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AI film apps could see 'blockbusters created in bedrooms by end of the year' | The Crypto Mile

On this week's episode of The Crypto Mile, our host Brian McGleenon spoke with futurist, strategist, and Web3 advisor Nova Lorraine about the rapid advance of artificial intelligence technology, and how it could present Hollywood, and the traditional filmmaking process, with an imminent challenge. Lorraine described a future of bedroom-produced blockbusters, that take advantage of the significant cost reductions brought about by AI applications such as MidJourney, Descript, and Runway. She described how the advent of AI could democratise the film production process in the same way that YouTube democratised the film distribution process.

Video Transcript

BRIAN MCGLEENON: I've come to this week's episode of The Crypto Mile. This week, we're joined by Nova Lorraine, a futurist, strategist, and Web3 advisor, as we delve into the world of AI-generated videos. With firms like Runway and Nvidia pioneering AI text to video applications. The implications for Hollywood, the film industry, and even our sense and perception of reality could be profound. Nova, welcome to The Crypto Mile. Glad to have you with us.

NOVA LORRAINE: I'm happy to be here.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: Now, we're seeing a vast array of AI-generated content. These videos are starting to look quite good. Now, when are we going to see a blockbuster style film credit say from somebody's bedroom?

NOVA LORRAINE: Blockbuster style, that's very feasible. And we could talk about how that can happen. But we have creators creating short films right now with AI, start to finish, from script to output to online.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: OK, And the quality there is just like--

NOVA LORRAINE: If you didn't know it was created by AI, you were like, oh, that's a really cool story. That's it. But when you find out that it's created with AI, it's like what?

BRIAN MCGLEENON: Yeah. So when we look at like the amount of money that's sort of poured into big productions like, say, Amazon's "The Rings of Power", and then we kind of look at what people are creating in their bedrooms, is there any timescale that you're thinking of when we will see that type of quality for a feature film made from somebody's bedroom?

NOVA LORRAINE: I feel that it's really just a matter of groups of creators collaborating together because right now you have the techies tooling with the AI, right? But then if you bring together the artisans, the illustrators, the creative directors, the wardrobers, the writers, and the techies, but in six months, before the end of the year.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: So the whole vertical of producing a film from a script to shooting it, to getting it together, shooting the actors, even having the actors' voices AI-generated, to editing, post-production, special effects, to distribution can be leveraged by AI?

NOVA LORRAINE: Yeah, well, some of that already is being leveraged by AI. And then, I mean, for example, the distribution side of things we know, right? You can take AI tools and figure out what audience would be best suited for the story that you're creating.

And then you have the text to video tools. And then it's only getting better. We have Runway's Gen 2. We have Google Dream X that's coming out as well. And so you're using images and/or text and/or video to create longer versions of high-quality content that's in motion.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: Right. So is there already an audience for these creations or--

NOVA LORRAINE: OK, so let's see. Let's put that in perspective. 2022, we had about $475 million in terms of a market size, and that's just with text to video using AI. We're looking at about $2 trillion of a market size for AI globally by 2030. That's not that far off. We're at 2023 right now. So you're talking about trillions, not even billions. You're at $10 billion last year with gen AI.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: All right, so this is going to, like, shake the foundations of Hollywood.

NOVA LORRAINE: Oh, just a little bit.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: Just a little bit.

NOVA LORRAINE: Rock the boat a little bit.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: So this could be highly disruptive. How are Hollywood going-- what's their answer to this?

NOVA LORRAINE: You know, of course there is individuals that are already playing with AI in big production studios as well as your independents. We're seeing right now the writers strike and writers being up in arms. They're not the only creators that are sort of pushing back on AI. But what we have seen is the efficiency as it relates to time, output, the amount of content that come out, and the cost going down. I mean, with video games, you can reduce your production cost by 75%. That's hard to ignore.

And so it's a matter of looking at both sides and saying, OK, we want to produce more efficient content, but we also want to protect the creators and artisans as well that's part of the industry. And so we're seeing right now both issues coming to a forefront.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: The whole entire filmmaking process could be leveraged by AI. Is this going to, like, ruin human creativity? Is there a sense that over time our sort of faculty to be creative could diminish?

NOVA LORRAINE: There is. I think, OK, you're going to have those that are going to use the tool and get lazy, right? But I always say garbage in, garbage out. And I feel that as this tool becomes more democratized-- and we're already seeing an adoption rate like no other technology. In a couple months, a hundred million users around the world using the tool. We're going to start seeing more similar sounding and looking content coming from the tool.

So then as the individuals behind creating the prompts and manipulating a tool, we're going to have to push our creativity higher and imagine things that we haven't before, combine mediums, combine techniques that we haven't before to continue to differentiate what's coming out with the tools.

