As a major city in the United States and even the global film industry, Hollywood has gathered a large number of veteran film and television production companies, including Universal Pictures, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Disney Pictures, MGM Pictures, etc. In addition, new streaming forces such as Netflix have also entered in recent years. When the new generation of technology represented by generative AI sweeps the world, the movie "dream factory" is also experiencing a transformative moment. In early May last year, the US film and television industry launched a series of strikes that lasted for five months. Two labor disputes, led by the Writers Guild and the Screen Actors Guild, have caused the worst industry disruption since the 2020 pandemic, forcing many film projects and TV shows to halt or delay production. The strike has been costly, with Kevin Klowden, chief global strategist at the Milken Institute think tank, estimating it has cost the U.S. economy more than $5 billion, affecting not only film and television production companies, but also surrounding service industries such as catering, trucking and dry cleaning. One of the main conflicts between labor and management is that many actors and screenwriters have expressed concerns about "unemployment" due to the "invasion" of artificial intelligence. Luo Chenya has been working in the film and television industry for more than 10 years, including scriptwriter, documentary photographer and assistant director. She told the first financial reporter that after ChatGPT became popular, she also tried to use chatbots to assist script creation. "I can talk to the AI about my ideas and ideas, and it will help analyze and refine my ideas, and even make some suggestions that I think are quite effective." But on the execution level, the idea of writing it down into a very specific scene, character action, it doesn't really help me." Luo Chenya said that AI still needs more training and evolution in script writing, but the ability to present images is amazing. "AI can directly generate images, which can indeed save labor to a great extent, and may even replace photographers in the future." In post-production, AI can beautify images and modify flaws." A place to be fought over Earlier this year, OpenAI released the Vincennes video model Sora on its website, which can create videos up to a minute long, generating complex scenes with multiple characters, specific types of movement, and precise theme and background details. In addition to being able to generate video from text, the model can also generate video from still images, precisely animating the image content. "Vincennes Video can quickly produce high-quality video content, greatly improving production efficiency, and generative AI helps to improve the analysis of user preferences and personalized recommendations, and enhance the attractiveness of content." These technologies will disrupt traditional video production and content distribution models, and media companies need to adapt and change their operating models." Wang Haoyu, CEO of Mairui Asset Management, said in an interview with the first financial reporter. For this reason, Hollywood giants have long made big bets and stepped up their layout.

A couple of days ago, a Quad summit meeting in Sydney scheduled for May 24 was abruptly canceled. The US president had to pull out of his long-anticipated trip to Australia and Papua New Guinea. Instead, the heads of the four Quad member states got together on the margins of the G7 Summit in Hiroshima on May 20. The main reason for the change of plans was the continuous struggle between the White House and Republicans on the Hill over the national debt ceiling. If no compromise is reached, the US federal government might fail to meet its financial commitments already in June; such a technical default would have multiple negative repercussions for the US, as well as for the global economy and finance at large. Let us hope that a compromise between the two branches of US power will be found and that the ceiling of the national debt will be raised once again. However, this rather awkward last-minute cancellation of the Quad summit reflects a fundamental US problem - a growing imbalance between the US geopolitical ambitions and the fragility of the national financial foundation to serve these ambitions. The Biden administration appears to be fully committed to bringing humankind back to the unipolar world that existed right after the end of the Cold War some 30 years ago, but the White House no longer has enough resources at its disposal to sustain such an undertaking. As they say in America: You cannot not have champagne on a beer budget. The growing gap between the ends that the US seeks in international relations and the means that it has available is particularly striking