Latest news with #Odyssey
New York Post
4 hours ago
- Health
- New York Post
Why it's time to start treating revenge as the potentially deadly addiction that it is
We don't usually think of anger and resentment the way we think about drugs or alcohol. But growing evidence suggests that, for many people, the craving for revenge follows the same patterns as substance abuse and addiction, triggering powerful biological urges that can spiral out of control and destroy lives. Recent neuroscience discoveries show that your brain on revenge looks like your brain on drugs. Real or imagined grievances (perceived mistreatment, humiliation, shame, victimization) activate the anterior insula — part of the brain's 'pain network.' In response, your brain activates its reward circuitry, causing dopamine to flood your brain, producing short-lived bursts of pleasure. 5 Legendary thinker Homer focused on themes of revenge in his iconic tale 'The Odyssey.' Getty Images For most people, this process is manageable. But for others, the self-control area — the prefrontal cortex — that's supposed to stop you from engaging in harmful behaviors gets hijacked, resulting in tragedy. We know now that revenge isn't metaphorical. It's biological. In the moment, revenge feels great. But like drugs and alcohol, the effects wear off quickly, and the pain returns. If not controlled, revenge can turn into a deadly addiction. The only way to gratify revenge cravings is by inflicting harm on the people who hurt you (or their proxies). Hard-core drug users inject narcotics into their own bodies to satisfy their cravings. Hard-core revenge users inject bullets into the bodies of others. Public health data and research show that grievance-triggered revenge cravings are the root motivation of almost all forms of violence, including youth violence and bullying, intimate partner violence, street and gang violence, police brutality, violent extremism, terrorism, and even war. 5 Almost every act of violence and warfare can be attributed to feelings of vengeance, which is why revenge must be treated as an addiction, critics believe. Getty Images Criminologists have proposed other motivations — predation, dominance, ideology, hate, and sadism. But the neuroscience of revenge suggests these are better categorized as grievances that activate revenge desires, and the hedonic reward one receives when revenge is achieved. While scientists haven't thought of revenge as an addictive process until recently, poets, playwrights, and prophets have been trying to tell us this for millennia. Writing in 700 BCE, Homer, for instance, warns of the dangers of compulsive revenge seeking in the Odyssey. The tale of Odysseus reveals the hero returning home from the Trojan War to find his wife, Penelope, in the company of more than a hundred suitors. Odysseus slaughters them all in an orgy of retaliation, unleashing a cycle of revenge that can only be stopped with the intervention of the gods. 5 Author Matthew White estimates that 445 million people have been killed in revenge-related acts of violence. Facebook In the fifth century BCE, the ancient Greek playwrights Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides achieved immortal fame through tragic plays like 'Antigone,' 'Oedipus Rex,' 'Agamemnon,' and 'Medea,' which exhorted audiences about the dangers of compulsive revenge seeking. The book of Genesis cautions humanity about the risks of revenge in stories such as Cain's murder of Abel and God's vengeance-fueled mass slaughter of humanity during the flood. Today, we see the perniciousness of revenge on every scale. From vicious personal feuds and road rage to mass shootings, terrorist attacks, genocides, and war, the compulsion to seek revenge can often not be tamed, even when it costs everything. Whether it's a teenager bullied at school, a political faction nursing old grievances, or a nation seeking redress for historical wrongs, the underlying brain biology is the same. Tally the casualties of all the murders and physical and psychological assaults throughout human history, and you're likely to reach the number of dead and wounded from compulsive revenge seeking. Multicide researcher Matthew White estimates that a staggering 455 million people have been killed in just the top 100 most deadly atrocities and wars in recorded history. The World Health Organization estimates that violence-related injuries kill approximately 1.25 million people each year. 5 'The Science of Revenge' is written by James Kimmel Jr. But there's good news. Understanding violence as the result of an addictive process means that we can finally develop ways of preventing and treating it beyond mere arrest and punishment. Laws and prisons deter some people, but not those whose brains are gripped by the intense craving for payback. Like drug addicts risking death for a fix, revenge addicts risk everything for the fleeting satisfaction of retaliation. As with drug addiction, education, cognitive therapies, counseling, self-help strategies, and, potentially, anti-craving medications like naltrexone and GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic may help. But an even more powerful revenge addiction strategy exists inside our brains — forgiveness. Recent neuroscience studies show that when you simply imagine forgiving a grievance, your brain's pain, craving, and reward circuitry shut down and your self-control circuitry activates. In other words, forgiveness takes away the pain of past trauma, eliminates revenge cravings, and restores smart decision-making. 5 James Kimmel, Jr. says that forgiveness acts as 'an even more powerful revenge addiction strategy.' Michelle Senatore It's not a gift to the person who hurt you — it's a gift to yourself. You can use it as often as needed to heal yourself from the wrongs of the past, but still defend yourself from threats of the present or future. Bottom line: Forgiveness is a wonder drug that we don't use often enough. As May closes and we reach the end of Mental Health Awareness Month this year, there may be no mental illness that we need to become more aware of than revenge addiction. Unless we learn how to break the cycle of revenge, it will continue to destroy individuals, families, communities, and nations. James Kimmel, Jr., JD, is a lecturer in psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine and author of 'The Science of Revenge: Understanding the World's Deadliest Addiction — and How to Overcome It,' from which this article is adapted.
