Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast in
Speaker 1: which we speak with some of the brightest minds working
Speaker 1: in the media business today. I'm Andrew Wallenstein with Variety.
Speaker 1: The handwringing over what generative AI could mean for Hollywood
Speaker 1: is nothing new, certainly not since last year's strikes, but
Speaker 1: concerns have ratcheted up to a whole new level in
Speaker 1: recent weeks when Open Ai gave the world a glimpse
Speaker 1: of its upcoming text to video tool SORA. At first,
Speaker 1: the assessments that we were witnessing the end of the
Speaker 1: entertainment industry as we know it were limited to social media,
Speaker 1: but then last week mogul Tyler Perry upped the Annie
Speaker 1: by publicly declaring SORA had prompted him to stop construction
Speaker 1: on an eight hundred million dollar expansion of his studio
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, and he beseeched Congress to say, the industry,
Speaker 1: so what's going on here? Overreaction or is it even
Speaker 1: possible underestimation? To help me make sense of it all,
Speaker 1: I've enlisted Steven Zeitchik, who has been closely tracking the
Speaker 1: intersection of AI and entertainment at his buzzworthy Substack Mind
Speaker 1: and Iron. We will be back with him after these messages,
Speaker 1: and we are back with Steve Zeitchik, formerly of The
Speaker 1: Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and other august publications,
Speaker 1: where he has written extensively about media and tech, most
Speaker 1: recently on his substack Mind and Iron, which is available
Speaker 1: every Thursday. You can check it out at mindanron dot com.
Speaker 1: I'm also lucky to call him a close friend for
Speaker 1: more than two decades. But this is our very first
Speaker 1: podcast together, and I can think of no better subject
Speaker 1: to finally bring us together than one that some say
Speaker 1: represents the dawn of a new era in entertainment, the
Speaker 1: profound implications. So Steve, I want to hear what you
Speaker 1: have to say. No pressure, but thanks for stopping by.
Speaker 2: Andy.
Speaker 3: It's great to be here, as you say, after all
Speaker 3: these decades. Of course, we did meet when we were
Speaker 3: four years old, so two decades, you know, doesn't take
Speaker 3: us back that far.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, Sora.
Speaker 3: It has been a fascinating time, obviously really starting with
Speaker 3: the release of Chat GPT all the way back in
Speaker 3: November twenty two. But the anti as you note, was
Speaker 3: incredibly upped a couple of weeks ago when open Ai
Speaker 3: release Sora.
Speaker 2: This is the text to video.
Speaker 3: Basically platform or program that open Ai has not yet
Speaker 3: released commercially, but they're unrolling it, probably in the notcho
Speaker 3: just in future. And essentially, what text to video means
Speaker 3: is you can put in a text input the way
Speaker 3: you can with Chat GPT for text or the Dot
Speaker 3: and Mid Journeys of the World for images.
Speaker 2: You can do the.
Speaker 3: Same now for video and have incredibly realistic looking with
Speaker 3: only some slight bugs. As I'm sure we'll get into
Speaker 3: video and the power of such a tool. We've heard
Speaker 3: about it for a long time. We sort of sci
Speaker 3: fi writers have kind of dreamed of it. I don't
Speaker 3: know if any of us thought we would actually see
Speaker 3: the day. Certainly did not imagine. I think many of
Speaker 3: us did not imagine seeing it so soon. Here we are,
Speaker 3: very early in twenty twenty four, already potentially with the
Speaker 3: capability to do this, but Soras here and it's only
Speaker 3: going to be coming on stronger.
Speaker 1: So what was it exactly that people found so mind blowing, Because,
Speaker 1: as you said, there were other applications in the marketplace already.
Speaker 1: Text to video wasn't entirely new.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a good question, and I think, you know,
Speaker 3: these things are all sort of you know, a little
Speaker 3: bit of that that Fitzgerald, you know, how did you
Speaker 3: go broke gradually at first or then all at once
Speaker 3: or hemingway.
Speaker 2: I always forget who it was, But.
Speaker 3: That's certainly been the trajectory of AI, where it's kind
Speaker 3: of like, oh, it's very incremental, it's very slow, it's
Speaker 3: very slow, and then all of a sudden it seems
Speaker 3: to be here, and we ask how it happened so quickly. So, yes,
Speaker 3: there certainly have been some kind of video applications, I
Speaker 3: don't think nearly as smooth.
Speaker 2: And I think one of the reasons.
Speaker 3: This took people back, certainly for those of us with
Speaker 3: a long enough memory to go back to the earlier,
Speaker 3: earlier days of the Internet, is that, if you remember,
Speaker 3: the sort of distribution of a lot of these different
Speaker 3: forms of media really took a long time to evolve.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, people were using email back in
Speaker 3: the early nineties. I don't think we were seeing video
Speaker 3: really distributed widely for you know, ten to fifteen years
Speaker 3: after that. And so while on the one hand, AI
Speaker 3: of course has been in development for many decades, some
Speaker 3: of your listeners may know about Elizo, which was a
Speaker 3: kind of a text based chatbot back in the sixties.
