Seattle Blender User Group on Saturday, Feb. 1st By ogbog on January 29, 2025 Usermeetings Users in Seattle are meeting again for a Saturday morning filled with Blender.When: Saturday, February 1st, 10 AM to 1 PMWhere: Academy of Interactive Entertainment, 305 Harrison St #405 Seattle, WAWhat: This Saturday, join your fellow Blender artists for a morning of 3D demos, shenanigans, philosophizing, and solutions! We'll look at Blender for concept art, with a mix of thumbnailing, 3D block-ins, kitbashing, paintovers, and every other trick in the book to get a killer keyframe. We'll also dig into grease pencil pipelines that utilize its newfound friendship with geometry nodes. But also, nothing makes Seabug smooth like butter than when our awesome attendees bring their cool new projects in and blow us away, so bring your cool new project in and show us!See you there,--OscarP.S. Here's the Meetup link!P.P.S. Can't make it in person? We also hang out online on Thursday nights!

The narrative that OpenAI, Microsoft, and freshly minted White House AI czar David Sacks are now pushing to explain why DeepSeek was able to create a large language model that outpaces OpenAIs while spending orders of magnitude less money and using older chips is that DeepSeek used OpenAIs data unfairly and without compensation. Sound familiar?BothBloomberg and the Financial Times are reporting that Microsoft and OpenAI have been probing whether DeepSeek improperly trained the R1 model that is taking the AI world by storm on the outputs of OpenAI models.Here is how the Bloomberg article begins: Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI are investigating whether data output from OpenAIs technology was obtained in an unauthorized manner by a group linked to Chinese artificial intelligence startup DeepSeek, according to people familiar with the matter. The story goes on to say that Such activity could violate OpenAIs terms of service or could indicate the group acted to remove OpenAIs restrictions on how much data they could obtain, the people said.The venture capitalist and new Trump administration member David Sacks, meanwhile, said that there is substantial evidence that DeepSeek distilled the knowledge out of OpenAIs models.Theres a technique in AI called distillation, which youre going to hear a lot about, and its when one model learns from another model, effectively what happens is that the student model asks the parent model a lot of questions, just like a human would learn, but AIs can do this asking millions of questions, and they can essentially mimic the reasoning process they learn from the parent model and they can kind of suck the knowledge of the parent model, Sacks told Fox News. Theres substantial evidence that what DeepSeek did here is they distilled the knowledge out of OpenAIs models and I dont think OpenAI is very happy about this.I will explain what this means in a moment, but first: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahhahahahahahahahahahahaha. It is, as many have already pointed out, incredibly ironic that OpenAI, a company that has been obtaining large amounts of data from all of humankind largely in an unauthorized manner, and, in some cases, in violation of the terms of service of those from whom they have been taking from, is now complaining about the very practices by which it has built its company.The argument that OpenAI, and every artificial intelligence company who has been sued for surreptitiously and indiscriminately sucking up whatever data it can find on the internet is not that they are not sucking up all of this data, it is that they are sucking up this data and they are allowed to do so.OpenAI is currently being sued by the New York Times for training on its articles, and its argument is that this is perfectly fine under copyright law fair use protections.Training AI models using publicly available internet materials is fair use, as supported by long-standing and widely accepted precedents. We view this principle as fair to creators, necessary for innovators, and critical for US competitiveness, OpenAI wrote in a blog post. In its motion to dismiss in court, OpenAI wrote it has long been clear that the non-consumptive use of copyrighted material (like large language model training) is protected by fair use.OpenAI and Microsoft are essentially now whining about being beaten at its own game by DeepSeek. But additionally, part of OpenAIs argument in the New York Times case is that the only way to make a generalist large language model that performs well is by sucking up gigantic amounts of data. It tells the court that it needs a huge amount of data to make a generalist language model, meaning any one source of data is not that important. This is funny, because DeepSeek managed to make a large language model that rivals and outpaces OpenAIs own without falling into the more data = better model trap. Instead, DeepSeek used a reinforcement learning strategy that its paper claims is far more efficient than weve seen other AI companies do.OpenAIs motion to dismiss the New York Times lawsuit states as part of its argument that the key to generalist language models is scale, meaning that part of its argument is that any individual piece of stolen content cannot make a large language model, and that what allows OpenAI to make industry-leading large language models is this idea of scale. OpenAIs lawyers quote from a New York Times article about this strategy as part of their argument: The amount of data needed was staggering to create GPT-3, it wrote. It was