Update from the Entertainment Technology Center
The Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California (ETC) part of the USC School of Cinematic Arts began the year largely continuing its role as a critical industry contributor to the Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry's understanding and adoption of new technologies, creating programs, industry working groups, proof of concepts, and full implementations to analyze and test their potential impact in the broader industry. But there was a subtle change in the air. The focus of technological change in the M&E space has increasingly shifted to AI-enabled processes that could arguably be interpreted as usurping and replacing human contributions with machine-based contributions, strengthened and refined through exhaustive “training” models and data sets. Some have been so bold as to question whether this is a new type of plagiarism or intellectual property theft, while others simply view it as a machine simulation of how the human mind, in fact, studies and learns. Despite efforts on both sides of the table to avert a work stoppage, mistrust between artists and industry proliferated, and a difficult strike could not be avoided, creating additional fear and confusion.
- Print ISSN
- 1545-0279
- Electronic ISSN
- 2160-2492
- Published
- 2025-11
- Content type
- Original Research
- DOI
- 10.5594/JMI.2025/VUGL1855