Speaker 3: But the reality is, for most people and for most
Speaker 3: modern use cases, we really have not had any sort
Speaker 3: of widely deployed AI until just you know, a little
Speaker 3: a year ago with chat GPT and so to go
Speaker 3: from a text based you know, application to a video
Speaker 3: based one and literally, you know, fourteen months. When you
Speaker 3: think about you know, previous uh, you know evolutions took
Speaker 3: fourteen years.
Speaker 2: I think that's partly why people are so shocked by this.
Speaker 1: I think there was something also about what was in market.
Speaker 1: Uh prior to Sora had just lasted clips that were
Speaker 1: about four seconds, and there was something about getting to
Speaker 1: that one minute mark that Sora that was able was
Speaker 1: able to do that. I mean that I think really
Speaker 1: woke people up to the fact that this technology was
Speaker 1: evolving very quickly. But see, here's the thing for me,
Speaker 1: I think there's for me, I'm not so quick to
Speaker 1: presume that means that going forward, there's going to be
Speaker 1: some uninterrupted hockey stick you know, evolution up into the right.
Speaker 1: That means that, you know, by the end of the year,
Speaker 1: Sora is going to be spitting out a ninety minute
Speaker 1: movie that's going to be ready for theatrical distribution. What
Speaker 1: do you think in terms of the evolution of this
Speaker 1: stuff going forward from here?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I think the length is a very big question.
Speaker 3: I mean, certainly you're right that the quantum leap we've
Speaker 3: just had is nothing short or remarkable. Whether you think
Speaker 3: this is a good thing or not. When I say remarkable,
Speaker 3: I don't mean that it's going to save humanity.
Speaker 2: It could also be its destruction.
Speaker 3: But certainly, in terms of the tech and the kind
Speaker 3: of form factor here, it's really remarkable that we've gone
Speaker 3: from either as you say, very short videos are really
Speaker 3: even still images, to a full minute. But yeah, the
Speaker 3: technical challenges without sort of getting or boring anyone with
Speaker 3: the engineering or kind of processing requirements here, but the
Speaker 3: kind of capabilities needed to go from a minute to
Speaker 3: you know, let's say, I don't know, even a twenty
Speaker 3: five minute episode of television is not simply a factor
Speaker 3: of you know, twenty five where you can just stack
Speaker 3: minute long videos together. First of all, they would not,
Speaker 3: you'd have to stitch them essentially in a way that
Speaker 3: would not work. And then even doing a lot of
Speaker 3: limited videos, I mean we know how much power even
Speaker 3: one minute takes. So I don't think we're going to
Speaker 3: see full length forget feature films, but even even you know,
Speaker 3: shorter you know, sitcom type episodes anytime soon. But I
Speaker 3: think that the future is now in the sense that
Speaker 3: it will only be a matter of time. I mean,
Speaker 3: to me, the question of the question of time is
Speaker 3: not really a significant one. You know. Again, a lot
Speaker 3: of this is about processing power. You know, basically, how
Speaker 3: computers can handle this much data and sort of troll
Speaker 3: this much data in a short amount of time that
Speaker 3: we will get there. I'm not concerned from a technical standpoint.
Speaker 3: I don't think there's any there's any kind of hindrance there.
Speaker 3: I think the question is how good will it be
Speaker 3: when we do get there? I mean, and I don't
Speaker 3: know if you want to get into the challenges now,
Speaker 3: but even in the one minute, we know about all
Speaker 3: the laws of physics that are being defined.
Speaker 2: You know, the cat with the with the fifth leg.
Speaker 3: Or the you know, or the hand key that never
Speaker 3: gets eaten, yeah, the extra hand, the person who's flying backwards.
Speaker 3: I mean, all of these are not small challenges. It's
Speaker 3: not like a case. I mean, yes, you could have
Speaker 3: humans go in and fix that, as you can with
Speaker 3: any sort of animation, but that essentially defeats the purpose
Speaker 3: of having a machine do this. I mean, you could
Speaker 3: also have a human design this whole thing in an
Speaker 3: animation studio. So I think that will be The question
Speaker 3: in terms of the democratization is not so much when
Speaker 3: we can get to the length, because look, people will
Speaker 3: play with minute long formats.
Speaker 2: We have TikTok videos that are ten seconds that go viral.
Speaker 3: I'm not really and eventually we will get to the
Speaker 3: twenty five minute or ninety five minute mark. I think
Speaker 3: the question is how good will they be when we do?
