EP 9: Is Hollywood Scared of AI?

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Is Hollywood scared of AI? They might be. That's one of the things that we're going to talk about today in Everyday AI you, your daily live show, podcast and newsletter where we break down everything that's happening in the world of AI for everyday people like you and me. So if you don't have hours to spend every day keeping up with what, what's happening in the industry, don't worry. That's what we're doing. Give us 15 minutes and we're going to go over everything that is affecting you in the world of AI. So, Brandon, before we get into it, we have our trusty co host, Brandon. How you doing?

I'm doing well. Hopefully everyone's having a good day so far.

Let's go. All right, so real quick, let's, let's run down the news before we talk about if Hollywood is actually scared of AI. So the biggest one that probably came out yesterday, I'd say is the DeepMind CEO says that artificial general intelligence is years away. So let me tell you what DeepMind is. DeepMind is essentially, without getting into it, Google's division that is in charge of AI. We'll just say it that way. And what's, what's artificial general intelligence? So yesterday on the show, we talked about what a large, like what a large language model is. So general intelligence is essentially when AI starts thinking on its own. And essentially the Google DeepMind CEO said that could be years away. So, Brandon, what's, what's your thought in these AI models? Potentially in just years for thinking on their own and not just on the model they're trained on.

Yeah, I think this is, this is going to be huge. This is like that sci fi futuristic way you think of when it comes to, like, robots or you're ruling the world. So, yeah, I think we got a long ways to go just even talking about how we're implementing today's AI. So once we get the general intelligence to come through, that'll be, that'll be interesting. But I, I think that'll be a really big step depending on where we are in the state of AI, either in the right direction or hopefully not in a bad direction. But yeah, I honestly can't say what I think will, will happen because I don't even know what it's going to look like. But I think these next years will be super crucial to Kind of see how we implement AI currently and how we decide to regulate in so many different fields before we can kind of implement the general intelligence. So yeah, it's going to be crazy.

Yeah. And very related to that. So on yesterday's show we talked about the White House's push to potentially regulate AI. So speaking of that, another news story relevant to that yesterday and to artificial general intelligence is a new study from the Tech Oversight project shows that 54% of voters want AI regulation. I think the language is they wanted Congress to swiftly regulate AI. You know, Brandon, when we stack up this deep buy news and seeing that poll, what are your thoughts? Like, do you think that anything is, is actually going to happen at least in the US Here in terms of regulation?

I think over time, I don't know about like happening in the next couple months. I think it'll take, I mean each, each individual company division, career is so different in how they regulate it. Everything from like use case to pay, like how are we implementing it? So I don't see it happening just as, as a general, I don't know, maybe a general use case in terms of regulation. But yeah, I, I don't know. Like, I'm trying to think what, what could even be a general, I don't know, like what's a general rule that you can use as regulation because you have so many regulators in terms of like tv, you know, like obviously general corporate America. So it's like, I, I don't even know.

Yeah, that piece is hard. You know, it seems like what's the rest of the world done as well? I feel the rest of the world has either, you know, banned it outright like, you know, Italy and some other European nations were doing, you know, a couple of weeks ago, or they just overly censor it, you know, and that's kind of, that's been China's approach so far. So our, our last kind of news piece of the day. Is Slack GPT announced. I don't, is I, I have to look at. That's the actual name. If, if so not, not very creative. But Slack GPT, for those of you that hear those pings going off in your ear all day, ping, ping, ping. So Slack GPT is working inside of the Slack app. It's a communication software. If you don't know it, I feel most people probably have heard of it. So it's helping you connect to other apps, it's summarizing long threads or long messages within your Slack channels and then also can help you draft emails. Brandon, are you gonna be jumping on the, the Slack GPT trend anytime soon?

No, I, I left Slack a while ago. I'm never going back to Slack. Well, I can't say that because you never know if it gets implemented somewhere that I have to use it. But like, I'm Slack is, is old news to me.

Yeah, yeah. If, if I've clearly rubbed off on Brandon, if, if you've talked to me or if you've, you know, seen anything I, I post on LinkedIn. I'm not the biggest Slack fan, but we'll save that for another day regardless, I think, because I think like the Snapchat piece, I think if anything, this is going to open up just for the everyday person interfacing with AI. And I think that's the more important thing to note as Microsoft starts to unveil their AI across all of their offerings, the social media platforms where it's going to bring in the younger generation and Slack, I think it's pretty big news. So I am excited to see how that piece panel hands out. Okay, so now let's get back to our topic of the day. So is Hollywood scared of AI? It seems like the answer is absolutely. So if you haven't been following anything, there is a writer strike going on right now in Hollywood. So essentially the Writers Guild of America is, is trying to restrict the use of artificial intelligence in writing film and television scripts. And it's, it's actually, AI is being used so many other places. Right. So even, you know, simple AI technologies to make actors, you know, look younger or, you know, even where, you know, groups, huge teams of CGI would be working on a project. Now with technology, it's really restrict or reducing the amount of people you need for a Hollywood production. So you know, obviously the, the Hollywood studios want to be as profitable as possible, but the actual writers and other actually human beings in Hollywood are saying, hey, you're squeezing us out. And AI is being used more and more. Brandon, what does this mean? So I know, Brandon, you're a big movie guy, you follow film. How is this going to pan out?

