure.

📺 Netflix founder and former CEO Reed Hastings is stepping down from the streamer’s board in June.

🎥 Independent production studio Wonder Project (House of David) is partnering with AI firm Luma to form Innovative Dreams — a home for “real-time hybrid filmmaking.”

😂 YouTube may have accidentally introduced a way for users to turn off Shorts.

📱 TikTok is including the generative-AI system Seedance 2.0 in Symphony — a toolkit for advertisers to create AI content on the platform.

🎮 Roblox is updating its AI assistant to help users plan, build, and test games on the platform.

👕 Justin Bieber’s SKYLRK brand broke Coachella’s merch record with $5.04 million in sales… in just the first weekend.

🛍️ QVC Group has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Clearly, social-livestream shopping ate its cake.

🦤 Allbirds fell back to Earth — its pivot-to-AI stock gains crashed 582% yesterday.