that unprecedented scale that allowed the model to internalize not only a map of human language, but achieve a level of adaptabilityand emergent intelligencethat no one thought possible.As Sacks mentioned, distillation is an established principle in artificial intelligence research, and its something that is done all the time to refine and improve the accuracy of smaller large language models. This process is so normalized in deep learning that the most often cited paper about it was coauthored by Geoffrey Hinton, part of a body of work that just earned him the Nobel Prize. Hintons paper specifically suggests that distillation is a way to make large language models more efficient, and that distilling works very well for transferring knowledge from an ensemble or from a large highly regularized model into a smaller, distilled model.An IBM article on distillation notes The LLMs with the highest capabilities are, in most cases, too costly and computationally demanding to be accessible to many would-be users like hobbyists, startups or research institutions knowledge distillation has emerged as an important means of transferring the advanced capabilities of large, often proprietary models to smaller, often open-source models. As such, it has become an important tool in the democratization of generative AI.In late December, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took what many people saw as a veiled shot at DeepSeek, immediately after the release of DeepSeek V3, an earlier DeepSeek model. It is (relatively) easy to copy something that you know works, Altman tweeted. It is extremely hard to do something new, risky, and difficult when you dont know if it will work.Its also extremely hard to rally a big talented research team to charge a new hill in the fog together, he added. This is the key to driving progress forward.Even this is ridiculous, though. Besides being trained on huge amounts of other peoples data, OpenAIs work builds on research pioneered by Google, which itself builds on earlier academic research. This is, simply, how artificial intelligence research (and scientific research more broadly) works.This is all to say that, if OpenAI argues that it is legal for the company to train on whatever it wants for whatever reason it wants, then it stands to reason that it doesnt have much of a leg to stand on when competitors use common strategies used in the world of machine learning to make their own models. But of course, it is going with the argument that it must protect [its] IP.We know PRC based companies and others are constantly trying to distill the models of leading US AI companies, an OpenAI spokesperson told Bloomberg. As the leading builder of AI, we engage in countermeasures to protect our IP, including a careful process for which frontier capabilities to include in released models, and believe as we go forward that it is critically important that we are working closely with the US government to best protect the most capable models from efforts by adversaries and competitors to take US technology.Jason is a cofounder of 404 Media. He was previously the editor-in-chief of Motherboard. He loves the Freedom of Information Act and surfing.More from Jason Koebler

The AI bubble hasnt burst yet, at least when it comes to consumer spending on AI apps. Led by OpenAIs ChatGPT, overall spending on AI apps jumped to $1.42 billion in 2024, according to app analytics firm Appfigures. This marks a 274% increase from 2023 (the app launched in May of that year). Among tens of thousands of competitor apps some of which license OpenAIs own technology ChatGPT is so dominant that it has consistently earned more than the aggregate revenue of other top AI assistant apps.The success of these apps is also a boon for Apple and Google, which retain about 30% of revenue from in-app purchases. Overall, mobile AI apps constitute a $2 billion market, according to Appfigures.ChatGPT has been downloaded 353 million times to date, but the demographics that use the app are skewed. Over half of ChatGPTs mobile users are under age 25, indicating that perhaps young people are more open to experimenting with new technology (or, maybe, these users just want help with their homework the Pew Research Center estimates that a quarter of U.S. teens have used ChatGPT for schoolwork, which has doubled from 2023).However, users between ages 50 and 64 make up the second largest age demographic, with 20.2% of users.The gender gap among ChatGPT users is even more significant. Appfigures estimates that across age groups, men make up 84.5% of all users.Though women hold prominent roles in the AI industry, a Pew report from 2022 indicates that women tend to be more skeptical about AI than men; an Axios poll found that 53% of women surveyed would not allow their children to use AI at all, as opposed to 26% of men. Meanwhile, McKinsey estimates that women will be more likely to lose their jobs to automation than their male counterparts, which could drive further resistance.Women might also be less enthusiastic about the mass adoption of consumer AI products because they are particularly vulnerable to the most sinister impacts of this technology, like sexually explicit deepfake images.ChatGPT is solidly winning the lions share of AI app spending, but with DeepSeek coming on the market as a free, open source alternative, the OpenAI app may see slight headwinds. DeepSeek has already dethroned OpenAI as the top app in the App Store, but maintaining its current level of hype could be a challenge for the Chinese AI app.