I'm a fashion designer. I'm a writer. I'm a talent, and that question is with me every single day. I'm using the tool. I've been using these tools for the last 10 months. And that was one of the reasons why I launched my own podcast as well called "AI for Creatives" so we as creatives understand what's coming, understand how to get in front of it, and really focus on human-first solutions.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: This technology, does it either threaten human creativity or could it bring in, like, a new era of human creativity? Could we see a new art form?

NOVA LORRAINE: Absolutely. I think it can threaten creativity. Just being realistic, we're going to see roles be replaced or change, but we're going to see roles be created that have not yet existed. I mean, look at what happened with the computer. Look at with the smartphones. You know, so all these new opportunities, revenue streams, ideas, mediums, ways to create content.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: Yeah, it's hard to perceive where it could go, but it could possibly take us to, like, new art forms, new forms of creativity. Now, do you think it could also provide the artists with, say, more ownership, more sovereignty over their creative process? So it gives them more tools. So I'm not only the script writer. I could possibly turn my script into a novel. I could turn my script into an animation. I could turn my script into, maybe in a few years' time, a full feature film from my bedroom. Do you think that's achievable?

NOVA LORRAINE: I think that's one of the most exciting things about this technology is giving access to so many more people. You know, right now when we think about Hollywood-- and I love movies and films, but there are so many individuals that are talented, that have great stories that will never be seen or heard because they don't have the money. They don't have the distribution channels. And now you have tools that can bring access to these creators.

You know, as a fashion designer, I can design more concepts more quickly, more cost effectively. As a writer, I can take my story concept and go from a novel into a screenplay, and guess what? I could team up with other creators and then turn that into that blockbuster film that we talked about before the end of the year.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: So if we look at YouTube democratized the distribution process for filmmaking.

NOVA LORRAINE: Yes.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: Are we saying AI is going to democratize the entire filmmaking process?

NOVA LORRAINE: That's where it's going, absolutely.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: I remember David Bowie hearing that he used to generate the lyrics for his songs by plowing them into this, like, really early sort of type of computer, and it would feed them out like, and he would get, like, different things together. I remember thinking to myself, is he just using a computer to make up his lyrics? But no, what he was doing is the computer was a tool to free up his mind to make new connections and new creative sort of, like, approaches to his artwork.

NOVA LORRAINE: Yeah, so I've experienced that as someone using the gen AI tools. So I paint as well. And so I created this painting, and it looked like the female version of Mother Earth. And I inputted that into the tool and blended that with photography that I've taken and then blended that with images that I created through the actual gen AI tool and came up with something completely different.

So it allows you to start thinking outside the box and creating these new mediums and mixes of mediums that you wouldn't have done before. And so as a creator, that's exciting.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: So we're sort of talking about this as a tool to help artists at this moment in time. Now, do you think we'll get to the stage where the AI will start creating on its own without any input from humanity? Do you think we'll ever get to that stage or do you--

NOVA LORRAINE: I think we're-- that's a whole 'nother conversation.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: It is, yeah.

NOVA LORRAINE: But I think we are at that stage. There's something that's called super AI that has its own agenda, and it wants to create and wants to grow. It wants to learn. And it may not necessarily be in alignment-- that's a term that's used in the tech space-- where the AI is congruent with our own human moral codes and values.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: Yeah, so the whole advent of general AI and things like that and, as you said, super AI sort of that's starting to, like, maybe have its own agency, it's quite scary. And I think these changes aren't only coming in the next decade. I think we're going to see changes within the next months.

NOVA LORRAINE: Yeah. I mean, there's talk about ChatGPT 5 being a very real thing a year from now, and we see individuals such as Mr. Musk saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, and then, of course, the creative community. And I think part of it is education, understanding what's coming, having these open dialogues, and saying, well, what do we want out of these tools? Where do we want it to go? What are some of the problems that we're having right now? Why don't we try solving those problems?

It doesn't have to be a profit-first initiative as our Web2, you know, journey was. As we move into Web3-- and gen AI is very much a part of Web3-- it can be here are these really harsh problems that we're facing. How can these tools solve those problems? And we go in that direction.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: Right. OK, yeah, I like that, just to end on that note. Like, we could see an intersection between Web3 and blockchain, and that kind of distributed ownership with AI could create something very exciting for the future, and it's really interesting what might happen in the next few months, few years.

OK, Nova Lorraine, thank you very much for coming on this week's--

NOVA LORRAINE: Thank you for having me.

BRIAN MCGLEENON: --episode of "The Crypto Mile." Thank you.

NOVA LORRAINE: My pleasure.