Jake Aust, Chief Innovation Officer, AGBO Cristóbal Valenzuela, Co-founder and CEO, Runway Moderator: Sharon Goldman, Fortune
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00:00Hey, everyone.
00:01Thanks so much.
00:02Chris, it's great to see you again.
00:03Jake, it's great to meet you.
00:05You as well.
00:06Well, this is amazing.
00:07I well remember seeing the first generation of runway AI, and I think we can all see the
00:12progress that's been made.
00:14But Jake, I'm going to immediately go to what I consider to be the cinematic elephant in
00:18the room, and that is, will AI kill Hollywood?
00:23Hollywood's been around for 100 years.
00:25Will AI kind of end this run of Hollywood as we know it, or are we not there yet?
00:32I think we've been here before, and I think it's important to recognize that Hollywood
00:37exists because of technology, and there have been many, many technological revolutions
00:42that have happened across the history of Hollywood, you know, from bringing sound and color to
00:49the picture to CGI, and there has been existential angst in Hollywood and outside of Hollywood
00:57as to whether or not this was going to kill Hollywood.
01:00I don't see AI as something that's going to kill Hollywood.
01:04We are, at the end of the day, an artist-driven company at Agbo, and it still takes the human
01:10touch, the human connection.
01:12That said, will it be revolutionary?
01:14I believe it will.
01:15I believe it will, but I don't see it as a revolution that kills Hollywood.
01:18Okay.
01:19Chris, I'm going to push back on that a little bit, though, because, you know, as Ali was
01:23saying and as we've discussed, you know, many actors, writers, creatives of all stripes
01:28have pushed back on this technology.
01:30We can see how amazing it is, and folks have raised concerns about it.
01:34Just a year ago started the SAG Actor Strike, and, you know, just last week there was news
01:40that actors have been pushing back against digital scans of their likenesses.
01:45What are they misunderstanding?
01:46We were just talking in the green room about kind of the nuance around this discussion.
01:50Can you talk about that?
01:51Yeah, absolutely.
01:52The first thing is I think I agree with Jake with regards to how really art and technology
01:57are intertwined.
01:58Like, cinema and filmmaking is the history of technology in a way, and I think what we're
02:03seeing right now are more of the same.
02:05These are really exceptional tools for great artists, and kind of what we were discussing
02:10before to a point of nuance, I think these days it's really hard to get nuanced conversations.
02:15I think we get into extremes.
02:16This is either destroying everything we know or is the best thing we've ever seen in our
02:20lifetime.
02:21And I think it's like none of both.
02:24It's like somehow in between.
02:25It's going to create a lot of change.
02:27I think technology creates change, and that's a good thing.
02:29And it also is going to allow for many more things that we never thought could be possible
02:33to be possible.
02:34And I think that the first type of thing that I think is necessary to get a bit more of
02:39that nuance is if you're afraid, if you have your opinions around this, if you've never
02:44used any of those tools, then the first thing you should do is use them.
02:48Like, if you've never, ever created a video using a model like Gen 3, then go ahead and
02:53create a video, and you'll see by experience in like two minutes where things are, what
02:58are the challenges, how it can be used, and how filmmakers are using it so far.
03:02And so getting to that nuance is somehow difficult, but I think it's needed.
03:05Well, I want to come in a few minutes.
03:07I want to take some questions for the audience.
03:10I'm sure there is some, so just think about that.
03:12But Jake, I'm going to turn to you again.
03:14I'm not sure how many people realize that for a long time you were a producer on some
03:21iconic TV shows that we all love, like The Office and Community.
03:25So I feel like you have a unique take on this, moving into this innovation role at Agbo.
03:30Can you talk a little bit about how you use today's AI tools in production, whether that
03:36is Runway, or I think you were talking about kind of even earlier in the R&D process?
03:41Sure, yeah.
03:42I did start as a producer, and I've been involved in technology through my entire career.
03:49Right now, I think what's important to realize is this technology, when it comes to being
03:56useful to a company like ours, Agbo, is very much in its infancy.
04:00We're in a very early stage of this.
04:03Now, we're all watching it progress at a fairly rapid pace.
04:07The question is, does it continue to accelerate or to progress at that same pace?
04:13But what we see opportunity in right now is what a lot of people in Hollywood are using
04:17generative AI for, is bringing vision, visualizing your creative idea prior to when you would
04:26even have access to a crew, to a team of artists that can visualize that for you, which might
04:32have been the traditional process, or you just don't have the money to do it because
04:36you're an independent filmmaker with much lower budget potential.