Took Your TimeSony finally sees sense by making it optional to sign-in to a PSN account for single-player games like Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered on PC, but doing so will net you some bonuses nowDon't expect it for every game though.Image credit: Guerilla Games News by Oisin Kuhnke Contributor Published on Jan. 29, 2025 After months of complaints from fans, Sony is removing the PSN requirement on some of its single-player PC ports, even if it clearly wants you to do so anyway.PlayStation has steadily been adding some of its biggest games onto Steam over the past few years, but more recently it's been forcing players to sign in to a PSN account to even play them in the first place. That proved very controversial with Helldivers 2, so that was walked back, but it stuck with it right through to the recent Horizon Zero Dawn remaster, essentially locking out millions of potential players from buying the game at all as PSN isn't available in every country (in fact, there's a whole lot of countries that don't have PSN). There's some good news today though: Sony is removing that PSN requirement for a select few games.To see this content please enable targeting cookies. Over on the PlayStation Blog, it was shared that starting with tomorrow's release of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 for PC, Sony is "working to add more benefits to playing with an account for PlayStation Network." This also applies to the upcoming port of The Last of Us Part 2 Remastered, as well as God of War Ragnarok, and Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered. Those benefits? In-game unlocks! But the actual important point from the blog is this: "An account for PlayStation Network will become optional for these titles on PC." Yes, that means a whole lot more people can play those four titles.The fact that signing in to a PSN account nets you bonuses like an early unlock for the Spider-Man 2099 Black Suit and the Miles Morales 2099 Suit in Spider-Man 2, and, uh, 50 points for bonus features and extras in The Last of Us Part 2, clearly shows that Sony would still rather people connect their accounts.It's worth noting that the sign-in requirement isn't being removed for titles like Until Dawn, another single-player game, so time will only tell if this becomes Sony does for all of its games - I imagine it'll continue requiring it for online titles, as the online Legends mode in Ghost of Tsushima also still requires a PSN account. Sony didn't say when the sign-in requirement is being removed for titles other than Spider-Man 2, so just keep your eyes peeled I suppose!

