How AI can benefit Hollywood (Part 3)
The entertainment industry might be the final one disrupted by Machine Learning, but if done right it can be as revolutionary as the camera.
Be sure to first read Part 1 and Part 2
Act 3 — Ensuring a Positive Ending
Films need a good climax and resolution. I’ve posted here to share my belief that AI can be a force for good, and to try to convince others. I want to see all the amazing new movies our world comes up with leveraging AI as their tool.
We’re well aware of the ways AI can be used for good or evil reading Bostrom, Kurzweil, Lee, Barrat, and recently The Age of AI from Schmidt et al. We’ve heard from great minds like Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Andrew Ng, Fei-Fei Li, Kai-Fu Lee, and Max Tegmark on the subject.
We’ve even seen recent examples of ways it can be used horridly. A scary example in the news recently were the unsanctioned “Deep Fakes” [9] of Tom Cruise and worse, world leaders like Biden. There have been many cautionary tales of technology and humanity in fiction, including Sci-Fi classics like The Foundation, Star Trek, Aliens, Dune, and Black Mirror.
I believe we won’t solve a problem by ignoring it’s development or censoring it’s usage. It might sound crazy but the best way to fix these issues is by developing stronger AI which is expert at detecting illicit Deep Fakes — so they can be flagged and removed. You can’t stop technological progress, but you can use it to protect and defend against those who will use it to cause harm.
AI will inevitably cause a few mistakes along the way, and the world needs to be cautious of who wields this power and what they plan to do with it. I’m also aware that Silicon Valley recently lost the world’s trust. Many got rich by disrupting industries and “moving fast and breaking things”, so there’s not much incentive to change this approach. That’s why I hope to see Hollywood playing a major role in AI-assisted cinema. All industries have social problems and Hollywood has been no exception, but I’m an optimist and believe on balance human nature is good, and technology doesn’t have to be bad.
Society worried that the invention of cars and ATMs would destroy careers, yet it’s been proven that technology usually helps employment if done right. There are more jobs in banking now as a result of ATMs automating the boring repetitive tasks (handing out $20 bills) and emphasizing the rewarding intellectual ones (like financial life planning or corporate finance).
Another question is often asked about AI: what if robots take over our jobs? I posit (with help from Universal Basic Income paid out through growing industries and economies thanks to AI) — that could actually free up humans to do the things they’ve always dreamed of. Passions that make life worth living. For me and many I think that will be creating art — making songs, writing poems, envisioning epic Sci-Fi worlds and novels, and most of all producing media. Humans have been telling stories for millennia, it’s critical to our evolution and entertainment [10] and I don’t see AI taking that away.
Humans are still essential to storytelling, and will continue to play a critical role. It’s also true that none of what I’m proposing would be possible without centuries of human storytelling to learn from. Machine Learning is really not achievable without data (and even Reinforcement Learning needs labelled data points for quality), so none of this can be done if not for the decades of film and television we’ve benefitted from, and centuries of novels and theater pioneering the way. Creative AI stands on the shoulders of human giants.
AI is a tool and will be used by human artists to create more of their best work faster.
The same tools in the hands of ranges of skilled artists will still produce different results and quality as would a paintbrush, Adobe Photoshop, or any creative tool — AI tools are no different and skilled artists will still rise to the top.
So how does this movie end? Our team can’t wait for all this to happen, because we love new movies and want to see a new one considered “The Greatest Story Ever Told” in our lifetimes. We think it will help on balance to improve on Hollywood’s weaknesses, giving more new creators meaningful careers, and providing us all more quality original content to enjoy.
Ask the insiders: what is Hollywood’s biggest problem? It’s not a lack of people wanting to create (just look at Gen-Z thriving on TikTok and YouTube). Hollywood suffers from a lack of original content, with the same stories re-told over and over, and we hope our tools help break the mold for a new generation of Hollywood that’s better than ever before.
Meet the Team
Russell S.A. Palmer is the CEO & Co-founder of CyberFilm AI. Russell founded the company with Andrew in 2021. He has a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from The University of Western Ontario, and has built AI products at leading tech companies like Microsoft, Samsung, JPMorgan, and start-ups across Silicon Valley, California.
Andrew M.A. Palmer is the CSO (Chief Story Officer) & Co-founder of CyberFilm AI. He is also the Founder and Director at Synapz Productions Entertainment Production Company in Toronto. Andrew holds degrees in Computer Engineering from McMaster University of Ontario, and Advanced Film-TV Production with Creative Writing from Sheridan College, and has worked as an Assistant Director on Hollywood films and shows like Suits, The Boys, Superman & Lois, The Hardy Boys, and indie films, novels, music videos, and other productions.
Fin. 🎬
Attribution and Link
[9] How synthetic media, or deep-fakes, could soon change our world (60 Minutes)
[10] Our fiction addiction: Why humans need stories (BBC)
Copyright © 2021–2022 CYBERFILM.AI CORPORATION — All Rights Reserved
