AI doesn't like rain - Artist And The Machine

AI doesn’t like rain

📰 News Roundup

  • Replaced by AI? Use AI as therapy. An Xbox executive producer has advised those with layoffs by Microsoft to use AI to deal with their emotions. “If you’re navigating a layoff no AI tool is a replacement for your voice or your lived experience. But at a time when mental energy is scarce, these tools can help get you unstuck faster, calmer, and with more clarity.” We’re not sure how being replaced by AI, then using AI for therapy feels. But there’s no doubt we’re entering a new era of AI giveth, and AI taketh away.

  • AI doesn’t like rain. The Tesla Robotaxi trial is going well. But it is having some limitations. This week Youtuber Ellie Sheriff was taking a ride when support ended the ride due to incoming weather. Sheriff commented after the incident: “It’s very cool, but you shouldn’t have to terminate the service because it’s about to rain”. In short, this is due to the camera-only sensors Tesla uses which are a current limitation compared to LIDAR technology from companies like Waymo.

  • The Oracle of AI. Oracle has just signed a 4.5 Gigawatt deal with OpenAI to power more of the AI giant. To put that power in perspective, it’s enough to power millions of homes in the USA. The half a trillion dollar sleeper giant that is Oracle, is also quietly working on a $500 Billion investment on AI infrastructure with Softbank.

  • Politically Incorrect AI: Elon Musk’s Grok has had a patch this week to make it more ‘Politically Incorrect’. The bot will now “assume subjective viewpoints sourced from the media are biased” and “not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect”. Musk has also commented he will release a version of Grok that will “rewrite the entire corpus of human knowledge, adding missing information and deleting errors”.

🛠️ Tool(s) Of The Week: From Don Allen Stevenson III

We recently had technology pioneer Don Allen Stevenson III at our Los Angeles Salon, Stevenson has worked with Dreamworks, Asteria, and recently was on stage for Meta with Mark Zuckerburg. This week he has released his complete creative AI tool stack for 2025. So we’re replacing our ‘Tool of the Week’ for one week only, to give you the full low down!

Specialized AI Tools:
Whisk: Google’s latest image remixing experiment

Meta AI: Integrated across platforms, surprisingly capable

OLLAMA: Local AI deployment for sensitive projects

Primary Intelligence Layer:
Claude Sonnet 4: My go-to for complex reasoning, code generation, and creative collaboration

ChatGPT: Still unmatched for certain creative tasks and plugin integrations

Cursor: AI-powered coding that’s revolutionized my development workflow

NotebookLM: Google’s sleeper hit for research synthesis and audio generation

Gemini: Google LLM highly capable and well-rounded tool

Perplexity AI: Real-time research and fact-checking

👾 New AI Academy backed by OpenAI, Microsoft and Anthropic.

OpenAI, Microsoft, and Anthropic just dropped $23 million to help teachers learn how to use AI, not get replaced by it. The three AI giants are teaming up with one of the largest teacher unions in the U.S., the American Federation of Teachers, to launch the National Academy for AI Instruction, a new training center set to educate 400,000 K–12 teachers.

The program is all designed to get teachers fluent in prompting, automation, and integrating AI tools into the classroom, probably before the kids figure it out faster than they do.

This is an amalgamation of current projects, with OpenAI already partnered with California State University to reach over 500,000 students and staff, and Anthropic has Claude for Education.

OpenAI’s Chris Lehane says the goal is to “help [teachers] learn, think, and create.”

For now, it’s clear: the future classroom won’t just be chalk and whiteboards. It’ll be Claude, ChatGPT, and more. Welcome to education, 2.0: where artists, machines, and educators collide.

🤖 AI Voice Agents are fooling government officials

Government officials got a call from Marc Rubio this week, apart from it wasn’t the Secretary of State, it was an AI Voice clone operated by a nefarious third party. This AI agent managed to contact three foreign ministers, a U.S. governor and a member of Congress.

This isn’t the first time this has happened either. In May, someone breached the phone of White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and began placing calls and messages to senators, governors and business executives while pretending to be Wiles, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The AI voice cloning is simple. Needing just 30 seconds of someone’s voice AI Agents can re-create a complete clone. With many govenment officials using Signal, the AI Agents can work quickly to contact their intended targets.

Hany Farid, a professor of digital forensics at the University of California at Berkeley stated: “This is precisely why you shouldn’t use Signal or other insecure channels for official government business.”

🎥 Moonvalley launches Marey

There’s a new term in the movie industry “hybrid film-making”. Taking AI and conventional approaches and merging them to create a new era of masterpieces. This week Moonvalley launched Marey, a commercially safe video model for filmmakers, and frankly, it’s looking epic.

The model is vast, covering an incredible array of possibilities that we can’t possibly cover in the newsletter, but a few that caught our eye include:

  • Transforming any 2D scene into a 3D environment so you can direct the camera as if you’re on set.

  • High-definition pose mapping to transfer human action to generated magic

  • Timeline reference images. Generating natural transitions between them, so you can guide both the look of each shot and the flow between them

  • Pulling motion from any reference video and applying it to new subjects or scenes.

Marey from Moonvalley, really is a must try. Check it out and explore HERE. Huge congrats to AATM speakers Don Allen Stevenson III and Bryn Mooser on this big moment!

👾 THE AI & CREATIVITY SUMMIT: LA Edition

We’re thrilled to share that The AI & Creativity Summit is coming to Los Angeles on November 19, 2025! After a hugely successful NY Summit in April, we’re back by popular demand – this time in Los Angeles, bigger and bolder than ever 😈.

Join 300 pioneers as we explore and celebrate the intersection of AI, Creativity, and human-machine collaboration. We’re offering a full-day deep dive experience thoughtfully curated across intimate conversations, live showcases, and spaces designed to foster deep connection and realtime insights.

Speakers will be announced soon. But to give you a feel for the last one, we had the likes of: Alejandro Matamala-Ortiz (CDO & Co-Founder, Runway), Claire Silver (World-renowned GenAI Artist), Dom Heinrich (Global Head of AI Design, Coca-Cola), Harry McCracken (Tech Editor, Fast Company), Vince Kadlubek (Founder, Meow Wolf), Hasard Lee (Author & Former F-35 Pilot), Paige Piskin (Creator), and many more. Check the below sizzle for a teaser of NY’s vibe…

​Please note: To ensure a high quality, curated experience, space is extremely limited and subject to approval.

Til next time,

Dani Van de Sande (Founder), James Joseph (The Weekly Newsletter’s Editor) & the Artist and the Machine team.

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