Speaker 1: But still, I want to like, just back up for
Speaker 1: a second. I'm just picturing like your mom, my mom
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast, and I just want to make
Speaker 1: sure they understand the implications because you know, they love
Speaker 1: podcasts of what we're talking about. Where you know, the
Speaker 1: way I want to explain it is, you know, the
Speaker 1: way it's always worked if you wanted to shoot a
Speaker 1: scene of something was you know, you had to have
Speaker 1: cameras and actors or at least animation, or you know,
Speaker 1: a set or a location. And now, thanks to this software,
Speaker 1: all you need is a computer and then you, you know,
Speaker 1: you whisper some text instructions into you know, Sora's ear,
Speaker 1: and Sora simply ushers into existence. What all that equipment
Speaker 1: and all the cost and time and manpower that comes
Speaker 1: with that and every all of that is no longer
Speaker 1: necessary and that is simply revolutionary now. Soa as we
Speaker 1: currently know it, I think we've just made clear is
Speaker 1: not ready for prime time. But it's not about where
Speaker 1: it's at now, it's about where it could be in
Speaker 1: the future. So if you are in uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a traditional Hollywood production company studio, how are you not
Speaker 1: freaking out?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, for for better or worse.
Speaker 3: Neither of us run studios that I think normally maybe
Speaker 3: for worse, although on a day like today and after
Speaker 3: the release of Soura, maybe it's a good thing we're
Speaker 3: not dealing with this problem.
Speaker 2: But but look, you're absolutely right.
Speaker 4: I mean, the the the transformation, the transform transformational moment
Speaker 4: we're in is is uh is striking and is I
Speaker 4: would you know you you talk about just being able
Speaker 4: to speak, and you know, our our mother is being
Speaker 4: able to speak and a video is created.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, think.
Speaker 3: About what just what that's meant for distribution for so
Speaker 3: many years, where it's like, you know, it used to
Speaker 3: take you know, an engineering degree, and if that if
Speaker 3: you can even do it to send a video to basically,
Speaker 3: you know, tell your your friends that, hey, look at
Speaker 3: this cute thing my my my grandkid did, or my
Speaker 3: friend did, or my nephew did, or my child did.
Speaker 3: And now, of course, with a flick of a keystroke
Speaker 3: or a swipe of a screen, we can do that.
Speaker 3: And so essentially what we're now doing is pourting that
Speaker 3: over to not just a distribution but the production. And
Speaker 3: I think that really dovetails right into your question about
Speaker 3: you know, where where Hollywood studios are going to take
Speaker 3: this and how worried they should be about where it's
Speaker 3: going to go. I mean, you know, and you were
Speaker 3: there covering it right at the dawn of the YouTube age,
Speaker 3: where it's like the studios are sort of like, what
Speaker 3: are we going to do that anyone can kind of
Speaker 3: upload and share videos? And how is that going to
Speaker 3: disrupt our business? We know what Google did about it.
Speaker 3: They went out and bought YouTube and we saw eventually
Speaker 3: after Netflix and other companies kind of ate their lunch,
Speaker 3: how the legacy media outlets started to react, and I
Speaker 3: think that's a bit of a good template maybe for
Speaker 3: how to see this moment from a production standpoint. If
Speaker 3: you're a studio, which is to say, massive fears of
Speaker 3: disruption and is this going to take away our business?
Speaker 2: And let's be real, you know the netflixes.
Speaker 3: Of the world that the automation of the distribution or
Speaker 3: the ease of distribution did, in many ways, you know,
Speaker 3: take away a lot of their business. And I think
Speaker 3: that can and very much in some cases will happen
Speaker 3: on the production side. That said, I don't think anyone
Speaker 3: feels like Hollywood studios have gone away because of streaming.
Speaker 3: In some ways, it's been another it's been a bood
Speaker 3: for them. It's been a revenue stream. It's disrupted them
Speaker 3: and it's and it's been their salvation. And although I
Speaker 3: don't think we quite yet know how it's going to
Speaker 3: play out, I think using that as a sort of
Speaker 3: rubric to say, look, the automation of production, much like
Speaker 3: the automation of distribution, is going to be incredibly disruptive.
Speaker 2: It's going to create you know, years, if.
Speaker 3: Not more, of you know, new business models, of people
Speaker 3: having to learn new skills of people losing their jobs,
Speaker 3: maybe some other people getting jobs, but ultimately, I don't
Speaker 3: think from where I sit, and I'm not you know me,
Speaker 3: I'm not usually a Pollyanna about this stuff. I don't
Speaker 3: think it's going to bring down the traditional business anymore
Speaker 3: than streaming, I e. The distribution side of this brought
Speaker 3: down Hollywood. I think it just fundamentally transformed Hollywood, and
Speaker 3: I think we're going to get to that point as well.
Speaker 1: Here well, enter Tyler Perry or should I say Chicken Little.
Speaker 1: What I mean by that is he gives his interview
Speaker 1: to the Hollywood Reporter in which he declares the sky
Speaker 1: is falling. You know, he makes some really really bold
Speaker 1: statements to quote, you know, just a few of them.
Speaker 1: Here's one quote, there's got to be some sort of
Speaker 1: regulations in order to protect us. If not, I just
Speaker 1: don't see how we survive.
Speaker 3: End quote.
Speaker 1: I love the wei, by the way, as if, as
Speaker 1: if he's in the same tax bracket as the people
Speaker 1: he's trying to protect. But now, look, I mean give
Speaker 1: the guy credit for doing at least what no one
Speaker 1: else in his tax bracket seems willing to do, which
Speaker 1: is to get out there and ring the alarm in
Speaker 1: a major way. The question though, is, you know, is
Speaker 1: he being hysterical or responsible?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think maybe a little bit of both.
