Walt, Alt, and Cultural Gestalt

Walt, Alt, and Cultural Gestalt Mickey Joins the AI Club The Mandalorian, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and a few Jedis walk into a bar. And Sam Altman walks out carrying a billion dollars in a custom Moana branded tote bag. Disney just announced a content licensing deal with OpenAI. Did Mickey bend the knee and cede to the inevitable? Or is joining forces with an AI leader the best way to turn a potential beast into a profitable beauty? More importantly, is this really the world we want Grogu to grow up in? We don’t yet know how this toy story will play out, but the deal marks a big change in AI relations for an industry that felt like it was Epcot with its pants down. “In a watershed moment for Hollywood and generative artificial intelligence, Disney said on Thursday that it would buy a $1 billion stake in OpenAI and bring its characters to Sora, the A.I. company’s short-form video platform.” (This is sort of like Gepetto investing a billion dollars in Monstro the Whale just before he and Pinocchio are swallowed by it.) NYT (Gift Article): Disney Agrees to Bring Its Characters to OpenAI’s Sora Videos . “Disney is the first major Hollywood company to cross this particular Rubicon. Disney, Universal, Warner Bros. Discovery and the like have spent the past couple of years trying to sort through major concerns about how generative A.I. software is built, how copyright holders are compensated and how Hollywood unions may react.” (The truth is that no one really knows how to react to any of these advances. We’re all on a nonstop ride on Space Mountain-lots of high speed turns and drops, all taking place in total darkness.) + Wired : The Disney-OpenAI Deal Redefines the AI Copyright War . + As for OpenAI’s competitors? Frozen... Disney Hits Google With AI Copyright Infringement Cease-and-Desist Letter . + Meanwhile, The Architects of AI Are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year . (Although it seems more like the magazine is celebrating the CEOs who employ the architects of AI.) + And if you missed it yesterday, I covered one of the more ridiculous stories of a ridiculous era: The State Dept and the fight over woke fonts. The Highway to Helvetica . “Apparently, the Trump administration doesn’t know that sans serif typefaces are more straight.” 2 Oslo and Behold “Hours after missing the ceremony in Norway’s capital that awarded her the Nobel Peace Prize, the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado appeared in the city’s streets after midnight on Thursday, greeting a cheering crowd.” NYT (Gift Article): Venezuelan Dissident Appears in Norway After Missing Nobel Ceremony . + “Wearing a wig and a disguise, María Corina Machado began her escape from Venezuela on Monday afternoon ... Over the course of 10 nerve-racking hours, Machado and two people helping her escape hit 10 military checkpoints, avoiding capture each time, before she reached the coast by midnight, said a person close to the operation.”...

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