I mean, this is huge. So this also happened in 2007-2008 and it lasted, started in November and it went all the way of 2007 and then it went all the way to February 2008. If you go back and look at that time period, those movies are complete garbage. Just because studios, obviously we didn't have AI back then, so studios just were pulling random generic scripts out of anywhere and just putting anything they cut out. And so it was a bad. Especially the movies following that time. So when they would have been made. So let's say 2010, when they released. Yeah, that that whole time frame was just not good for movies. So that's what happened then. Now could be different. But one obviously immediate impact. Any, any films, TV shows, anything like that that's currently filming are obviously just immediately stopped and won't continue until things get figured out. But as far as like the future of AI and its implementation, it's. I don't know, it's going to be interesting because writers are basically like, hey, ensure that we're going to be here forever and you're not going to replace us. And of course, you know, the production studios. And I was even thinking, like, who, who's even. Who's Hollywood? Like, who. I don't know who the writers are striking to. I know one of the places they were standing outside of was like Netflix as an example. But I don't even know who has to agree to this. I'm sure there's some kind of like producer skills or something like that, but I don't think they want to. Yeah, I don't think they want to do that just because this is a powerful tool.

Yeah. So just, just as a reminder, if you are tuning in live, feel free to drop us a comment on whatever platform you're. You're watching on. You know, we'll, we'll throw you in the conversation as well. If you're listening on the podcast, feel free to join us, you know, live on, on Monday. So, you know, getting back to this, Brandon. So, you know, one thing that I think is actually pretty interesting and very relevant. So talk, talk a little bit about the. You know, we, we just talked a little bit about this pre show, but this news. So the Marvel director a couple weeks ago said he fully expects AI generated movies within two years. That's Joe. Joe Russo. Yeah, Joe Russo. Right. So if you're not a fan of Marvel, the Marvel franchise, like number one, why they're amazing. I'm not even like a Marvel dork. But I think over the pandemic, it's like, how can you not just watch the Marvel movies? Right? But you know, these are some of the highest grossing movies in the history of Hollywood, in the history of movie making. So when Joe Russo says he fully expects AI generated movies within two years, which again, I'm all for AI I'm out here pushing. We're talking about it every day. I don't know if two years is realistic. Maybe it is, but Brandon like what, like what does that even mean? Because as I start to think about it, like that's like a small brain explosion for me.

Yeah, it's crazy. Like I was thinking about it too. It's like soon you're not going to need humans for like almost any part of the movie making process. Like music, we have that. Video, we have that, obviously. Text, we have that. So it's like what, you know, I think the biggest advancement would have to be on the video side because right now, you know, you can think of some examples like Runway, that that's an application that's text to video and that's obviously really limited with its graphics, visuals, what it can do. So that's going to have to be the biggest jump probably. But I mean in terms of music and the script, like that's, that's already there. So I mean, if you look online now, you can find people that are posting scripts generated by AI and they're, they're pretty good. So, yeah, I think that's going to have to be what needs to change for that to happen in two years.

Yeah. So a great example here. For those of you tuning in live. I'm going to share, share, share my screen here and I'm going to try to describe it for, for those of you listening on the pod. Brandon just mentioned a something called Runway ML. So Runway, if you've heard of ChatGPT, what ChatGPT is for text and researching and now data, which we'll have to get into that another day. And then you have your images. So your AI image generators are your dolly, your mid journey, there's the stable diffusion technology. So Runway is probably the company leading it for what's called text to video, which it's actually that simple. Right. Where you can put in text commands and get video. So this went viral on Twitter and just across the Internet last week. So to describe it to you, it's just a collection of text to video clips where someone puts together what might be considered a cheesy pizza commercial pun totally intended. So, you know, if you're watching this, you, you can check it out, but it's just a lot of a little creepy. But you know, this is very early on. I think if you look at this in a couple of weeks or even a couple of months, the quality of this, you know, this, this to me looking at it, aside from that last shot there where people's mouths are a little deformed, but you know, if, if I'm from across the room, that looks like an 80s 90s you know, pizza commercial. Right. Brandon, I mean, what are your thoughts?