Speaker 3: And just to go back for a second to your
Speaker 3: week question, I think both tax bracket and job responsibility
Speaker 3: I think needs to be delineated there because and even
Speaker 3: said it himself, he's like, look, as an employer, as
Speaker 3: a boss, as an executive, this is really, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of my wildest fantasy. It's like, you can automate
Speaker 3: large parts of the of the the assembly line, as
Speaker 3: it were, and if you're trying to, you know, you're
Speaker 3: worried about costs. And even Tyler Perry has to worry
Speaker 3: about costs. Suddenly you just saved on a whole bunch
Speaker 3: of animators or certainly kind of are able to scale
Speaker 3: back a lot of what a lot of of the
Speaker 3: sort of uh kind of spade work that had to
Speaker 3: be done or grown work that had to be done
Speaker 3: by by humans. So I think from that perspective, he's
Speaker 3: probably not freaking out too much. But as he also notes,
Speaker 3: as an actor, as a uh you know.
Speaker 2: As a as a as.
Speaker 3: A craftsman, as a fellow, you know, employee of a
Speaker 3: lot of the people who work for him. Clearly there's
Speaker 3: there's a lot of disruption there. I mean, look, this
Speaker 3: is you know, I don't think Tyler Perry is I
Speaker 3: think he's hysterical in that, you know, the notion that
Speaker 3: you know, somehow we shouldn't be building studios or we
Speaker 3: should worry that the entire industry is just going to
Speaker 3: evaporate because uh, you know, some you know, teenager can
Speaker 3: suddenly you know, create the next media or whatever franchise
Speaker 3: is going to resonate with people. I think that's an exaggeration.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that, first of all, that's a
Speaker 3: long way off from happening. Even when it does happen,
Speaker 3: it'll probably be a very much a second class citizen.
Speaker 3: I mean again, you know, it is TikTok competing with
Speaker 3: with Game of Thrones or with Succession. It's not you know,
Speaker 3: maybe it's competing on the mind share front, but but
Speaker 3: clearly you know we're not We're not going to be
Speaker 3: at the point where where any of this technology can
Speaker 3: create the next succession. I think he's being responsible in
Speaker 3: the sense we need to be, you know, kind of
Speaker 3: plotting our course well in advance of when we've been
Speaker 3: doing that. And you know, it's funny you mentioned the
Speaker 3: you know, we need regulation, we need to get get
Speaker 3: you know, kind of our duccen row here. He also
Speaker 3: said something as he was making those comments. He said,
Speaker 3: we need to not just like do this one guild
Speaker 3: or one union at a time, one strike at a time.
Speaker 2: And I think he's absolutely right about that.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think as much as the writers and
Speaker 3: actors strikes, I think put AI at the forefront. This
Speaker 3: sort of patchwork approach from a Hollywood industry perspective that
Speaker 3: we had over the last year, where the directors went
Speaker 3: and made their own deals, and the writers made a deal,
Speaker 3: and then the actors kind of got what they got,
Speaker 3: and then of course you've got all these other unions
Speaker 3: the below the line.
Speaker 2: Folks. That's not really going to work.
Speaker 3: And I would argue that not even from a labor standpoint,
Speaker 3: but from from a studio in management and produce aial standpoint,
Speaker 3: there needs to be a lot more alignment, a lot
Speaker 3: more talking and and you know, you talk about regulation,
Speaker 3: a lot more negotiation with with.
Speaker 2: With Washington, because let's be real about this too.
Speaker 3: You know, the sam Altmans and and Sachinidella's and and
Speaker 3: all the tech moguls they are, they are working at
Speaker 3: their hardest to make sure that from a lobbying standpoint,
Speaker 3: they have as few regulations as possible. I know there's
Speaker 3: a big lawsuit, a few big lawsuits now, including the
Speaker 3: New York Times suing Open AI for copyright infringement. But
Speaker 3: the reality is, to the degree this is going to
Speaker 3: be negotiated in the halls of Congress tech is you know,
Speaker 3: halfway through the marathon, and you know you've got Hollywood
Speaker 3: executives still debating what sneakers to buy. I mean, so
Speaker 3: this is a this is we are incredibly behind as
Speaker 3: an industry from Hollywood standpoint, relative to where the tech
Speaker 3: industry is in terms of figuring this out regulatorially.
Speaker 2: So in all of those regards, I think Tyler Perry
Speaker 2: is exactly right.
Speaker 3: But I do think that in terms of the immediate fears,
Speaker 3: the immediate displacement, the idea that the quality of work
Speaker 3: can somehow start even remotely approaching what even very basic
Speaker 3: professionals do, I think we're a ways off of them.
