AI At The Oscars

Welcome to another edition of the Neural Net…

It’s Tuesday. Monday’s officially behind us, the coffee’s fresh, and even the robots are feeling optimistic. Let’s dive in and make this week count!

In this issue:

• Hollywood On Fire As AI Helps Film Take Home Oscars

• Non-STEM Students Infiltrate AI Courses

• China Plays Reverse-Uno On United States

• Nvidia’s Blackwell Chips Take Scenic Route Around Sanctions

• OpenAI’s Insider Picks

• Palantir Is Here To Help The Government With Their Data

And The Oscar For Best Supporting Algorithm Goes To…AI!

If you tuned in for Sunday night’s Oscars, you already know The Brutalist took home a handful of trophies (three, to be exact). What’s got everyone buzzing, though, is to what extent AI had to do with the film’s success - and whether that’s a cinematic revolution or if the film’s integrity should be in question. Adding fuel to the fire, host Conan O’Brien kicked off the night with a zinger about tech joking “We did not use AI to make this show.” He could have followed that with “but if we did, we could have coded a version of me that was funny.”

The Debate: Old Tech vs. New Tech

Hollywood’s been riding tech waves for decades—CGI, special effects, animation, you name it—and we’ve always applauded progress. Remember when Avatar came out, and everyone was raving about how “breathtaking” and “awe-inspiring” it looked? By contrast, the language around AI-assisted films doesn’t quite get the same glowing reviews.

So, what did the film use AI for? An AI voice-generating technology to enhance the very specific Hungarian accent of the lead characters.

Suddenly, AI is sparking outcry that it might undermine the human creativity and authenticity in films. The Brutalist editor responded to the controversy by saying that “There’s nothing in the film using AI that hasn’t been done before. It just makes the process a lot faster.” … and a lot cheaper. The film had a relatively small budget in proportion to its success, only $10M. For reference, that’s half the budget of the average Oscar-winning film from the last decade. It seems like this film crew is all about moderation and scrappiness, and using the best tools available to them, AI or otherwise.

Whether you’re on Team “Bring on the Bots”, Team “Keep It Classic,” or Team “I don’t care, I hate Hollywood”, we can all agree that cinema is better when technology is embraced. Go and rewatch any sci-fi movie from the 80’s if you don’t agree. Besides, what is so humanly authentic about acting in front of a green screen?

Heard in the Server Room
Quick hits roundup of AI news

• STEM Majors No Longer Hold Keys to AI Gate

  Looks like non-STEM majors are tired of hearing about their STEM counterparts higher average salary and now want in on the AI action. Universities like Carnegie Mellon and Johns Hopkins are reporting a surge in enrollments from non-STEM students—think nurses, educators, and business majors—eager to integrate AI into their fields. This trend is reshaping curricula to make AI more accessible and relevant across diverse disciplines.

• China Confuses USA For Russia, Advises AI Experts To Avoid Travel

  China is telling its top AI brains to avoid the USA, worried they might accidentally spill state secrets—or worse, get lured into a Starbucks chat with an OpenAI recruiter. While there’s no official travel ban, Beijing is making it clear that unnecessary trips to the land of the free are frowned upon and will be closely watched. The message? Keep your breakthroughs at home, because in this AI arms race, Beijing wants all the secret sauce staying in General Tso’s kitchen.

• Nvidia’s Blackwell Chips Take the Scenic Route to China

  Despite U.S. export controls, the Chinese appear to still be obtaining Nvidia's latest Blackwell AI chips through third-party sellers in countries like Malaysia and Taiwan. These resellers purchase the chips legally and then sell them to Chinese firms at a premium, with prices for an eight-GPU server stack reaching up to $600,000. This workaround highlights challenges in enforcing export restrictions, as complex supply chains make it difficult to track the final destination of advanced semiconductors.

OpenAI’s Insider Picks: Startups Shaping Tomorrow

OpenAI, one of the biggest names in AI research, channels external investments through its OpenAI Startup Fund to back a range of forward-thinking companies, all centered around AI.

If you’ve been wondering how far AI can really go, or just want a sneak peek at tomorrow’s tech, here are a few of the startups OpenAI is putting its money on. Remember, the two main use cases for AI are to augment (enhance human skills or decisions making) or automate (delegate entire tasks to AI, with minimal human supervision).

• 1X: A Norwegian humanoid robot startup. You may be able to eventually get your hands on a digital companion to walk your dog for a mere $20,000.

• Ambience Healthcare: a medical note-taking startup that uses AI to replace assist medical scribes.

• Chai Discovery: AI-Powered Drug Discovery. This is complicated, we’ll just leave it at that.

• Harvey AI: the legal tech startup helping your attorney breeze through your case—without reducing your bill. Could it be possible that it’s named after the great Harvey Specter from Suits?? It’s too much of a coincidence.

• Descript: An audio and video editing platform that uses AI to perform all kinds of time consuming editing tasks, like transcribing your spoken words into text.

• Thrive AI: a fully customized personal AI life and health coach that will tell you something besides “drink more water.”

• Heeyo: a kid-friendly AI chatbot designed for education—offering a safer alternative in a world where ChatGPT’s “scary good” abilities can feel a bit overwhelming.

You may not have heard of these AI-driven startups, or even realize how their applications affect your day-to-day life, but make no mistake: this is a glimpse of the future. In just a year or two, some of these names could easily become household brands.