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
SM Entertainment Artists Celebrate 30 Years With SMTown Live L.A.
Fans of SM Entertainment-signed K-Pop acts braved an unseasonably hot day for a chance to see members from 13 groups perform at Carson's Dignity Health Sports earlier this month. Known as one of Korea's 'big three' K-Pop agencies, SM brought members from acts dating back to 2003 as a part of their well-known SMTown Live concert series. This year marked the agency's 30th anniversary. It's been 13 years since the last SMTown Live in California, which took place in Anaheim. More from The Hollywood Reporter Bono Weighs in on Trump-Bruce Springsteen Drama: "There's Only One Boss in America" Sean "Diddy" Combs' Assistant of 8 Years Accuses Him of Multiple Sexual Assaults During Testimony Sean "Diddy" Combs' Ex-Assistant Testifies He Sexually Assaulted Her and Used Violence to Get His Way It was an all-day affair for fans who opted to purchase the red-carpet ticket, which gave them a chance to see their idols relatively close and kicked off before 1 p.m. Some performers stopped by the barricade of fans to snap selfies or say a quick hello. Several groups teased new music and exciting performances. TVXQ, Super Junior, SHINee's Key and Minho, EXO's Suho, Chanyeol and Kai, Red Velvet, NCT 127, NCT Dream, WayV, aespa, Riize, Hearts2Hearts and SMTR25 all performed; NCT Wish was slated to perform but was unable to attend due to visa issues. Girl group aespa seemingly teased their future plans at SMTown Live. 'We're about to release music very, very soon, so please stay tuned for that,' Winter told The Hollywood Reporter. The group described their performance of the night in one word: fire. The crowd went wild for the four-piece group, performing hits such as 'Whiplash' and 'Next Level.' 'It's our first time in L.A. for SMTown, and it's not every year that we can come here as a whole SMTown family,' Riize's Anton said before the concert. The group recently released their first album, Odyssey, which they previewed for fans during the L.A. show. 'It's a really special opportunity,' Anton continued. TVXQ, the eldest of the crop of performers, told THR that fans could expect to hear the duo's older songs, a promise they delivered on when they sang their 2008 K-Pop classic 'Mirotic.' The undeniably catchy track had the entire stadium singing along. 'We just want this performance to be a place where we can show a lot of synergy between the senior and the junior groups,' member Changmin told THR. Other groups like girl group Red Velvet decided to play older fan favorites. The three members who performed during the show surprised the audience with their 2018 song 'Bad Boy.' The group told THR they included it as a special treat. It was Red Velvet's first performance in L.A. in years, so they said they knew fans were 'going to love it.' On the other end of the spectrum was SM's latest endeavor, girl group Hearts2Hearts, who were fresh off a Saturday performance at Wango Tango. The eight-member outfit expressed how excited they were to be in L.A. for the first time. Stella, a vocalist, said the group was particularly looking forward to the show's final song, 'Hope from Kwangya,' where all of the night's performers come together to sing farewell. To perform that final song, all artists flocked to the stage and later waved goodbye to fans all together. SM Entertainment's next SMTown Live is set for June 28 in London. Another in Japan is scheduled for August. Best of The Hollywood Reporter Most Anticipated Concert Tours of 2025: Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar & SZA, Sabrina Carpenter and More Hollywood's Most Notable Deaths of 2025 Hollywood's Highest-Profile Harris Endorsements: Taylor Swift, George Clooney, Bruce Springsteen and More
Gizmodo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
This Dreamlike Video Generator Makes Interactive AI Feel Like a Lo-Fi Acid Trip
We talk a lot about AI hallucinations nowadays—and for good reason. 'Hallucinations' is basically AI-speak for 'making sh*t up,' and most of the time—like in the case of web search, which relies on surfacing real, useful information—that's a Very Bad Thing. I don't think I'm alone when I say AI shouldn't be recommending that we put glue on our pizza, even if we know enough not to actually do that. But hallucinating doesn't always have to be bad. Sometimes, just like in real life, it can be a heck of a lot of fun, and Odyssey, a new company trying to pioneer interactive AI video, is making a pretty solid case for the fun side of things. Don't take my word for it—see for yourself. Introducing AI video you can watch and interact with, in real-time! Powering this is a new world model that imagines and streams video frames every 40ms(!). No game engine in sight. We call it interactive video, and it's free for anyone to try right now (GPUs permitting)! — Odyssey (@odysseyml) May 28, 2025 Odyssey is exactly as the company describes—a web-based world where you can stream AI-generated video. Unlike other video generators like Google's Veo 3, which requires using