Hollywood reacts to writers strike + LVMH avoids digital goods
Will all white-collar workers become curators? + Disney pivot
The Agenda:
NOTICE: Next full Business Samurai episode will be included in next week’s newsletter.
Opinion
Hollywood reacts to the writers strike. [Hollywood, IP, AI]
Beetlejuice 2: Most of the cast returns. [Hollywood, IP]
Mexico: The next big market for IP? [Hollywood, Mexico, IP]
Warnings of AI existential risk, I am still not convinced. [AI]
Will all white-collar workers become curators? [AI]
AI video editing! [AI]
LVMH avoids digital goods.[Fashion/Luxury, Metaverse, Gaming]
Disney pivots its streaming strategy. [Streaming, IP]
Amazon licenses some of its IP. [Streaming, IP]
Monday Motivation
"A word after a word after a word is power." (Margaret Atwood)
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Opinion
Hollywood
Hollywood reacts to writers strike. [Hollywood, IP, AI]
More tidbits of note about the US entertainment industry’s current writers strike:
Celebrity reactions - There’s a bunch of them in support of the strike here, meanwhile Tom Hanks discussed how previous tech innovation has always changed Hollywood economics, Glenn Close acknowledged her support of the writers - from the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting. However, I think the most interesting issue is that of Jenna Ortega, who striking writers are calling out for her comments back in March. It looks like a complex issue, and I encourage you to read about it and form your own opinion. More on Jenna Ortega below.
The issue of showrunners - One issue that is particular interest to me is the issue of showrunners/writer-producers. I view these individuals as a link between business and art, and, theoretically, are the types I want on my platform. Some of the studios are requiring them to get back to work, but it seems to have the opposite results of the intended effect.
Non-union projects disrupted - Saw these links via Clownfish TV, 1) Deadline reports of a writers guild “hit squad” that is disrupting shooting, 2) the showrunner of Andor has stopped some of his work on the IP after being called out by a striking writer on social media.
The economics of the writers’ union - Saw this on John Campea, someone asked the hosts an interesting question: can non-WGA authors work on Hollywood projects on a non-union basis? According to actor Kris Carr, who is part of the actors guild, it wouldn’t look good to do that and then apply to join the writers guild. Interestingly, Kris Carr did mention some specifics about the actors guild, namely, if you are a member and you work on a project on a non-union basis, you could get kicked out; also when she joined the initiation fee was USD 3,100, but then again you get perks like health insurance.
Executive compensation (shareholders react) - Last week, I did raise the issue, as others have, of media executives’ compensation. Now, even shareholders are reacting, and it appears, not in a good way.
Beetlejuice 2: Most of the cast returns. [Hollywood, IP]
Speaking of Jenna Ortega. Despite the original movie being released in the 80’s, Beetlejuice has been a true cross-platform IP. There were action figures, a video game, a cartoon, and, in recent years, even a musical. So it should come as no surprise that Beetlejuice 2 is moving forward, with most of the original cast returning, including Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder, Jenna Ortega will be playing the daughter of Ryder’s character, and the screenplay has been written by the creators of Wednesday. If Ortega and the Wednesday writers can successfully wipe the dust off a pre-existing, horror-adjacent IP, maybe they can repeat the same with another pre-existing, horror-adjacent IP.
Mexico: The next big market for IP? [Hollywood, Mexico, IP]
Via CBR, The Super Mario Bros. Movie has made over USD 70M in Mexico, making it one of the movie’s biggest markets, repeating a pattern of previous Hollywood IP blockbuster Spider-Man: No Way Home. Given less accessibility to the Mainland Chinese market, I wouldn’t be surprised if Hollywood has done the calculations - the upcoming Blue Beetle and the next Transformers film both feature a Latin cast, as the article notes.
AI
Warnings of AI existential risk, I am still not convinced. [AI]
Why am I not convinced? Three reasons:
Disclosure: I believe that it should be a requirement that everyone warning of the existential risks to humanity from a new technology has to disclose any potential conflict of interest, including non-salary compensation. For example, if you watch Bloomberg and an analyst discusses a stock, the screen will at some point show if the analyst and their family have any material holdings. Scott Galloway even pointed out non-salary compensation as an issue in the AI hype cycle.
Semantics: If we’re talking about existential risks to humanity and the society-wide anxiety that this may produce, we should carefully define words that are material to the discussion, and reach a global consensus on these definitions. What is “sentience”, what is “intelligence”? AI is “intelligent” because it can perform calculations faster than any human ever could, but the same can be said about the humble calculator. Is the calculator therefore more “intelligent” than I am? Does gen AI “hallucinate” or is it just stitching together data based on patterns it perceives, without social context, and then outputs something unintelligible to humans? Do chatbots “talk to each other”, or just transfer data? You get the idea. I honestly think it is not a good idea to anthropomorphize technology.
