Tag: Petite Singularity

Of AI & Hollywood: Hear, Hear Justine Bateman

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The latest episode of The Town evoked a strong reaction. I was stunned that the producer of the podcast stepped in at one point and said that he didn’t believe anyone would watch an AI generated movie. Oh boy. Talk about clueless. The guest on the episode, Justine Bateman, was totally spot on with a number of the points that she made.

The issue being — she’s right that SAG should have gotten a definition of what an “actor” is like the DGA and the WGA got for director and writer. The thing for me is we’re zooming towards an era in which 99.9% of Hollywood movies are AI generated. To the point that “artisanal” movies will be given special value. And it’s also possible that as such, Broadway and other live theatre will see a sudden surge in interest because of the “human touch.”

But, otherwise, the Hollywood of the future is going to be just Suits and Programmers. There will be no directors, writers or actors. Everything will be AI generated. It was heartening how much Ms. Bateman echoed a lot of the writing I’ve done on this blog since ChatGPT first came out.

And, really, I fear there’s not a lot that people like Ms. Bateman can do to stop the looming AI transformation of Hollywood. All types of entertainment and art will be totally “disrupted” by AI over the next 18 months. To the point that we might be having a “Fourth Turning” politically in late 2024, early 2025 just as we’re also having a “Petite Singularity” technologically.

Regardless, the next year or so could be extremely bumpy. Some pretty dramatic things could happen starting in late 2024, early 2025 that totally transformed the everyday lives of billions of people across the globe.

The Web Is Dead, Long Live The Web

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really hate the modern Web sometimes. I hate how boring it is. I hate that I have to use a browser — or an app. What I want is to have the Web replaced by a bunch of LLM that talk to each other.

Or, I don’t know, it would be cool if I had a LLM that knew every quirk of my personality to the point that it could “pre-emptively” answer my questions before I even asked them. Or something like that.

Of course, the dark side to this is everyone would fall in love with their LLM, like in the movie Her. But ignoring that problem, I want to information to come to me via LLM, rather than me have to search it out.

It makes you think about how maybe the major national newspapers might need to invest in LLM. Because it definitely seems as though everything on the Web is about to change in a rather abrupt manner. Almost overnight, it could be that the very notion of using a “browser” will seem quaint.

This will only accelerate as LLMs become a commodity. That seems to be inevitable.

Superhero Fatigue: Will AI Generated Movies Make It Moot?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Westerns dominated Hollywood fare for a very long time after WW2. Then there was a brief moment in time, right before the age of the summer blockbuster, when “good” movies were popular. The question is, are we leaving superhero movies behind?

And if we are, is it all just a lulz until AI generated movies wash over the audience and nothing matters anymore?

There is a chance that rather than some new, exciting genre taking over Hollywood that the very notion of “mass media” will become rather quaint. We’ll all have a hyper personalized AI — like in the movie “Her” — that will scan our face and give us a movie that it so personalized that there will no longer be any “shared reality” at all anymore.

Hollywood exist of two types of people: plutocrat suits and programmers.

And programmers may be eliminated if we reach AGI sooner rather than later. Or, put another way, Hollywood is ripe for a severe disruption very, very soon. All the technological pieces are falling into place. It’s just a matter of time before AI is a commodity to the point that the entire knowledge / creative economy implodes into a Singularity based around it.

Good times!

Is AI The Future Of News Distribution?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems as though all of the Web might collapse into a Singularity. When that happens, the Web will just be a bunch of AIs talking to each other. It makes you wonder, what will happen to newspapers and magazines? Will the advent of AI be the death media Websites?

I say this because what I want is to be able to talk to an AI rather than reading another newspaper or magazine article again. I think that comes from how I love to talk and I learn a lot better via a conversation than reading.

But the regardless of the specifics, the issue of the re-imagining of our collective interaction with the news is looming. If that happens, then practical obscurity may end altogether — even for the Dark Web. We will know everything about everything that is publicly on the web — or on a news website. That could dramatically change how we consume news.

Or not. What do I know. But is an interesting idea.

It Seems Hollywood Suits Want The Right To Populate Future Movies With Zombie Actors

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The fact that the below is a hang up in the current SAG strike negotiations is an indication of how serious Hollywood Suits are taking the potential of zombie actors populating future movies.