After MoviePasss historic implosion, subscribers to the Netflix for movie theaters were already cautious around the companys 2023 relaunch. These moviegoers may grow even more skeptical after MoviePass sent out an email blast on Wednesday, which surveyed customers about their interest in web3.Artificial Intelligence andBlockchain technologies are transforming the business landscape at an unprecedented pace, the email says. As a community-driven company, wed love to understand your interest and knowledge in the blockchain space.The survey asks basic questions about the respondents familiarity with web3, like if they own any assets like NFTs, or if they have a digital wallet. Customers were also asked whether they believe blockchain technology is promising, and if theyre interested in learning more about it.MoviePasss possible pivot to web3 didnt come out of nowhere. When the company relaunched, it raised seed funding from Animoca Brands, a Hong Kong-based software company and venture capital firm that specializes in blockchain technology. Last year, MoviePass partnered with the Sui blockchain to allow subscribers to make payments with USDC, a cryptocurrency pegged to the price of the U.S. dollar.At the time, MoviePass co-founder Stacy Spikes said that MoviePass intended to use web3 as a means of making moviegoing more accessible and able to reach a wider audience through deeper fan engagement. The company said it was looking toward offering on-chain rewards for seeing movies, or allowing users to invest in the movies they see (there are no further details about how that would actually work). Its not clear that fans want these on-chain bonuses, though, or if that sort of blockchain infrastructure would even help the company succeed. In some cases, adding crypto elements to a company that functions perfectly fine without it can alienate users rather than entice them. Patreon also once surveyed its users about their interest in crypto, but the creator membership platform was met with a clear no.Without adding in a web3 component, the new-and-improved MoviePass already turned its first-ever profit in 2023. While the first version of MoviePass was impossibly unsustainable subscribers could see unlimited movies in theaters for just $10, less than the cost of one movie ticket the new iteration of MoviePass makes a more modest offer. Now, MoviePass operates on a somewhat confusing credits system, where each movie showing can be redeemed for a certain number of credits, which fluctuates depending on the time of day and the format of the screening (IMAX, 3D, etc). For subscribers who live in places where movie tickets cost more, like New York City or Los Angeles, their monthly fee will be higher.Last February, MoviePass announced that subscribers had seen 1 million movies through its offerings, but it did not specify how many subscribers it has.

Climate change increased the likelihood of the recent Southern California wildfires by 35%, according to a new study published by World Weather Attribution, a decade-old international group of climate scientists and other experts.The study comes as Los Angeles residents start to rebuild their lives in the wake of catastrophic fires that erupted earlier this month. The fires were sparked by near perfect conditions: The two preceding years were unusually wet, boosting the growth of wildfire-adapted vegetation. This year, climate change dealt the region two heavy blows a delayed annual rainy season and intense Santa Ana winds that fanned the flames and spread embers far and wide.These extreme weather conditions will be more common, according to the study, adding fresh urgency to a burgeoning group of climate adaptation startups that hope to blunt the impact of wildfires.The extreme weather conditions are now likely to occur once every 17 years. Compared to a 1.3C cooler climate this is an increase in likelihood of about 35%, the studys authors wrote. This trend is however not linear, they added, stating that the frequency of fire-prone years has been increasing rapidly in recent years.Southern California is no stranger to fire. Its ecosystems have evolved to handle and even thrive under regular, low-intensity wildfires. But over a century of fire suppression disrupted the natural regime, and in its absence, people have built deeper into fire-adapted ecosystems.Today, these areas are known as the wildland-urban interface, or WUI, and the density of housing there complicates the picture. Because the landscape has been carved up into smaller parcels, removing excess vegetation often falls on individual homeowners, who may not realize theyre responsible for the task.Elsewhere, its often best to introduce prescribed burning, in which land managers start low-intensity fires during weather conditions that make the low-intensity blaze easy to contain and direct. The process helps rebalance the ecosystem and prevent dry brush from building up. But even in places where prescribed burning is possible, its still difficult to introduce, requiring public buy-in and well-trained crews.Startups have stepped into the void. Vibrant Planet has developed a platform that helps utilities and land managers analyze a range of data to determine where wildfire risk is highest. Then, it helps them work with a range of stakeholders, including landowners, conservation organizations, and indigenous groups, to develop plans to mitigate the risk.Once plans are in place, other startups step in to do the dirty work. One company, Kodama, retrofits forestry equipment for remote operation, allowing forests to be thinned at lower costs, reducing the fuel load that can lead to catastrophic wildfire.Another, BurnBot, has developed a remotely operated machine that does the work of a prescribed burn in the relative safety of its metal shroud. There, propane torches burn vegetation as it slides under the machine. Fans on top of the machine keep air flowing into the burn chamber, raising the fires temperature to reduce smoke and embers. At the rear of the machine, rollers and water misters extinguish any flames or embers that remain on the ground.But even with vegetation management and prescribed burning, the climate and ecosystems of Southern California wont be completely wildfire free. To further minimize the risk of catastrophic fires, another slate of startups is working to spot wildfires soon after they ignite so crews can respond quickly.Pano, for example, uses AI to crunch a range of data sources, including cameras, satellite imagery, field sensors, and emergency alerts, to automatically detect new fires. Google is also in the game, having worked with Muon Space to launch FireSat, which can image wildfires from orbit every 20 minutes.And should wildfires escape early detection and containment, other startups like FireDome are developing tools to protect homes and businesses. The Israel-based startup has created an AI-assisted fire defense system that launches projectiles filed with fire retardants. The automated system can lay down a perimeter of retardant before fire reaches a property or, if embers are already flying, it can target hotspots to extinguish flames before they turn into conflagrations.Land owners and managers will have to get smarter about how to limit their risk. Theres unlikely to be a single solution, but rather a combination of advanced technology and old fashioned land management.

