Meta may be offering millions to get Hollywood voices into its AI projects

Dame Judi Dench telling me about the weather? Sure.                               [The Morning After]( It's Monday, August 5, 2024. According to Bloomberg and The New York Times, Meta is in talks with the likes of Keegan-Michael Key, Awkwafina and Dame Judi Dench, among others, for its AI projects. The company apparently intends to [incorporate their voices into a conversational generative AI-slash-digital assistant]( called MetaAI, which is rumored to be like Siri and Google Assistant, which could live within Facebook, Meta hardware, and all the other parts of the multimillion-dollar social network company. The actors’ representatives are still negotiating for stricter limits, though SAG-AFTRA has reportedly agreed on terms with Meta. SAG-AFTRA, if you recall, fought for provisions to protect actors from the threat of job loss due to AI. Didn’t Meta already do something like this? Yes. During its Connect event last year, the company also introduced[a chatbot platform]( with 28 “characters” voiced by celebrities, including Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton, Dwyane Wade and Kendall Jenner. However, those celebrity chatbots’ pages have since disappeared, and The Information reports that Meta has just quietly scrapped that project. This appears to be more central to Meta’s AI ambitions. — Mat Smith The biggest stories you might have missed [What to expect from Google’s Pixel 2024 event]( [Apple apologizes for another ad that missed the mark]( [OpenAI is looking into text watermarking for ChatGPT, which could expose cheating students]( [Nintendo profits fall 55 percent as people save their cash for the Switch 2]( [Say goodbye to Boomerang, the streaming service dedicated to classic cartoons]( ​​You can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. [Subscribe right here!]( [Apple has finally started sending out payments from its butterfly keyboard settlement]( It agreed to pay $50 million. Payments relating to a class action lawsuit filed in 2018 over Apple’s butterfly MacBook keyboards have reportedly begun. The settlement website now states that payments for approved claims will go out in August, and claimants will receive checks. For some, it could mean a check of up to $395. After Apple introduced the butterfly keyboard in 2015, complaints arose over “sticky” and unresponsive keys. A lawsuit filed in 2018 accused Apple of knowing its keyboards had problems and concealing this from consumers. While Apple denied the lawsuit’s allegations of defective keyboards, it agreed to pay $50 million as part of a settlement. It also started phasing out the keyboard design in 2019. [Continue reading.]( [Instagram scammer faces felony charges after bragging on a podcast]( Idriss Qibaa is being charged over death threats in social media extortion. A guest who appeared on a podcast to boast about a hack-and-payback scheme involving his victims’ social media accounts is now facing the wrath of the FBI. It received a tip about Qibaa’s alleged extortion scheme on April 1, pointing to his appearance on the No Jumper podcast. Qibaa outlined a financial scheme using over 200 victims’ social media accounts, in which he would lock them out of their pages and charge them to regain access. He added he made about $600,000 a month. [Continue reading.]( [Game Informer magazine is shutting down]( After 33 years. [[TMA] Game Informer]( Game Informer announced its parent company, GameStop, is shutting the magazine after 33 years in the business. The entire website and its archives are gone, redirecting to the magazine’s final statement of thanks to its readers. The publication’s content director, Kyle Hilliard, said on X the bad news about the mass staff layoffs landed right when they were in the middle of creating an issue. Game Informer launched in August 1991 with Sonic the Hedgehog sprinting across its cover. [Continue reading.]( The Morning After is a daily newsletter from Engadget designed to help you fight off FOMO. Who knows what you'll miss if you don't [subscribe](. Craving even more? [Like us on Facebook]( or [follow us on Twitter](. Have a suggestion on how we can improve The Morning After? [Send us a note.]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [Youtube]( [Instagram]( You are receiving this email because you opted in at [engadget.com](. Not interested anymore? [Unsubscribe]( from this newsletter. Copyright © 2024 Yahoo. All rights reserved.