It makes a lot of sense that the Hollywood Suits would really want this ability. It is clear to anyone clued in with a pulse that the very idea of what we consider “entertainment” is about to be revolutionized in near term.

It could be that by around 2030, everyone will be given a very personalized movie that was generated by AI after it did a scan of their face to see what mood they were in.

It seems clear that we’re on the cusp of a major upheaval in Hollywood. The only question now is a matter of timing. In the end, having living actors in a movie may be seen as “quaint” and “artisanal.”

Could Elon Musk’s ‘Grok’ AI Save Twitter?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I saw with keen interest the news that Space Karen will soon release an AI called Grok for “premium” users of Twitter. Of all the weird, bad things Space Karen has done to ruin Twitter, this one seems the least destructive — and potentially, actually, lucrative.

Or it could be a total disaster.

But, on paper, making an AI organic to the Twitter UX seems like a golden opportunity to kill more than a few birds at one time. Grok is supposed to have real-time access to Twitter’s content, so, that could come in handy.

I will note, however, that Twitter is full of shit, so, I don’t know how they will accommodate that cold hard fact. But I do think that we are careening towards a “Her” future where *everyone* has a highly personal DPA with a great personality or at least one we can modify to our personal desires and needs.

Grok may be the first step towards that future.

Why, Yes, Obsessive Tik-Tok Employee In China, I Do Have More Evidence Your App Can Read People’s Minds

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I did a little bit of an experiment recently. I had lunch with my father and put my phone closer to him than me to see if my hunch that Tik-Tok can somehow read our minds might be proven.

I still have no absolute proof — don’t know how I could — but it is interesting that in the last few days I have been pushed a lot of WW2 and 60s content. It’s very interesting.

The only reason why I continue to have a lingering suspicion that Tik-Tok can read our minds is how I keep getting pushed things that simply can not be explained by the power of an algorithm. Usually it has something to do with the body. But often times, it’s just something I’ve thought really hard about in a way where I see something in my mind’s eye.

It’s all very curious.

It makes you wonder the lengths that Big Tech might go to keep such technology a secret. The idea that America’s biggest geopolitical foe has the technology — even if it’s just peer-to-peer — to read the minds of the millions of users of Tik-Tok would…probably not go over well in the halls of Congress.

Dem’s fightin words, as they say.

Flipping The Script On XR & AI

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I can be a contrarian at times and, as such, something dawned on me about the immediate future of XR and AI technology. I’m beginning to believe that Her-like AI technology (digital personal assistants) will be a far bigger service industry than any of us can possibility imagine at the moment.

Instead of a trillion dollar industry, it might be the thing that spawns a few trillion dollar industries.

I say this because I just don’t know if people really want to wear any sort of shit on their face. So, in the near term, it could be that XR technology will sound great on paper but, in reality, no one will actually do anything with it because of vanity.

This, in turn, leads me to the following scenario — rather than a Apple Vision Pro, what if you had a tiny black dot video camera you wore on your forehead over an eye combined with a earpiece that let you communicate with a Her-type digital personal assistant.

The camera would serve as the “eye” of your Her. As such, all the hard work would be done by your Her. Rather than YOU seeing the XR technology, your Her would. Her, in turn would tell you in your ear what she saw.

This kind of squares the circle, at least in the near term. I suppose once XR headsets look more like glasses as opposed to birth control devices then XR will begin to live up to its ages-old promise.

An Interesting AI Use Case

Logically, Our ‘Her’ Movie Future Will Be Powered By The House That Steve Built

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If you believe — as I do — that they’re rushing towards a future that is very similar to that imagined in the movie “Her,” then, well, it definitely seems as though Apple would be the company to make it happen.

They don’t have a profitable search engine business to protect and they have gobs and gobs and gobs of money to throw at creating a top-tier LLM. And, what’s more, they are at the forefront of XR technology with their Vision Pro.

But, as I always say, I can’t predict the future. I have no idea what is going to happen. And, yet, I would suggest you keep an eye on what Apple does in the next 18 months with XR and LLM.

I think it’s at least possible that were about to have a thunderclap of innovation around the fusion of XR and LLM technologies to such an extent that it might cause a severe recession and the loss of millions of jobs. But, we’ll see, I guess.