Speaker 1: We will be back in just a moment with more
Speaker 1: with Steve Zeichick stick around and we are back with
Speaker 1: Steve Zeichik, who writes frequently about issues regarding artificial intelligence
Speaker 1: at his sub stack Mind and Iron, which you could
Speaker 1: check out at mindan iron dot com. He puts out
Speaker 1: really good stuff every Thursday, so do check it out.
Speaker 1: You know, Steve, you were just talking about you know,
Speaker 1: you kind of panned back and gave us the big
Speaker 1: picture in terms of the battle lines being drawn here,
Speaker 1: and it just seems like such an impossible state of
Speaker 1: affairs when you think about the regulatory picture, the guild picture,
Speaker 1: and what Tyler Perry is calling on for here in
Speaker 1: terms of this industry getting its act together and getting
Speaker 1: everyone on the same page. What hope can we really
Speaker 1: have for Hollywood to fight this battle in the right way.
Speaker 3: Well, if streaming is in any indication, I would say zero.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like the whole thing.
Speaker 3: I mean, you follow out of this stuff, like whatever
Speaker 3: we did with social media on the tech side, let's
Speaker 3: do the opposite now. And I think you can make
Speaker 3: a case that that's true with streaming as well. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, we obviously saw the legacy companies way behind,
Speaker 3: We saw black box data issues, we saw lack of
Speaker 3: revenue sharing. I mean, creators certainly don't want to repeat
Speaker 3: any of that, And you know, I don't think it's
Speaker 3: a stretch to say we're in changer of doing that
Speaker 3: and then some So you know, I don't think the
Speaker 3: historical precedent here is terribly encouraging. And I think, as
Speaker 3: you've kind of been alluding to, in some ways, this
Speaker 3: is are In a lot of ways, this is more
Speaker 3: transformative than streaming. You know, production and creation always going
Speaker 3: to be more fundamental to the business than distribution, though
Speaker 3: distribution is of course very important.
Speaker 2: So I don't have a ton of hope.
Speaker 3: The only the only sort of in that regard the
Speaker 3: glimmer I would offer listeners here and you could tell
Speaker 3: me if you think I'm being too optimistic, is that
Speaker 3: I think we have learned some lessons. I do think,
Speaker 3: you know, I talked to executives, as I'm sure to you,
Speaker 3: who kind of say, look, you know, we are not
Speaker 3: going to get caught unawares of the way we were.
Speaker 3: You know, there were so many people ten fifteen years
Speaker 3: ago who dismissed a lot of this stuff as just
Speaker 3: either you know, kind of want to be you know,
Speaker 3: Hollywood content or a user generated stuff. You know, we're
Speaker 3: both old enough to remember the whole MySpace days and
Speaker 3: the frenzy about that and that that wasn't going to
Speaker 3: really cannibalize the business. And I think that I think
Speaker 3: Hollywood executives now and Labor Gill for that matter, are
Speaker 3: just too savvy. They know that they cannot underestimate this. Now,
Speaker 3: does that mean they're going to react to that in
Speaker 3: the right way? Are they going to align and get
Speaker 3: you know, you know, you know, can the guilds even
Speaker 3: get on the same page. Can management and the guilds,
Speaker 3: given some of the ranker decide what's best for them?
Speaker 3: Because you know, look, as much as I think the
Speaker 3: Hollywood studios and management are in some ways, you know,
Speaker 3: Tyler Perry being an example in this regard the enemy
Speaker 3: of labor, I also think they're their best ally because
Speaker 3: because the tech companies, as we know, don't necessarily care
Speaker 3: that much about Hollywood studios, I'm preserving their business model.
Speaker 3: They care about maximizing their profits as they should. So
Speaker 3: to the extent that this is going to be a
Speaker 3: battle between big Tech and Hollywood writ large, then hopefully
Speaker 3: producers and executives and conglomerates can get on the same
Speaker 3: page with workers and creators, because the sooner they could
Speaker 3: do that, the better they can figure out, you know,
Speaker 3: how to either neutralize the threat or work in concert
Speaker 3: with with the opportunity.
Speaker 2: But but you know, I don't mean to.
Speaker 3: Like sing a Kumbaya tune here, but I think the
Speaker 3: more kind of animous intention you have between Hollywood management
Speaker 3: and Hollywood labor, the more likely it is that big
Speaker 3: tech is going to come and eat both their lunches.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I my head is spinning just listening to this.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm still somewhat fixated on the notion that,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm not I'm not pinning this on
Speaker 1: Tyler Perry, but you know, he's obviously calling for Congress
Speaker 1: to have the studios protect labor, and I guess obviously
Speaker 1: not fire everyone in sight and just have computers crank
Speaker 1: out all the production needs, you know, from here on in,
Speaker 1: and because obviously that would be tremendous cost savings. But
Speaker 1: you know, when I keep my when I wrap my
Speaker 1: head around that scenario, I sort of say to myself,
Speaker 1: so if you force the studios to keep employing people, Okay,
Speaker 1: if there's some sort of protection there, how do you
Speaker 1: keep the studios competition from then utilizing the technology and
Speaker 1: then beating them at a fraction of the cost, and
Speaker 1: keeping the purveyors of that technology from you know, do
Speaker 1: you keep them from from deploying the technology? Like, I
Speaker 1: just I don't understand how that all that could even
Speaker 1: possibly work.