Lack of specific examples: This one is super-important. Gen AI takes data, stitches it together and produces synthetic media. How exactly do we get from there to AI taking control of and dominating humanity? That seems like quite the logical leap, in my view. I’ve seen the question posed to some analysts and experts, and one answer seems to be the “sub-goal” risk - AI wants to make a paperclip factory and ends up annihilating the human race in the process. But is the sub-goal risk an existential risk, or a near-term risk? If you want software to do something specific, and it does something else in the near term, even in support of the ultimate goal, is it then not a faulty product, and you should not buy it? If it’s a faulty product and sub-goal risks are well-flagged, why on earth would you let it near executive decision-making and weapons, regardless of your political motives? Even then, why would you need an AI, with all its risks, to launch missiles for you when all you have to do is press a button yourself? Does all this mean, in the near term, that consumers will not buy the product, regulators may step in, developers will improve the product to avoid sub-goal risk, etc.? As I have said before, great technology does not exist in a vacuum, and other forces, whether it be market forces, regulation, international treaties, or anything else, get in the way, with the potential result of “existential” risks being addressed, perhaps incidentally, by society tackling near-term risks. It may also be true that many new technologies are, by nature, fraught with societal risks, and this is something we always have to live with. Remember the hype cycle of 3-D printing and the risks articulated there? I wonder if talk of far-off “existential risks” may be an example of the logical fallacy of “hasty generalization”, jumping to conclusions right away with limited information.
The problem I have is people scaring the shit out of other people. In some cases, maybe this is fear mongering as a marketing strategy, as others have brought up. Perhaps in some cases, hypothetically, someone or a group of people develop this software that gobbles up IP without the IP owners’ permission, burst onto the public sphere with this software that then uses this IP to spit out synthetic media that wows the public, and then, once the public’s imagination has been captured, take a massive leap in logic and warn about the existential risk to all of humanity - with the end goal of selling their software.
The other existential risk that may have the public worried is, of course, jobs. Which brings me to my next thought:
Will all white-collar workers become curators? [AI]
As a continuation of my discussion last week about human society and emergent technology. The near-term risks of gen AI are real. Fake news, deepfakes, photoshopping - risks we have already been living with - I assume could now be done in warp speed. In my view, when people can’t tell what’s real from not, many will turn to the authorities, right or wrong or somewhere in between. And, as I have mentioned before, it appears both private and public sector are hiring for cybersecurity.
A thought experiment: if you want to promote your business of regulating AI, what’s going to be more marketable: humans regulating AI or AI regulating AI? I would think the former. But the former may not be as scalable as the latter, meaning you have to hire a shit-ton of humans to do the regulating, in a bizarre twist of the market demanding inefficiency over efficiency. The human children of the AI revolution will end up eating the AI!
Does that mean…
Does that mean cybersecurity could be a major white-collar job of the future?! I previously painted a hypothetical scenario of humans living under UBI, but that’s only one scenario. Perhaps another one is humans earning a wage by curating things for other humans. Curation becomes the white-collar job of the future.
Why curation?
If you work in cybersecurity and you are tasked to decide for humanity what the truth is, are you not therefore curating for others? Just as much as, if you’re a Hollywood showrunner, you curate ideas generated to you from gen AI. In the future, would media companies reallocate the cost savings from hiring fewer writers into cybersecurity and IP lawyers? Ah, a true tastemaker economy of college-educated influencers.
On a negative note, what about mental health side effects of curating? If social media does in fact cause depression, would being exposed to so much Internet content become an occupational hazard for many white-collar workers?
AI video editing! [AI]
From Adobe, this is something I would totally use! Interestingly, the VentureBeat article, written by Dean Takahashi, states the following, that I find quite interesting, bold text mine:
“As the demand for content continues to accelerate – doubling over the last two years and expected to grow by five times over the next two years – video creators need tools to deliver high-quality content faster than ever before.”
I hope IP is included in this demand for “content”!
On a related note, Darrell Etherington over at TechCrunch approaches this news with societal considerations. This software potentially does away with a lot of busywork in the creative process, but is there a human right to busywork?
Maybe there is, but in my case as both a business owner and creative, I would use any software to streamline the creation of my manga, newsletter, and app. My advice to creatives to think about premiumizing yourself and owning your own IP and running it as a business - which is what my app is all about.
[Everything is moving closer toward entertainment. Premiumization.]
Fashion/Luxury
LVMH avoids digital goods.[Fashion/Luxury, Metaverse, Gaming]
The WSJ released an article about Roblox and fashion, an issue we’ve discussed before, but what really caught my eye was that LVMH isn’t selling digital clothing on Roblox. Which is interesting, because LVMH isn’t a stranger to youth culture. I speculate if LVMH now thinks that getting into the microtransaction field is brand-damaging. Remember that Nintendo is moving Mario away from mobile games.
[Premiumization.]
Streaming
Disney pivots its streaming strategy. [Streaming, IP]
Lots of details but what caught my attention is that Disney looks to include Hulu content in Disney+ by the end of the year. Previously, Disney CEO Bob Iger had said re: Hulu, “everything is on the table.” Hmmm…
Amazon licenses some of its IP. [Streaming, IP]
Not unlike Warner Bros. Discovery.
[The increasing importance of IP.]
Monday Motivation
"A word after a word after a word is power." (Margaret Atwood)
This issue, we talked a lot about society, existential threats, and, of course, writing.
Words have meaning. Even if you’re not a creative, talk to yourself for inspiration and motivation. Read and listen to things that help move you forward.
GO FOR IT! REACH YOUR GOAL!