I agree. Yeah, I, I remember seeing this and I, I agree. People are like, yeah, this is creepy. But yeah, if you're like across the room or you're just casually hearing it as most people tune out commercials, I feel like that's gonna, you would, it would pass. Like if you're not paying attention, you wouldn't realize that this wasn't a real commercial. So. Right. Yeah, it's, it's interesting. It definitely got the 90s feel with it as well. So they, they got that part.

Yeah. So if you are listening on the podcast, make sure you subscribe to our newsletter. Sign up at your everyday AI we will link this video so you can watch it. You know, aside from the close ups of people's faces, it's, it's actually not bad. The actual product video of these ingredients that are on the screen, people cutting the pizza, even, you know, shots of people from further back. These aren't real people. Right? These are all computer generated. And so when we talk about like a Hollywood strike, you know, again, this doesn't look that good. But the technology is very, very young. But in, in a year from now, this, I, I think will be, this technology will be hard to distinguish from real life. So you can see why Hollywood actors or, sorry, like people in the Screenwriting Guild and you know, producers, videographers, it's, it's going to put a lot of pressure on them. So, so, so we don't have a ton of time, Brandon, but give me, give me your hot take. How does this, how does this pan out? You know, not just this strike, but how do you just see this going in the, you know, the film, the creative advertising industry?

I mean, this is going to be huge. There's going to easily be, you know, companies that are created that are like, oh, we do so solely like AI advertising for you. Or like, I wouldn't be surprised if a production studio came to rise in a few years and all their movies are AI generated. And I could see it starting as something like a YouTube channel. Before you know it, they're having movies in, in the theaters. So like, I, I do think that's going to be one thing is, is AI specific companies and really that kind of goes along with what else I think is going to happen, which is everyone just needs to adapt and learn how to use something like Runway for writers. Like, I, I think personally they should figure out with the producers how to just work together using AI. I don't think the Writers, they didn't say they want it gone outright completely, but for the most part they, they just don't want it touching their work. But I think they need to realize, hey, you're actually going to need to learn how to use it yourself. So you can go to any kind of production company and maybe be the quickest amongst other writers because you're using AI or you're using like a chat GPT. So that's kind of my, my prediction. I think that will happen more quickly than maybe like a fully AI production company or movie studio. But I do think it'll happen soon.

Yeah. So, you know, even to that point, Brandon, you know, I know those studios are already starting, right? Like they aren't full fledged, but there's already, you know, studios, you know, creative agencies that are just AI and they're actually doing really impressive work. So here's kind of my take on this and we'll wrap up with this and I'll try to not be too long winded. So I think if you look in the past, you know, technology, technological revolution, so you know, the Internet, you know, computers, streaming, you know, streaming video, I think those, you know, generally had a, you know, a one to one or a two to one implication on the economy on employees. So what that means is, you know, your video store employees, you know, it wasn't where everyone was wiped out and no jobs were created on the back end because of tech. So I think that for the most part, maybe for every two employees, even a good with the Internet or streaming or whatever you look at, for every two employees, one new job was created or one to one. So I think that previous kind of tech booms really didn't disrupt the economy or the workforce. So I think one of the reasons why people really in the know, so you're people like the CEOs of Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, they keep warning about AI, that it's different. People keep likening it to oh, the invention of the Internet, the invention of streaming services, but it's not and here's why. It's when you're looking even at this specific use case, Hollywood screenwriters, you're not looking at a 2 to 1 replacement. You are looking at a 10 to 1 at a 20 to 1, you know, and that's even counting and including any jobs that may be created on the back end. In addition, that did not exist before. So. Right. We're not just saying, oh there's 20 script writers and there's only going to be one person doing script writing with an AI tool. It's not like that because yeah, there's going to be new tools and new softwares strictly for AI script writing. So there will be a couple new jobs I think that didn't exist before. But I still think you are looking at a multiple that's potentially scary of a 10 to 1, a 20 to 1 or more. And I think that's why there's a lot of the CEOs of the biggest companies are warning about the economic shocks. So I try to wrap that in in one minute. It clearly didn't work. So. So thank you for joining us. You've learned hopefully a little bit about what's going on in Hollywood with with videos in the creative agencies. So so now we want to help you leverage it Everyday people. So sign up for Our newsletter your everydayai.com we're going to have a new section today, really helping you leverage on the topic that we talk about. So you know, we're going to be linking some of the resources that we talked about as well as even some tools that, you know, people in this industry are using already. So thank you very much for joining us. I'd say we'll see you tomorrow, but we'll see you Monday morning. So thank you for tuning in to Everyday AI and we hope to see you back every day.

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