04:43The generative tools can really help you.
04:45It's like sketching.
04:46You can get your ideas out and look at it and say, it's not what you're going to put
04:51on the screen at the end of the day, the way we look at it right now, anyway.
04:57It is a way to get your ideas out there and to communicate your ideas visually, and that's
05:02a very powerful thing.
05:04We've seen it as a powerful thing, especially when you're in the middle of still creating
05:10what the story, what the world is.
05:12Again, like I said, it's early in the process we call development where you don't have access
05:19to things.
05:20You're going out to the studios to pitch your ideas, to try and secure financing, and this
05:24gives you the ability to give just a little more than you could before.
05:29Chris, we've talked about your early days.
05:33Runway started in 2018.
05:35You and your two co-founders met at NYU, at art school, so I've always been super interested
05:40in the fact that you are a visual artist historically, and that has helped inform Runway.
05:47Can you talk about how that is the case, and now, when you get pushback from creative communities,
05:54how you bring that back to your own background?
05:57Yeah, absolutely.
05:58Yeah, with Startup Runway 2018, I've been working on some of the concepts and ideas
06:03of Runway almost for a decade now, and I think the unique aspect of what we've built
06:07over time is really the intersection of art and science in a way that makes sense for
06:13tool makers, for artists who want to use this and leverage it.
06:16My personal passion was really trying to understand what new art forms can emerge out of new models
06:23like these ones.
06:24Now, the world was very different in 2018 in terms of what journal models could do,
06:28what even computer vision could do at the time, but I felt like there was something
06:31there that just felt very differently.
06:33And I think over time, we've pushed not only the research boundaries with the timelines
06:37of the videos that we just saw, but also with how accessible these tools can become for
06:43more people.
06:44And that accessibility requires empathy and understanding how artists really work.
06:48If you simplify the creative process to pushing a button, that misses the whole point.
06:52It's a process.
06:54You sometimes don't know exactly where you're going.
06:56You start with an idea, and it's about experimentation, and so building tools with the experimentation
07:01mindset at the beginning, it's something we've encouraged the team to do from the
07:04very beginning.
07:05And I think we'll continue to do so for the time being.
07:08And then I think how we've managed to communicate that across and also speak more about the
07:14nuances with encouraging more people to view what's possible with AI these days in the
07:21context of really high production-like environments.
07:26We have this film festival we host every year.
07:28I think you've-
07:29I went.
07:31That's an invitation, basically, to celebrate artists who are using new technologies.
07:36Not technology.
07:37We don't discuss models.
07:38We don't discuss AI.
07:39We just discuss people using models or technologies.
07:42And that is one of the key things I would say we need to do more of.
07:45I'm obsessed with technology.
07:46I think a lot of people here are, but we should start obsessing with people more than the
07:50technology itself.
07:51Well, speaking of the people, I'd love to take a question.
07:56Does anyone have one?
07:57We've got a mic back there.
07:58Okay.
07:59Right here.
08:00Just say your name and where you're from.
08:02Hi.
08:03Chris Willis from Domo.
08:05I loved what you said about creativity is not just pushing a button.
08:10With these new tools, we hear that it's not going to replace jobs.
08:14It's going to replace kinds of tasks.
08:16But going forward, what kind of people do you think will really thrive with these kind
08:19of tools?
08:20Or what do schools like art schools at NYU need to be teaching?
08:24Yeah.
08:25That's a great question.
08:26You can look at the past to get a sense of how to make sense of the future, I would say.
08:30This is the current generation of artists where benefited a lot from the transformation
08:38technology that we saw a couple of decades ago.
08:40And right now, something similar is happening where a new generation of artists are going
08:44to be embracing this as tools for them to take on, will be the ones that will, I would
08:49say, thrive.
08:51I think the mindset that I'm trying to move away from is the stasis mindset, which is
08:58thinking that what we have right now, production-wise, tool-wise, technology-wise, is the forever
09:04way we will ever do things.
09:06And I think that, for me, is a mistake that puts not the history of art in context.
09:14Art is an ever-changing form.
09:17And I'm curious, and I'm really thoughtful, and I'm really excited for the ones that are
09:19going to think of these things as a new media type, as a new art form that will require
09:25people to experiment, to create new things that we haven't never seen before.
09:29And the ones that are doing that are the ones that are not constrained by how things used
09:32to work.
09:33And those, for me, are the ones that are pushing the boundaries these days.
09:36And so we incentivize also in schools for students to be more of that mindset.
09:42That leads me to my next question for Jake.