in the case of the so-called dual containment policy that Washington now pursues toward Russia and China. Even half a century ago, when the US was much stronger in relative terms than it is today, the Nixon administration realized that containing both Moscow and Beijing simultaneously was not a good idea: "Dual containment" would imply prohibitively high economic costs for the US and would result in too many unpredictable political risks. The Nixon administration decided to focus on containing the Soviet Union as the most important US strategic adversary of the time. This is why Henry Kissinger flew to Beijing in July 1971 to arrange the first US-China summit in February 1972 leading to a subsequent rapid rapprochement between the two nations. In the early days of the Biden administration, it seemed that the White House was once again trying to avoid the unattractive "dual containment" option. The White House rushed to extend the New START in January 2021 and held an early US-Russia summit meeting five months later in Geneva. At that point many analysts predicted that Biden would play Henry Kissinger in reverse - that is he would try to peace with the relatively weaker opponent (Moscow) in order to focus on containing the stronger one (Beijing). However, after the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, it became clear that no accommodation with the Kremlin was on Biden's mind any longer. Still, having decided to take a hard-line stance toward Moscow and to lead a broad Western coalition in providing military and economic assistance to Kiev, Washington has not opted for a more accommodative or at least a more flexible policy toward Beijing. On the contrary, over last year one could observe a continuous hardening of the US' China policy - including granting more political and military support to the Taiwan island, encouraging US allies and partners in Asia to increase their defense spending, engaging in more navel activities in the Pacific and imposing more technology sanctions on China. In the meantime, economic and social problems within the US are mounting. The national debt ceiling is only the tip of an iceberg - the future of the American economy is now clouded by high US Federal Reserve interest rates that slow down growth, feed unemployment and might well lead to a recession. Moreover, the US society remains split along the same lines it was during the presidency of Donald Trump. The Biden administration has clearly failed to reunite America: Many of the social, political, regional, ethnic and even generational divisions have got only deeper since January 2021. It is hard to imagine how a nation divided so deeply and along so many lines could demonstrate continuity and strategic vision in its foreign policy, or to allocate financial resources needed to sustain a visionary and consistent global leadership. Of course, the "dual containment" policy is not the only illustration of the gap between the US ambitions and its resources. The same gap inevitably pops up at every major forum that the US conducts with select groups of countries from the Global South - Africa, Southeast Asia, Latin America or the Middle East. The Biden administration has no shortage of arguments warning these countries about potential perils of cooperating with Moscow or Beijing, but it does not offer too many plausible alternatives that would showcase the US generosity, its strategic vision, and its true commitment to the burning needs of the US interlocutors. To cut it short, Uncle Sam brings lots of sticks to such meetings, but not enough carrots to win the audience. In sum, US foreign policy under President Joe Biden reminds people of a very advanced and highly sophisticated smartphone that has a rather weak battery, which is not really energy efficient. The proud owner of the gadget has to look perennially for a power socket in order not to have the phone running out of power at any inappropriate moment. Maybe the time has come for the smartphone owner to look for another model that would have fewer fancy apps, but a stronger and a more efficient battery, which will make the appliance more convenient and reliable.

Companies are going to have fewer people and fewer layers. Ten years from now, the software development circuit may have fewer jobs, higher salaries, and more product-centric work. The reason behind it is the rapid development of AI, AI has approached human beings at the intelligence level, a lot of work relying on thinking ability may be handed over to AI, while emotion is still the territory of human beings, how to communicate and collaborate is the most important ability in the near future. When Indeed's chart for software development and operations jobs was released, we found that, as the chart shows, there was a peak in early 2022, but after that there was a precipitous decline.