Speaker 2: You don't think Congress is in any way the answer
Speaker 2: here is your point.
Speaker 1: I just don't know how you how you have Congress
Speaker 1: force the studios to keep people employed, even though that
Speaker 1: is the most humane solution. And I don't know how
Speaker 1: you keep the technology companies from not deploying the technology.
Speaker 1: I just don't understand how that works.
Speaker 3: So a couple of things that they're not going to
Speaker 3: there's no way they're not going to stay the technology
Speaker 3: companies from from deploying the technology. I think what's going
Speaker 3: to happen is and this is not really a congressional issue.
Speaker 2: This is a judicial issue.
Speaker 3: And I'm I'm not an expert on regulation or legislation
Speaker 3: in this regard or in any regard, but my understanding
Speaker 3: from covering this a little bit is that really what
Speaker 3: can happen on that side is.
Speaker 2: Just the toughening up of existing.
Speaker 3: Copyright laws that they're pretty tough as it is, but
Speaker 3: they could be tougher in some respects. And then the
Speaker 3: enforcement and of course that's going to be up to
Speaker 3: the courts. And again we'll see where this New York
Speaker 3: Times lawsuit goes. But but I think inso far, and
Speaker 3: that would address kind of the second part of your question,
Speaker 3: which is what's going to stop people from just you know,
Speaker 3: grabbing it. On the one hand, so that that you know,
Speaker 3: that depends on copyright and I don't think that's a
Speaker 3: resolved issue yet. You know, can open ai just unleash
Speaker 3: a product that lets people like you know, drop Brad
Speaker 3: pit take Brad Pitt from I don't know seven and
Speaker 3: drop them into their student film like I think that
Speaker 3: there are legal mechanisms that can prevent that's totally that
Speaker 3: convent that from getting distributed if someone does that, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't think open ai cares. I think they want
Speaker 3: people to use this tool. I also think there could
Speaker 3: be judicial restraint or or legislative and judicial restraints put
Speaker 3: on you know, how much open ai could could actually
Speaker 3: train their models on this data to begin with?
Speaker 2: It was interesting.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you notice this nuance, but when
Speaker 3: sam Alwen was giving his little spiel on SOA. He
Speaker 3: was talking about how this was all kind of trained
Speaker 3: on publicly available information, and so I think they're very
Speaker 3: aware now that the initial chat GPT, which was a
Speaker 3: lot murkier in what it was grabbing, as we see
Speaker 3: from the New York Times lawsuit, they have to be
Speaker 3: a lot more careful about that. So I think that
Speaker 3: does address a little bit of what can be taken
Speaker 3: and if you do take it, you have to pay
Speaker 3: for it. And that's of course one avenue this could
Speaker 3: all go as well, which is they do train on
Speaker 3: a lot of this data that's you know, that's copyrighted,
Speaker 3: but the studios and hopefully the artists get compensated for it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: In terms of the jobs, I'm extremely, extremely pessimistic about
Speaker 3: the kind of protectionism that I don't know if Tyler
Speaker 3: Perry is actively advocating for it, but to the degree
Speaker 3: is kind of dangling this hope that Congress is going
Speaker 3: to pass a law that keeps people employed when there's
Speaker 3: technology that can that can automate their jobs.
Speaker 2: I mean, again, I am no labor.
Speaker 3: Historian by any stretch, but if you look at the
Speaker 3: history of automation in this country, in the auto industry
Speaker 3: and and and other other industries. There's just not a
Speaker 3: lot of reason to think that's that's gonna work. You know,
Speaker 3: and you can go back to the typewriter, you can
Speaker 3: go to you know, to Google, to search engines.
Speaker 2: I just don't think that's gonna work.
Speaker 3: I think what you can have, and I don't know
Speaker 3: if this happens legislatively or if it happens, you know,
Speaker 3: within the private sector.
Speaker 2: I think what you can have is retraining.
Speaker 3: You can basically say we're gonna, yes, this is going
Speaker 3: to potentially some cases take your jobs, but in other
Speaker 3: cases make it easier. We're going to help you do
Speaker 3: your job better with the help of this technology, or
Speaker 3: do a different job now that technology is doing this
Speaker 3: current one. And I think there is room for that.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 3: I don't want to get too like shiny optimist about that,
Speaker 3: because I think there's a limit to how much you
Speaker 3: can retrain someone if their jobs are now completely automated.
Speaker 3: But I think there is some there's some avenue for
Speaker 3: hope there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do hope this isn't a matter of just
Speaker 1: simple displacement. But we'll have to see on that and
Speaker 1: on the copyright question. Keep in mind, I think copyright
Speaker 1: is almost like we're getting a little ahead of ourselves,
Speaker 1: where we still need to see SORA be equipped with
Speaker 1: having some degree of creative control where filmmakers will be
Speaker 1: able to use your example, insert Brad Pit or insert
Speaker 1: you know whoever, because at this point we don't you know,
Speaker 1: you can't even add sound to SOA, although eleven Labs
Speaker 1: another software tool al owed there you could layer sound
Speaker 1: and on top of things, but you know, there's so
Speaker 1: much that still needs to be demonstrated at this point.