The Visual Effects Society (VES) has just announced that actors-comedians Randy and Jason Sklar The Sklar Brothers - will host the 23rd Annual VES Awards on February 11th at The Beverly Hilton hotel. This marks the duos first hosting engagement of the annual celebration that recognizes outstanding visual effects artistry and innovation from around the world.No one understands the power of visual effects more than two identical humans, said one half of the VES Awards hosting team The Sklar Brothers. We are honored to have the opportunity to host the VES Awards. And if Randy isnt funny, well edit him out in post.The Sklar Brothers are known for their post-modern take on a stand-up comedy duo. Randy and Jason Sklar can currently be seen in the fourth season of FXs What We Do in The Shadows playing fictional Property Brothers Bran and Toby Daltry. The Sklars produced, wrote, and starred in The Nosebleeds, a UFC original series that released this summer on UFCs Fight Pass. The series is a hilarious deep dive into UFCs history featuring comedy sketches, field pieces, and in-studio character bits.The Sklars notably hosted and produced History Channels United Stats of America and created and starred in the ESPN cult hit series Cheap Seats, besides being guest hosts on Jeff Ross Presents Roast Battle. Their television credits include Glow, Bajillion Dollar Properties, Maron, Agent Carter, Playing House, Partners, Greys Anatomy, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Entourage, CSI, Law & Order and Comedy Central Presents. They released their special, Hipster Ghosts on Starz. They also recently produced the documentary, Poop Talk. The Sklars have had several appearances on both the TruTV Series Those Who Cant and AMCs hit series Better Call Saul.They can also be seen in Wild Hogs and The Comebacks, while their internet shows Held Up, Layers and Back on Topps have received critical acclaim. They also recurred as panelists on ESPNs SportsCenter and E!s Chelsea Lately. Their podcast View From the Cheap Seats (formerly Sklarbro Country) was nominated for best comedy podcast in 2012 at Comedy Centrals comedy awards and their new podcast Dumb People Town is averaging 75k downloads per episode in its first month. They are currently developing the pilot for Dumb People Town, based on the podcast, with Will Arnetts Electric Avenue and Val Kilmer Ruined Our Lives with Bill Lawrence.Awards in 25 categories for outstanding visual effects will be presented at the ceremony. Special honorees include: Golden Globe nominee and Emmy Award-winning actor- producer Hiroyuki Sanada, receiving the VES Award for Creative Excellence; Academy Award-winning director and Visual Effects Supervisor Takashi Yamazaki receiving the VES Visionary Award; and acclaimed Virtual Reality/Immersive Technology Pioneer Dr. Jacquelyn Ford Morie receiving the VES Georges Mlis Award.Source: Visual Effects Society Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.

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ChatGPT will be making its way to federal, state, and local agencies. The new version comes with benefits - and concerns.