A children's hospital in the Ukrainian capital was hit by a Russian missile on Monday as part of a wave of airstrikes across Ukraine that has killed at least 31 people and injured 154 others. "Russian terrorists have once again launched a massive missile attack on Ukrainian cities - Kiev, Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Slaviansk, Kramatorsk," said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Zelensky said Russia fired more than 40 missiles of different types at the five cities in daytime attacks, hitting residential buildings and public infrastructure. The Ukrainian air force said it intercepted 30 missiles. Authorities said the attack on Kiev killed seven people, while the attack on Kryvyi Rih, Zelensky's birthplace in central Ukraine, killed 10 and injured 47. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the attacks, calling the assault on the Kiev hospital and another medical facility in the capital's Dniprovsky district "particularly egregious," said his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric. "Direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects are prohibited under international humanitarian law. Any such attacks are unacceptable and must cease immediately," Dujarric said. The U.N. Security Council will meet Tuesday to discuss the Russian strikes, diplomats said. The Russian Defense Ministry said the strikes targeted Ukrainian defense factories and a military aviation base and were successful. It denied striking any civilian facilities and claimed, without evidence, that photos from Kiev showed the damage was caused by a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile. Ukrainian Air Force Colonel Yurii Ignat said Russia has been improving the effectiveness of its air strikes by equipping its missiles with enhanced features, including so-called heat decoys that can throw air defense systems off target. In comments sent to The Associated Press, he said the cruise missiles flew low in Monday's attack -- just 50 meters off the ground -- making them harder to hit. Western countries, led by the United States, have provided Ukraine with billions of dollars in arms support. They will hold a three-day NATO summit in Washington starting Tuesday to work out how to reassure Kiev of NATO's strong support and give Ukrainians hope that their country can survive the largest conflict in Europe since World War II. "Today's Russian missile strike that killed dozens of Ukrainian civilians and caused damage and loss of life to Kyiv's largest children's hospital is a horrifying reminder of Russia's brutality," U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement Monday. "It is critical that the world continues to stand with Ukraine at this important moment and that we do not ignore Russian aggression." Biden said in the statement that he will meet with President Zelensky during the NATO summit in Washington this week "to make clear our unwavering support for Ukraine." Biden continued: "We will join our allies in announcing new measures to strengthen Ukraine's air defenses and help protect their cities and civilians from Russian attacks. The United States stands with the Ukrainian people." Czech President Petr Pavel said the hospital attack was "inexcusable" and he hoped the NATO summit would reach a consensus that Russia is "the greatest threat and we must be fully prepared to deal with it." Zelensky said during a visit to Poland that he hoped the NATO summit would provide Ukraine with more air defense systems. The Ukrainian leader said rescuers were digging through the rubble of the Ohmatdit Children's Hospital in Kyiv and that the number of casualties was not yet known. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least 16 people were injured, including seven children, and the attack caused a two-story wing of the hospital to partially collapse. Doors and windows were blown off the hospital's 10-story main building, and the walls were charred. The floor of one room was splattered with blood. Hospital officials said the intensive care unit, operating room and oncology department were damaged.

(Kitco News) - Gold and silver prices are sharply lower in midday U.S. trading Monday, on heavy profit-taking from the shorter-term futures traders after recent good price advances. The selling pressure today across most of the raw commodity spectrum is also keeping the precious metals bulls on the sidelines to start the trading week. August gold was last down $37.50 at $2,360.10. September silver was down $0.849 at $30.85. U.S. stock indexes mixed but near their record highs scored last week. The rallying stock market is a bearish element for the gold and silver markets, from a competing asset class perspective. The key U.S. data points of the week include Fed Chairman Powell’s speeches to the U.S. Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the consumer and producer price indexes on Thursday and Friday, respectively. The key outside markets today see the U.S. dollar index slightly higher. Nymex crude oil prices are lower and trading around $82.25 a barrel. The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note yield is presently 4.288%. Technically, August gold bulls have the overall near-term technical advantage. Bulls’ next upside price objective is to produce a close above solid resistance at the June high of $2,406.70. Bears' next near-term downside price objective is pushing futures prices below solid technical support at $2,300.00. First resistance is seen at $2,382.60 and then at $2,400070. First support is seen at $2,350.00 and then at last week’s low of $2,327.40. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 6.0. September silver futures bulls have the overall near-term technical advantage. Silver bulls' next upside price objective is closing prices above solid technical resistance at the May high of $33.05. The next downside price objective for the bears is closing prices below solid support at the June low of $28.90. First resistance is seen at $31.00 and then at $31.50. Next support is seen at Friday’s low of $30.45 and then at $30.00. Wyckoff's Market Rating: 6.5. (Hey! My “Markets Front Burner” weekly email report is my best writing and analysis, I think, because I get to look ahead at the marketplace and do some market price forecasting. Plus, I’ll throw in an educational feature to move you up the ladder of trading/investing success. And it’s free! Email me at jim@jimwyckoff.com and I’ll add your email address to my Front Burner list.)