a text prompt to create a video that you can only watch, Odyssey generates a whole world that you can actually explore using your keyboard. If you're reading this and thinking, 'Isn't that Minecraft or any number of world-generating games out there?' apparently there actually is a difference, according to Odyssey. There is no game engine—all of the worlds are being generated in real time as you explore them. Per Odyssey, it 'streams video frames every 40ms' for a continuously generated experience. As a follower of video generation and AI, I naturally jumped straight into trying out Odyssey for myself, and the 'game,' if you can call it that, is weird in the best way possible. For now, everything in Odyssey is very lo-fi, which for most interactive apps (AI-generated or otherwise) would be a bad thing, but in this case, it kind of works. It leans into the necessity for a low frame rate to deliver hazy, almost dreamlike worlds. It's like if you took 3D imagery from Google Maps, funneled it into a VCR, and then played it back after freebasing some experimental new research chemical made from thermal paste. (Disclaimer: Please don't try that at home, folks.) The whole thing, as you might imagine, is pretty buggy, too. Environments render and sometimes disappear, making the whole thing even more hallucinatory than it already is. Using your keyboard WASD-style to explore the worlds is decidedly a slow, plodding experience, but I can't say I'm particularly mad about that. Everything in Odyssey feels experimental to an extent, and the fuzzy nature of scanning through worlds with an almost radio-like tuner comes off as more of an aesthetic choice, even if it's actually a technical necessity. That doesn't mean the creators of Odyssey—backed by Pixar cofounder Edwin Catmull, as noted by The Verge—aren't looking to up the visual ante. A next-gen version of Odyssey is already in the pipeline, though it's hard to say when that will materialize and how much of a visual improvement it will be For now, the experience is exactly what it needs to be—it's interesting and glitchy. I'm sure things are bound to get more complex and maybe more convoluted as they progress, but these are the early stages we can actually appreciate without having to overthink it. I know AI-generated video is in a strange state right now, but if you've got the time, I recommend taking a weird, disjointed stroll through Odyssey. It might just be the only AI video experience that doesn't fill you with dread right now.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Odyssey's new AI model streams 3D interactive worlds
Odyssey, a startup founded by self-driving pioneers Oliver Cameron and Jeff Hawke, has developed an AI model that lets users "interact" with streaming video. Available on the web in an "early demo," the model generates and streams video frames every 40 milliseconds. Via basic controls, viewers can explore areas within a video, similar to a 3D-rendered video game. "Given the current state of the world, an incoming action, and a history of states and actions, the model attempts to predict the next state of the world," explains Odyssey in a blog post. "Powering this is a new world model, demonstrating capabilities like generating pixels that feel realistic, maintaining spatial consistency, learning actions from video, and outputting coherent video streams for 5 minutes or more." A number of startups and big tech companies are chasing after world models, including DeepMind, influential AI researcher Fei-Fei Lee's World Labs, Microsoft, and Decart. They believe that world models could one day be used to create interactive media, such as games and movies, and run realistic simulations like training environments for robots. But creatives have mixed feelings about the tech. A recent Wired investigation found that game studios like Activision Blizzard, which has laid off scores of workers, are using AI to cut corners and combat attrition. And a 2024 study commissioned by the Animation Guild, a union representing Hollywood animators and cartoonists, estimated that over 100,000 U.S.-based film, television, and animation jobs will be disrupted by AI in the coming months. For its part, Odyssey is pledging to collaborate with creative professionals — not replace them. "Interactive video [...] opens the door to entirely new forms of entertainment, where stories can be generated and explored on demand, free from the constraints and costs of traditional production," writes the company in its blog post. "Over time, we believe everything that is video today — entertainment, ads, education, training, travel, and more — will evolve into interactive video, all powered by Odyssey." Odyssey's demo is a bit rough around the edges, which the company acknowledges in its post. The environments the model generates are blurry and distorted, and unstable in the sense that their layouts don't always remain the same. Walk forward in one direction for a while or turn around, and the surroundings might suddenly look different. But the company's promising to rapidly improve upon the model, which can