Facial Recognition System. gettyIn a recent ruling that underscores the growing debate over artificial intelligence in criminal investigations, an Ohio judge has excluded facial recognition evidence in a murder case, effectively preventing prosecutors from securing a conviction. The decision raises broader concerns about the reliability and transparency of facial recognition technology in law enforcement and the legal challenges it presents when used in court, The Record reports.The case involves the fatal shooting of Blake Story in Cleveland in February 2024. With no immediate leads, investigators turned to surveillance footage taken six days after the crime. They used Clearview AI, a controversial facial recognition software, to identify a suspect, Qeyeon Tolbert.Acting on this identification, police obtained a search warrant for Tolberts residence, where they recovered a firearm and other evidence. But as the trial approached, a flaw in the investigation came to light: police had not independently corroborated Tolberts identity before executing the search warrant, nor had they disclosed the use of facial recognition in their affidavit.On Jan. 9, the judge ruled in favor of a defense motion to suppress the evidence, stating that the warrant was granted without proper probable cause. With the firearm and other key evidence excluded, prosecutors were left with little to move forward on, forcing them to file an appeal. Without the suppressed evidence, the state has acknowledged that securing a conviction will be extremely difficult.This case is one of the latest in a growing list of legal challenges surrounding facial recognition technology. While law enforcement agencies argue that AI-driven identification speeds up investigations, defense attorneys and privacy advocates warn that overreliance on these tools can lead to wrongful arrests, constitutional violations and breaches of due process.MORE FOR YOUHow Facial Recognition Plays a Role in Law EnforcementFacial recognition software has become an increasingly common tool in criminal investigations. Programs like Clearview AI allow law enforcement agencies to compare suspect images against vast databases of photos scraped from social media, public websites, and other online sources. With an estimated 30 billion images in its system, Clearview AI is one of the largest facial recognition databases in the world.Proponents of the technology argue that it provides investigators with crucial leads when traditional methods fail. In cases where security footage captures an unknown suspect, facial recognition can rapidly generate potential matches, allowing law enforcement to act more quickly.However, Clearview AI itself acknowledges that its system is not designed to be the sole basis for arrests. The company warns that its results should be treated as leads rather than definitive proof of identity. Yet, a review of 23 police departments by The Washington Post found that at least 15 departments had made arrests based solely on facial recognition matches, raising concerns about the accuracy of these systems and the due diligence of law enforcement.The Challenges of Using Facial Recognition in CourtDespite its growing use, facial recognition remains controversial, particularly when it serves as the foundation for search warrants and arrests. Legal experts point to several key concerns:Accuracy and Bias Issues Facial recognition technology has been shown to be less accurate for people of color, women, and older adults, increasing the risk of wrongful identifications. A 2020 study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology found that many facial recognition systems exhibit racial and gender biases, leading to a higher rate of false positives for Black and Asian individuals.Lack of Transparency Some police departments do not disclose their use of facial recognition to suspects, defense attorneys, or even judges. This lack of transparency can violate due process rights, preventing defendants from fully challenging the evidence against them.Legal Admissibility Issues Courts are increasingly skeptical of facial recognition evidence, particularly when it is the sole or primary basis for a search warrant. In this case, the Ohio judge ruled that because police had not independently verified Tolberts identity before obtaining a warrant, the search and seizure of evidence violated his forth amendment rights.Privacy and Surveillance Concerns The widespread use of facial recognition raises broader questions about mass surveillance. Critics warn that if unchecked, these technologies could enable warrantless tracking of individuals in public spaces, blurring the lines between necessary policing and civil liberties violations.The Future of Facial Recognition in Criminal CasesThe Ohio case is a sign for law enforcement agencies relying on facial recognition as a core investigative tool. While AI-driven identification can assist in narrowing down suspects, courts are signaling that its use must be accompanied by traditional investigative work to establish probable cause.As more cases challenge the validity of AI-generated identifications, legal frameworks around facial recognition will likely evolve. Some states have already enacted restrictions on the technology. Maine, Massachusetts, and Illinois have passed laws limiting or banning law enforcement use of facial recognition without a warrant, citing privacy concerns.For now, the Ohio ruling is a reminder that while AI can assist human decision-making, it cannot replace the fundamental principles of due process. As courts continue to scrutinize the use of facial recognition in criminal cases, law enforcement agencies will need to ensure that they use these tools responsibly, with proper oversight and adherence to constitutional protections.