Hollywood & AI: Marc Andreessen’s Vision for New Filmmakers [Podcast Highlight]

00:00I don't know the financial pressures in Hollywood are it's hard to say because on the one hand when there's financial pressures in Hollywood of course the argument is fewer movies get get green lit and then and then the executives become more riskaverse in the kinds of movies they're willing to greenlight uh but I think it also means that they are also less willing to greenlight projects that are being green lit only for political reasons um or only for social cultural reasons or only out of a sense of fear um and so I don't know exactly how that balances but hopefully um hopefully things get u more exciting by the way of course the other big topic in Hollywood is AI um Yeah. So that's the, you know, that's

00:33the 800 pound thing. And, you know, and and you know, to their credit, they're, you know, say they're highly aware of it. They're highly alert alert to it. Um, and then by the way, there are a bunch of filmmakers, including some folks that I know that are like super excited. Um, and so there there are including some like I know of like two like a triple A list like director, filmmakers, you know, top end people who are like very excited about what's possible. Um, and are are going to fully embrace it. Um, and there's there's a bunch of other people who are, you know, very excited. Um, and so, um, so there's going to be an embrace by at least part, but there's also there's also, you know, there there's a lot of, you know,

01:05Hollywood has always had kind of a fear-driven reaction to new technologies. Um, and there's some of that. Um, and then, um, and then, and then there is this attachment, and Hollywood is is actually very acute. There's this attachment of like AI politics to like woke politics. And so if if you're if you're still super woke, you're also like super anti-A. Um, and there are these like basically it's basically like the woke activists have picked up AI as the new thing that they're going to agitate about. Um, and so and they're mounting basically already like pressure campaigns on the studios to like basically vow to never use AI. And at least so far the studios to their credit are like no we're not

01:36going to do that. Um, like we're we we we you know the studio so far I think the studio executives have all been consistent which is like look we've always used technology. Um, you know the the movie camera itself is technology. special effects like we've we've always used technology you know video tapes DVD streaming these are all technologies um you know every movie has CGI you know like that's you know uh one of my little fun facts about history of movies is Tron Tron was the first there's a big sequel for Tron that's out this week the original Tron was 19882 um from from Disney and it was the first movie that had integrated use of computer graphics which was the the big thing at the time um and um and as a consequence of that

02:11Tron was disqualified from the Oscars um because they cheated uh by using computer due to graphics, right? Um, right. And so, and so, you know, to go from the that world to the world in which every movie has CGI and and for the most part, you don't even know that there's CGI in it. You just see a romantic comedy and they're using CGI to do all kinds of things in it and you don't even notice and it's just taken completely for granted. And so, like I I I I think the studios the studios I think understand that. I think they're going to they're going to actually embrace it enthusiastically, but there's going to be this there's going to be this like at least there's an attempt to like jin up a moral panic around it um

02:41and try to, you know, basically keep it out. And I I don't think it's going to work because I think the economics are too compelling. But but anyway, the but then the other thing with AI is of course AI is going to be super helpful to existing filmmakers. But the other thing is AI for sure and we you know we see this especially in this last last in this last couple weeks with the new version of Sora um and a lot of these other new things that are coming out. AI is going to make a whole new kind of filmmaker possible to exist for the first time, which is the filmmaker with no visual skill, right? Or access to a set or to a camera or to actors, but with an idea. Um, like you like people are going to be able to make, you know,

03:16it's going to start with shorts and animated things and so forth, but it's going to it's going to work its way up to full movies. Um, and so, you know, people with a create people people who otherwise would be limited to only being novelists or being maybe people who do graphic novels, um, but are creative geniuses, um, uh, are going to be able to actually make full movies with AI. And I, and again, I think I think that's a reason for like profound optimism. I think we're going to get like completely new kinds of, you know, basically film and entertainment from people who otherwise never would would have been able to to access the medium. And and I think that also is I'm very positive on that.