Did Ben Affleck just foresee the AI future of Hollywood?
Welcome to AI Collision 💥,
In today’s collision between AI and our world:
- Two of the best things Ben Affleck has ever said
- What have YOU got to say?
- Infinite memory is going to be a game changer
If that’s enough to get the AI remembering, read on…
AI Collision 💥
The other night Armageddon the movie came on the TV. I quite enjoy that movie, so I stuck with it. My wife walked in not long after it started, and figured she might as well sit in on it too.
Eventually it got to that scene where they have chosen the miners they’re going to send up onto the asteroid to drill a hole, drop in a nuke and blow it to smithereens.
It was at this point I told my wife about the Ben Affleck commentary about the movie from the special edition DVD.
Remember those, DVDs. Where on the menu screen you had a bunch of viewing options, often you’d have a choice to watch the film with a director’s commentary or an actor’s commentary. They would explain how parts of the film came together, or a scene was shot.
Well, this commentary from Affleck is absolute genius.
If you’re familiar with the movie too, not only does what Affleck say make absolute sense, it’s also beautifully insightful and very direct.
The thing I like about Affleck is that he and Matt Damon, who are lifelong friends know the movie business inside out. And as hilarious as his commentary of Armageddon is, he’s spoke many times on the state of Hollywood and movie making and is always a deeply insightful speaker.
So, when just a couple of days later after watching Armageddon for the fifth time, I saw a video of Affleck speaking about AI and movie making, I thought this might actually be a good listen.
The reasoning here is phenomenal.
The reasoning here is phenomenal.
AI is a craftsman. AI is not an artist. Not yet. But what he’s also pointing out is that yes, there are aspects of movie making where AI will come in, kill jobs and cut the production costs of movies.
And it probably should do that, make the whole process more efficient and easier to do. But at the same time, there’s elements of human creativity that AI cannot do, maybe will never do because it is inherently not human.
AI is certainly a factor of creative destruction on not just Hollywood, but industry across the board. But not in a dystopian way. The process of creative destruction of industry trims the fat, streamlines, reduces costs, improves efficiencies and productivity, all the while creating more profitable outcomes, which leads to greater economic output and ultimately more jobs, just different ones.
And if it takes Ben Affleck to help people to see just how that works in a more celebrity infused industry, I’m all for it!
AI gone wild 🤪
Today’s “wild” section actually isn’t that wild.
What it is, is a request for feedback.
I’ve now been publishing AI Collision for over a year. That’s well over 100 articles on AI and how I believe it’s going to reshape our world. From some of the stocks that are changing the game to thought piece I reckon you should watch or listen, to some genuinely bizarre AI generated images it’s been a heck of a lot of fun to send you out my thoughts on all the things I’m looking at and researching in the world of AI.
But I want this publication to grow.
Much in the same way AI learns, grows, understands, gets better, more relevant, useful and fun I want this publication to do all those things too.
Which is why I’m going to the heart of what this is all about…you.
Without you, this publications doesn’t exist. If I’m writing to no one, then I may as well not be writing.
Therefore, I’m interested to know what you think. And I want unfiltered, brutal truths when you let me know. That could be good, bad or whatever you feel like saying.
The key thing here though is I would like to know if you like particular sections of our publication here, which ones and why? And if you don’t like parts of this publication, again, which ones and why…however there’s a condition to that.
If there’s something you don’t like, then I’m putting the power back in your hands to suggest what you think it should be instead.
There’s a very good chance, of all the people who read this publication, there will be some ripping ideas as to how we can make AI Collision better. Ideas that alone I could probably never have come up with.
So, I also want your IDEAS. They might be great, they might suck, that’s pretty much how I operate too – the key thing is with many ideas there’s usually something grand in there.
Let me know if you think there’s something I’m not doing that would be a great regular addition to have here at AI Collision.
To leave your feedback, just hit the button below…
Boomers & Busters 💰
AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).
Boom 📈
- Cyngn (NASDAQ:CYN) up 28%
- Vicarious Surgical (NYSE:RBOT) up 11%
- Appen (ASX:APX) up 6%
Bust 📉
- Micron (NASDAQ:MU) down 14%
- Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) down 10%
- AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) down 8%
From the hive mind 🧠
- A few weeks ago, leaders from all over the AI world convened in San Francisco for TEDAI 2024, a series of TED talks all about (as you’ve probably guessed)…AI. Now the videos aren’t all available yet, but you can get notified when they are, and I suggest you do here.
- Infinite memory. Imagine never forgetting anything. I’m not sure the human brain is capable of that. Thankfully it won’t have to, but AI can, and will, and it’s happening very soon.