09:46I feel like video and photography and creative mediums are a good example of where we've
09:53already had so many tech developments in that area.
09:56We've had Photoshop.
09:57We have YouTube.
09:58We have different apps on TikTok to make videos.
10:02How is this different?
10:03Do you see it as different, even more game-changing down the line?
10:08Or do you see it as just another evolution in the history of video and photo and visual
10:15art?
10:16I would say probably somewhere in the middle of that.
10:18I think there's a lot of similarities to, let's say, the release of Photoshop and the
10:23ubiquity of Photoshop.
10:25We were grappling at the time with a lot of very similar issues, which is, what's real?
10:31You used to say a picture, if you could see a picture of something, it was, that meant
10:35it was real.
10:36All of a sudden, Photoshop started questioning, and Photoshop became a verb very quickly.
10:42We grappled with that, and we are all fine still.
10:47It's okay.
10:49I think that there's some of the same wisdom should be applied today to what AI tools are.
10:54That said, I very much agree with Chris.
10:57I think there's potentially a new medium here that is about enabling something that doesn't
11:02currently exist in terms of personalized interactions, in terms of being able to get
11:11exactly what you want at the time that you want it.
11:15In relation to creative works and IP that might exist or have been created, it's a really
11:23interesting, I think, possibility.
11:25That's where I'd like to keep my eye, is not trying to save a nickel doing the stuff that
11:31we've always done, but what's new?
11:34What can we create here with this technology?
11:37We have one more question here I'd love to take.
11:40Hey.
11:41Hi, I'm Kakul Srivastava, CEO of Splice.
11:45We are a creator-first AI tech for music and musicians.
11:49Really appreciate your question, Sharon.
11:53We also believe that it's about the creative process first, and you have to focus on the
11:58creator.
11:59I'm super curious, in both of your work, what have you seen artists do differently with
12:07this technology that's not just a productivity gain, but a creativity gain?
12:13More specific, the better.
12:15Go ahead.
12:17Sure.
12:18You know, I mean, we've released a new model.
12:23I think it's been like 12 days or so.
12:26I've been obsessed just watching people generate things.
12:28I do sessions where I just see people generate things and work with these models.
12:34The more I see them, the more I've started to understand that this is becoming more of
12:41what I'm thinking about as a dream for the mind.
12:46You're going to exercise your creativity, not for the sakes of creating some sort of
12:50mastermind picture, like film, that's going to make you an award-winning director, but
12:55more because you want to just exercise your own creative mind, and it's a tool that allows
13:01you to basically do that.
13:03You go in with some ideas you have in your head, something you've always wanted to create.
13:07You start creating with it.
13:08The model responds back with new things you've never thought of before.
13:12You take those things.
13:13You adjust them, and you spend hours doing it, and then suddenly you're in a flow state
13:18where you spend hours thinking about stuff, creating stuff.
13:22The output is not some productivity-like video that you're going to put for a sales
13:26pitch or, I don't know, a film.
13:28It's just for your own joy, and you're happy with it.
13:32I think that, for me, has been something I've never seen before, that you engage with a
13:38technology in a way that you've never engaged with any other technology before.
13:41I think part of it is the model becomes extremely creative as you use it more, and also it's
13:46a very fast feedback process.
13:49You think about something.
13:50You see it.
13:51You do it again, and you start doing this all the time.
13:53That, for me, has been one of the most interesting non-productive use cases I've seen so far.
13:58All right.
13:59We've got literally just over a minute left, so watch that.
14:03I want final thoughts, brief final thoughts.
14:06What should we be thinking here?
14:08I think, just to relate back to what I just said, I think it's keep our eyes on the future.
14:13Keep our eyes on what's possible.
14:14I think the artists are going to show us what's possible.
14:17I think Chris's art background is so critical to what you're doing, and I think it's going
14:24to be the artists that show us how these tools are used.
14:27It's the happy accidents.
14:29It's the hallucinations that happen that are inspirational.
14:33I think that is what's new about this.
14:36What do you say, Chris?
14:37I basically think the same.
14:39Think about and try to go for the things that don't have names, that you've never seen before.
14:43When photography was first invented, people didn't have the words to describe it, and
14:46they looked at it as something new.
14:49The first photographies ever made were referred to as mirrors with memories, because that
14:53was the language people had at the time to describe this new thing.
14:56I think pretty much to what you were saying, focus on the artists who are going to push
14:58the boundaries to figure out those new languages.
15:00Awesome.
15:01Well, thank you so much, Chris and Jake.
15:06Thank you all.
15:08That's it.