Speaker 1: What I'm also wondering about at this time is I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: especially as we see one minute clips, is not even
Speaker 1: just the disruption that is going to happen in terms
Speaker 1: of we're obviously focusing on Hollywood premium long form entertainment.
Speaker 1: I'm wondering whether the TikTok and youtubes of the world
Speaker 1: have things to worry about here because these this kind
Speaker 1: of technology is also going to impact, you know, the
Speaker 1: social video creator economy layer of the world. Because let's
Speaker 1: not forget that just because these videos can will great
Speaker 1: premium video into existence, that doesn't mean everyone is Steven Spielberg.
Speaker 1: Not everyone is gonna be able to turn this into
Speaker 1: ninety minutes or thirty minutes. But what they will be
Speaker 1: able to.
Speaker 2: Do is.
Speaker 1: Social video, which already has no barriers to entry. Why
Speaker 1: can't open ai become the next YouTube or the next
Speaker 1: TikTok In other words, I think the existing platforms in
Speaker 1: social video could perhaps find a new platform emerge from
Speaker 1: these new players that already power this kind of video.
Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So you think that because right well, right now, Opening
Speaker 3: I mean Opening is purely a tech company. In fact,
Speaker 3: they want developers forget distribution. They don't even want to,
Speaker 3: you know, they don't know we want to be creating
Speaker 3: the apps here. But you think that either open ai
Speaker 3: or a company that's responsible for the tech by the way,
Speaker 3: Google would be would be the natural one because of
Speaker 3: course they have both the AI capabilities and you know
Speaker 3: with YouTube the distri abution capabilities. But do you think
Speaker 3: there might be some kind of blurring of the lines
Speaker 3: between the tech that enables the creation and the distribution
Speaker 3: where those companies get into the distribution.
Speaker 1: To me, it's a natural extension. I mean, and Google,
Speaker 1: by the way, could be right behind open ai here.
Speaker 1: They have the Lumie Air is something that is coming
Speaker 1: that supposedly is going to be very similar to Sora.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying open Ai, I think, why not open
Speaker 1: up a distribution platform and compete because you're going to
Speaker 1: have tons of video coming out as people play with
Speaker 1: this stuff. Why not get into that space as well.
Speaker 1: It could be a whole new play. And so I
Speaker 1: just wonder whether we should be thinking even a little
Speaker 1: more broadly here in terms of what disruption could come.
Speaker 1: If I was Sam Altman, That's how I'd be thinking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's not shown to date a lot of interest
Speaker 3: in and you know, you could say this is wise
Speaker 3: or not. I actually think it kind of is. He's
Speaker 3: not shown a lot of interest in being sort of
Speaker 3: front facing in that way. I think he knows there's
Speaker 3: companies with massive footholds. I think he feels like if
Speaker 3: he does his job well and if open ai is
Speaker 3: able to create or give developers the tools, really because
Speaker 3: they're not really even creating a lot of this, but
Speaker 3: they're giving developers. I mean, so it is a different case,
Speaker 3: but they're giving developers the tools to create this stuff,
Speaker 3: then they can go out and put it on those
Speaker 3: distribution platforms. Though you know open Eye of course, as
Speaker 3: we know, as a very close relationship both spiritually and
Speaker 3: corporately with Microsoft. And you know, Microsoft clearly has a
Speaker 3: lot of reach with Windows and Office and all that,
Speaker 3: so there's certainly some some potential there.
Speaker 2: I was curious.
Speaker 3: There's something you said a second ago is interesting that
Speaker 3: I was hoping maybe to circle back to for a minute,
Speaker 3: Like you talk about what it can do in terms
Speaker 3: of the barriers to entry for creators. Do you think
Speaker 3: in terms of the creator economy, this is like an
Speaker 3: unabashed well, is this a good thing?
Speaker 2: Is this a bad thing?
Speaker 3: It's only up the level of kind of you know,
Speaker 3: professional or semi professional creators who are not you know,
Speaker 3: Hollywood types at all, your your mister beasts and and
Speaker 3: you know, your your TikTok kind of auteurs. This would
Speaker 3: seem to really just give them tools that are almost unimaginable.
Speaker 3: It levels the playing field for them, as I see it.
Speaker 3: What do you what do you think it does in
Speaker 3: terms of that world and creativity and the monetization they're up.
Speaker 1: I think you could see it level the playing field.