- I had to laugh at this, mainly because the Australian one is very literally just a mash up of Chris and Liam Hemsworth 🤣
Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️
It’s new poll time! From an AI perspective there’s not a great deal to lean into in the UK right now. It seems like the government is fighting back some pretty brutal online rumours and opposition barbs to even think about real policy…
So, casting our eye to the US, we see more rumours and suggestions that during his term, returning President Trump is going to help put in place the right framework to accelerate the delivery of fully autonomous cars to US roads.
No doubt that’s a big push from Elon, and greatly helps the value of Tesla. How realistic do you think that is, and better question, are we now at the precipice of a renaissance in self-driving car stocks on the markets?
Weirdest AI image of the day
Exploiting the people’s money tree – r/weirddalle
ChatGPT’s random quote of the day
Startups don’t die because they run out of money; they die because they run out of momentum.
— Ben Horowitz, 2010
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to leave comments and questions below,
Sam Volkering
Editor-in-Chief
AI Collision
Actual full self driving vehicles are already around. Oxa (Oxbotica) for example already have these on trial in the UK and US. Tesla is nowhere near this level of automation. There are others also that are further ahead.
When I was young watching Tomorrows World,the early start of the computer age was wow! Couldn’t wait to able to use it. Now we have the internet, mobile phones, and smart everything. Well what a life changer, everything was going to be so much better. The clever people and the rulers have put us in a virtual cage, a prison. What I thought was going to be wonderfull has become a nightmare. My experience using computers drove me mad, Micro Soft Windows, a most awfull operating system. Cgi in films to me are now unwatchable. Instead of freedom we have a surveillant systems watching us, fining us at any oppertunity. Then look at China, is this going to be our future soon. Tweeting your thaughts, get a prison sentence. Wil AI make things better? looking at how things are now the future looks dark. Lets look on the bright side, no still dark.
I didn’t get much of an insight as to where to invest in AI other than to make me think about how to. The big companies who invest have already driven the prices of vehicles that are already public. Those who one would like to invest in, the growth companies are mostly still private (and unknown) and get sold to the biggies, or Private Equity companies before the public get a look in.
Similarly companies on the edge of nuclear build and production.
A search of AI and SMR related companies confirms this.
The money to be made over the past year and probably in the future appears to be mostly from private equity companies.
I am making an assumption that eventually when autonomy vehicles are available (at the right price of course) to the general public you won’t actually need a driving licence as the cars AI is totally in control and that will open up the market to millions of people who otherwise would not get able to drive through a disability such impaired sight or mobility of limbs in addition to those who just don’t want to drive their car themselves and what about a night on the town no worry about having consumed alcohol or will there always be a requirement for a licenced driver, if so what’s the point!
On the other hand governments around the world are working towards a goal of no one owning personal transport and I think electric vehicles are just a step towards that because they are not as green as made out, so don’t see them as along term solution in any case. Playing devil’s advocate here if accidents are reduced to zero by using vehicles driven by AI the cost savings would be astronomical, no personal injury claims, no loss of life, no damage claims, etc etc.
I wouldn’t worry about Governments not wanting people to own personal transport Peter, especially when you have Klaus Schwab and all his cronies at the WEF (World Economic Forum) saying “You will own nothing, but you will be happy”.These elites include the likes of Bill Gates (Former CEO of Microsoft) who just out of coincidence happens to be the single biggest owner of farmland in the US. These so called elites want to keep the likes of us mere working class as serfs, just my opinion.
What worries me about AI is soon, if not already, we will not know what is real and what is AI generated and what are all the people who will lose their jobs due to AI, 8 million to be affected is the UK estimate, are going to do for employment or will we move to the terrifying thought of the Communist like Universal Wage and how will that be funded, more taxes?
I know we went through a similar era when steam power was introduced to farming but I think this is different.
AI is like any of the technologies that went before it, it will change & enhance many areas of current industries but will probably not replace any. What I would really like to see is if AI could transform the administration of government? Could it create a fair budget better than a human Chancellor? Could it work out how to scrap and replace our tax code with a much simpler one?
Personally, I would welcome AI actors et al, if only to see some of the more over-rated and talentless and politicalised (stand up Mr De Nero) members of that profession become unemployed
This is feedback on improving the newsletter. Personally I really look forward to reading your articles, even though some sections may not be in my area of interest they still inform which is a good thing eg your piece on film making. One area that could be improved is polltelligence. I think it is a great source of showing the level of public opinion but sometimes I wish the question or choices were a bit more nuanced. For example the present one has 3 possibilities yet 2 are similar so maybe , if possible, you could construct a short 10 sec selection tree. You show the tree and the reader chooses one outcome, which in turn shows their rational for arriving at that answer.