currently stream video at up to 30 frames per second from clusters of Nvidia H100 GPUs at the cost of $1-$2 per "user-hour." "Looking ahead, we're researching richer world representations that capture dynamics far more faithfully, while increasing temporal stability and persistent state," writes Odyssey in its post. "In parallel, we're expanding the action space from motion to world interaction, learning open actions from large-scale video." Odyssey is taking a different approach than many AI labs in the world modeling space. It designed a 360-degree, backpack-mounted camera system to capture real-world landscapes, which Odyssey thinks can serve as a basis for higher-quality models than models trained solely on publicly available data. To date, Odyssey has raised $27 million from investors including EQT Ventures, GV, and Air Street Capital. Ed Catmull, one of the co-founders of Pixar and former president of Walt Disney Animation Studios, is on the startup's board of directors. Last December, Odyssey said it was working on software that allows creators to load scenes generated by its models into tools such as Unreal Engine, Blender, and Adobe After Effects so that they can be hand-edited. This article originally appeared on TechCrunch at Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Odyssey's new AI model streams 3D interactive worlds
Odyssey, a startup founded by self-driving pioneers Oliver Cameron and Jeff Hawke, has developed an AI model that lets users "interact" with streaming video. Available on the web in an "early demo," the model generates and streams video frames every 40 milliseconds. Via basic controls, viewers can explore areas within a video, similar to a 3D-rendered video game. "Given the current state of the world, an incoming action, and a history of states and actions, the model attempts to predict the next state of the world," explains Odyssey in a blog post. "Powering this is a new world model, demonstrating capabilities like generating pixels that feel realistic, maintaining spatial consistency, learning actions from video, and outputting coherent video streams for 5 minutes or more." A number of startups and big tech companies are chasing after world models, including DeepMind, influential AI researcher Fei-Fei Lee's World Labs, Microsoft, and Decart. They believe that world models could one day be used to create interactive media, such as games and movies, and run realistic simulations like training environments for robots. But creatives have mixed feelings about the tech. A recent Wired investigation found that game studios like Activision Blizzard, which has laid off scores of workers, are using AI to cut corners and combat attrition. And a 2024 study commissioned by the Animation Guild, a union representing Hollywood animators and cartoonists, estimated that over 100,000 U.S.-based film, television, and animation jobs will be disrupted by AI in the coming months. For its part, Odyssey is pledging to collaborate with creative professionals — not replace them. "Interactive video [...] opens the door to entirely new forms of entertainment, where stories can be generated and explored on demand, free from the constraints and costs of traditional production," writes the company in its blog post. "Over time, we believe everything that is video today — entertainment, ads, education, training, travel, and more — will evolve into interactive video, all powered by Odyssey." Odyssey's demo is a bit rough around the edges, which the company acknowledges in its post. The environments the model generates are blurry and distorted, and unstable in the sense that their layouts don't always remain the same. Walk forward in one direction for a while or turn around, and the surroundings might suddenly look different. But the company's promising to rapidly improve upon the model, which can currently stream video at up to 30 frames per second from clusters of Nvidia H100 GPUs at the cost of $1-$2 per "user-hour." "Looking ahead, we're researching richer world representations that capture dynamics far more faithfully, while increasing temporal stability and persistent state," writes Odyssey in its post. "In parallel, we're expanding the action space from motion to world interaction, learning open actions from large-scale video." Odyssey is taking a different approach than many AI labs in the world modeling space. It designed a 360-degree, backpack-mounted camera system to capture real-world landscapes, which Odyssey thinks can serve as a basis for higher-quality models than models trained solely on publicly available data. To date, Odyssey has raised $27 million from investors including EQT Ventures, GV, and Air Street Capital. Ed Catmull, one of the co-founders of Pixar and former president of Walt Disney Animation Studios, is on the startup's board of directors. Last December, Odyssey said it was working on software that allows creators to load scenes generated by its models into tools such as Unreal Engine, Blender, and Adobe After Effects so that they can be hand-edited. Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data