Speaker 1: I think you could see a whole new a whole
Speaker 1: new group of players come in that are maybe more
Speaker 1: adept at the kind of premium entertainment that you know,
Speaker 1: maybe the mister beasts of the world are not necessarily
Speaker 1: adept at.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just think that what we are talking
Speaker 1: about here in general, whether we're talking about creator economy,
Speaker 1: premium entertainment, it's so hard to get my head around
Speaker 1: the disruption that we're going to see. And I think
Speaker 1: a lot of what's gonna be disrupted, like we could
Speaker 1: barely conceive of it. That's how huge this is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think just to add to that, I mean,
Speaker 3: you talk about the whole new layer of creators who
Speaker 3: who can you know, sort of h up their game
Speaker 3: or or figure out how to master these tools in
Speaker 3: a way that maybe this current or previous generation of
Speaker 3: content creators have.
Speaker 2: And you know, I would look at animation, I really would.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, animation, and this is where maybe
Speaker 3: you know, if I'm you know, Illumination or I'm Pixar
Speaker 3: or on any of these companies that have that have
Speaker 3: done this so well for so long, I'm worried because
Speaker 3: forget just the the you know, the animators on the floor,
Speaker 3: who should be rightly worried here, but you.
Speaker 2: Know, this is going to give tools.
Speaker 3: I mean, and I think you know, we both watched
Speaker 3: these these videos and these demos and sort of saw
Speaker 3: the remarkable animations that were being created. I think I
Speaker 3: was frankly more struck by that than uh than than
Speaker 3: some of the live stuff. And to me, if you're
Speaker 3: able to kind of create animation up level, you know,
Speaker 3: if your your average or slightly above average content creator
Speaker 3: could now create you know, a one minute and then
Speaker 3: it gets a little bit longer, you know, gets you
Speaker 3: know these animations that you know, pix Our, Illumination, their shorts,
Speaker 3: and now suddenly there's like someone who's mastered these.
Speaker 2: Tools and maybe as an artist in their own right,
Speaker 2: but is not.
Speaker 3: Employed by a studio as there's no affiliation with them,
Speaker 3: is now suddenly creating Pixar or Illumination level animation.
Speaker 2: You know, what does that do to both sides? Right?
Speaker 3: What does that do to the Hollywood firmament where it's like,
Speaker 3: now suddenly you've got you get we can't distinguish between
Speaker 3: these studios, And what does it do to to these
Speaker 3: YouTube TikTok like platforms where suddenly it's not just you
Speaker 3: know uh, you know, somebody doing some fun karaoke video.
Speaker 2: But I'm watching, you know, and I.
Speaker 3: Know this is a bit of a stretch, but but
Speaker 3: not as much, not as big as it was a
Speaker 3: month ago, where I'm watching someone do the next you know.
Speaker 2: Cocoa or cars or or minions.
Speaker 3: It just feels to me like there are so many
Speaker 3: places here where the content creates could get this massive
Speaker 3: boost again the ones who know how to use the tools.
Speaker 3: And then you know, how does that get monetized if
Speaker 3: suddenly someone could do really high level stuff without having
Speaker 3: to go through the studios. Again, to your point, I
Speaker 3: think that's an area where the level of disruption is
Speaker 3: just mind boggling.
Speaker 1: And it just brings me back to Tyler Perry and
Speaker 1: and it's so easy to dismiss what he is saying
Speaker 1: and the profound implications of what he's raising as hysteria.
Speaker 1: But the thing I keep coming back to is, and
Speaker 1: I think we're going to end on this note, is
Speaker 1: it's it's as if, you know, I'm typically allergic to hysteria,
Speaker 1: but in this scenario, I find that, for once, I
Speaker 1: find myself thinking hysteria is plausible, and if it's plausible,
Speaker 1: isn't it truly kind of apocalyptic? And how does disturbing
Speaker 1: is that?
Speaker 2: I would end on this note.
Speaker 3: From my end, the slight bit of optimism I would
Speaker 3: inject to that and maybe leave listeners with. From from
Speaker 3: my point of view is that if you love Tyler
Speaker 3: Perry and you love the media movies, or you love
Speaker 3: you Know Spielberg or James Cameron, whoever it is, the
Speaker 3: reality is is not only can these can these models
Speaker 3: not actually create that? I mean they may be able
Speaker 3: to emulate it, but they can create something that distinctive.
Speaker 3: It's going to make those people even more prize. And
Speaker 3: I think we're gonna love if you love you know,
Speaker 3: whether it's from Tyler Perry to Steven Spielberg to Catherine
Speaker 3: Bigelow to Ava du Verne, I mean, you name it.
Speaker 3: If you love that filmmaker, you love that creator, you know,
Speaker 3: in the sea of pseudo professional content, that stuff is
Speaker 3: going to be even more valuable. There's going to be
Speaker 3: even more premium, more of a premium on people who
Speaker 3: could bring their artistry and humanity. I don't think it's
Speaker 3: gonna touch that high level of content. In fact, it
Speaker 3: may even put more of an emphasis on it so
Speaker 3: I don't know if that tempers the apocalypse, but that's
Speaker 3: the one thing I would say on.
Speaker 1: Score one for traditional Hollywood. Well, thanks Steve for taking
Speaker 1: the time out. You, of course, can check out everything
Speaker 1: he writes every week on his substack at Mind and Iron.
Speaker 1: Appreciate you taking the time out, great being here ready,
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