Jared Leto invests $500 million in AI startup regardless of calls from different stars to close down controversial expertise

Norman Ray

World Courant

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Jared Leto is the newest superstar to get into the factitious intelligence investing recreation.

The Oscar winner and Thirty Seconds to Mars singer is without doubt one of the traders in a generative AI startup known as Captions.

Leto has invested within the firm alongside enterprise capitalists Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, in addition to Index Ventures and Adobe.

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In line with Bloomberg, the corporate has raised $60 million in new funding, bringing its valuation to $500 million.

Jared Leto joined a bunch of enterprise capitalists to spend money on a generative AI startup known as Captions. (Kevin Winter/WireImage)

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Fox Information Digital has reached out to representatives for Leto for remark.

Captions has a wide range of instruments together with AI video modifying, eye contact correction (for somebody wanting instantly into the digicam whereas talking), translation, and modifying.

That is the second AI startup Leto has invested on this 12 months.

Final month, the “Home of Gucci” star, together with different traders, invested cash in Pika.

Captions is the second AI startup Leto has invested on this 12 months, after investing in Pika in June. (Lia Toby/Getty Photographs)

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In line with Bloomberg, Pika has a program that enables folks to create brief movies from written textual content, pictures or movies.

Generative AI has been a sizzling matter in Hollywood over the previous 12 months, after it turned a serious level of rivalry in negotiations throughout final summer season’s writers’ and actors’ strikes.

Many celebrities have condemned the expertise, however Leto and others have lent their assist and cash to it.

Leonardo DiCaprio is a strategic advisor to Regeneration VC, a fund that invested $1.6 million in AI recycling firm Greyparrot in February after an investor dropped out.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Downey Jr. have each invested in AI firms with an environmental focus. (Getty Photographs)

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In line with its web site, Greyparrot makes use of “superior AI laptop imaginative and prescient programs deployed in sorting services worldwide” to “monitor and kind giant waste streams at scale.”

Robert Downey Jr. additionally has a enterprise capital fund, the Footprint Coalition, which he launched in 2019 at an Amazon AI convention. It too focuses on the setting.

The fund invested in ClimateAI in 2021, together with a number of different teams. In line with its web site, ClimateAI “constructed the primary local weather resilience platform and is a pioneer within the software of synthetic intelligence to mitigate the impression of local weather change and establish new alternatives that it could actually create.”

Ashton Kutcher and music supervisor Man Oseary co-founded the funding agency Sound Enterprise, which final 12 months added the businesses OpenAI, Anthropic and Stability AI to its portfolio.

Ashton Kutcher co-founded an funding agency, Sound Enterprise, which final 12 months added the businesses OpenAI, Anthropic and Stability AI to its portfolio. (Taylor Hill/Getty Photographs)

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Nevertheless, the “That ’70s Present” star drew widespread criticism final month after he made glowing feedback about Sora, OpenAI’s generative video software.

Kutcher was impressed by the chances of the expertise, noting that it could scale back manufacturing prices and probably result in a future the place anybody might make a movie primarily based on their very own concepts.

“You may render a whole film. You simply provide you with an thought for a film, then you definately write the script. You then feed the script into the video generator, and it generates the film,” he stated, Selection reported. “As an alternative of watching a film that another person has provide you with, I can simply generate my very own film and watch it.”

Kutcher was criticized on social media for advocating for changing crew members and actors’ jobs.

Following the damaging reactions, Kutcher went to X to answer his feedback.

Kutcher reiterated his assist for AI after receiving damaging suggestions on-line. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP through Getty Photographs)

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“I do not suppose AI will exchange the movie trade or the artistic arts. It is an excellent software that we have to be taught to work with to grow to be extra productive and environment friendly as artists. The identical means we use Avid, Closing Draft, Greenscreen, Led Bg and different technical instruments. Pretending it would not exist will probably be catastrophic,” he wrote.

“Jobs will change, to disclaim that’s to show a blind eye to the details. There was somebody who stitched the movie collectively. There was somebody who managed the gate,” he continued. “We have to be ready and perceive what’s coming.”

Different celebrities from the movie and music worlds are pushing for regulation of the expertise.

In April, greater than 200 musicians signed a letter talking out about their rights in terms of AI, together with Katy Perry and Miranda Lambert.

Katy Perry and Miranda Lambert have been amongst greater than 200 signatories of an open letter calling on AI builders to respect the rights of artists. (Getty Photographs)

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“We, the undersigned members of the artist and songwriter communities, name on AI builders, expertise firms, platforms, and digital music providers to cease utilizing synthetic intelligence (AI) to violate and undervalue the rights of human artists,” the letter started.

The open letter was filed by the Artist Rights Alliance, a nonprofit group made up of “working musicians, artists, and songwriters preventing for a wholesome artistic economic system and truthful remedy of all creators within the digital world,” in keeping with its official web site.

The letter states that “AI has monumental potential to advance human creativity” if used “responsibly.”

“This assault on human creativity should be stopped. We should shield ourselves from the predatory use of AI to steal the voices and likenesses {of professional} artists, violate the rights of creators, and destroy the music ecosystem,” the letter continues.

Justine Bateman is adamant that synthetic intelligence shouldn’t enter the artwork world. (Getty Photographs)

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Final 12 months, “Household Ties” star Justine Bateman made it clear that she has no place for AI in Hollywood.

“I do not suppose AI has a spot in Hollywood in any respect. I feel expertise ought to remedy issues that individuals have,” Batemen advised Fox Information Digital. “Utilizing ChatGPT or no matter software program that makes use of AI to put in writing scripts, and utilizing that as an alternative of a author, would not remedy an issue. We do not have a scarcity of writers. We do not have a scarcity of actors. We do not have a scarcity of administrators. We do not have a scarcity of gifted folks.”

Caroline Thayer and Larry Fink of Fox Information Digital contributed to this report.

Jared Leto invests $500 million in AI startup regardless of calls from different stars to close down controversial expertise

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