I’m always looking forward.
I do this because the past is prologue. You can’t change it. Decisions made are done – Learn from mistakes, and the days to come provide ample opportunities to do things different. And better.
Except… I’m also kinda worried about the future.
Not for the “typical” reasons people worry, like climate change, plague, world conflict or terrorism. I’m optimistic technology will find ways to respond to the challenges ahead. It’s why I’m a Star Trek fan. Star Trek, at its best, is about hope.
But we are self-centered creatures, and often follow the path of least resistance. We favor convenience over work in our everyday activities. Instead of roasting our own beans and grinding our own coffee, most pay for the burnt sludge Starbucks sells at an inflated price (obviously, not a fan). Instead of building from kits, many (myself included) buy pre-built and pre-painted models. We buy pre-planned dinners from places like Hello Fresh instead of shopping for ingredients ourselves. And so on.
An entire cottage industry tracks “productivity” and it’s one of the key economic indicators that financial analysts look at. Productivity indicators have risen consistently over the past decade. We do a lot, and we also have a lot of choices regarding how and what we do at work and at home. So we are more “productive” but at the same time we are choosing shortcuts.
Looking at the trend-line (working faster, multitasking, taking shortcuts), I think that how we consume information and entertainment has also changed. And this change will impact multiple industries become more impactful in the years to come.
Here’s my thoughts on events that have either already occurred or is in the early stages of becoming, and it will disrupt not only how we consume content but also the world-wide entertainment industry.
Whether they like it or not.
Bespoke AI-created content
Like Sherlock Holmes and also enjoy Doctor Who? Eventually AI-powered smart authors will create personalized content that will feature the two characters teaming up, and it will present it to you in the format you are most comfortable consuming. Long form narrative, animated short film, or even a radio drama. No humans will be required, because it will all be powered by ever-increasing cloud-based processing power. If this sounds far-fetched, I understand. But note this, from my former employer Microsoft:
“The scope of commercial and creative potential that can be unlocked through the AI GPT-3 model is profound, with genuinely novel capabilities – most of which we haven’t even imagined yet”, wrote Kevin Scott, Microsoft’s executive vice president and chief technology officer.
“Directly aiding human creativity and ingenuity in areas like writing and composition, describing and summarizing large blocks of long-form data (including code), converting natural language to another language – the possibilities are limited only by the ideas and scenarios that we bring to the table” he added.
Microsoft is not even releasing this tech as an open beta, because it’s so good:
The reason that OpenAI’s program was deemed so dangerous was because it is capable of being fed a piece of text and predict the words that come next to such a high degree of accuracy that it would be difficult to distinguish between it and a human.
So, writers of fiction and creative types around the world… Cloud-based computing may soon put you out of work. And AI may result in superior work than what Hollywood has churned out in recent years.
Curated playlists that “read your mind”
Netflix and other services have already invested millions in creating personalized playlists and suggestions, and as cloud services and machine learning becomes more “smart” you will see this become even more scary in the decade to come. It will take all the factors that it can access, even the total viewership time you spend, and deconstruct the content you watch into weighable factors.
Actors, genre, running time, decade, tone, and even the production personnel that worked on a film will be calculated. The resulting recommendations will mean you can let the streaming service of your choice just “play” something as you unwind. No need to decide – the “idiot box (as TV used to be disparagingly called) will do it for you.
As I’ve written previously, the burden of choice is a mostly unobserved pain-point for many of us. And quite a few of us will cede choice for convenience in order to not have to have that decision to make.
Which is… Concerning.
Content Streamlining: Long-form content, edited for quick consumption
Who has time to read a book? For many people my age the Cliff Notes summary books of classic literature got us through many a late-night cram session. These study-guides still exist, and services such as Blinkist allows you to listen to condensed books – like an audio Reader’s Digest for non-fiction.
I think technology will start empowering people to watch movies and television shows in a similar fashion. The new service Quibi, though hardly a success, has the core premise of quick “consumable” content. It’s just not content that people are interested in. But what if a service provided edited versions of classic or even modern movies and TV shows?
Here’s an example of such “content streamlining” in action (manually edited, in this case):
Would I like to watch content like this, summarized with all the subtlety and context taken out? Probably not. But my attention span is longer than many. Lots of folks in the current generation are not as patient. Will the use of such content streamlining be successful? I think it will. Though if they ever try it on Lawrence of Arabia or Citizen Kane, I WILL RIOT.
Digital actors and Deep fakes aren’t going away
If you are an aspiring actor who aims to break into showbiz, well, I have some bad news for you. Digital people are being created that look and sound real, and they also don’t demand points on the back-end. An upcoming movie will star a digital James Dean, over 50 years after his death. Supposedly Mark Hamill has sold the rights to his appearance to Disney to use in future Star Wars prequels for the big or small screen.
The early experiments such as what we have seen in Rogue One will look like cartoons compared to what is to come. The recent film Gemini Man, while it was a box office failure, brought young Will Smith to life in convincing fashion. From an article on digital actors:
In every year of the past decade, at least seven of the top-ten-grossing movies have been sequels, remakes, or other extensions of preexisting franchises. Many of those franchises star humans who will someday get old and die or just decide they don’t want to play superheroes or Jedi anymore… If studios can prolong or revive their most valuable franchises with CGI that can bring back the old, dead, or burned-out actors who most profitably led them, they will. And a 35-year-old Ford will return to Star Wars and Indiana Jones, Heath Ledger will play the Joker again, and the next Sex and the City movie will star a virtual Kim Catrall…
I fully expect at least one major deceased movie star to “return” to star in some capacity in the next decade, successfully. And the families who own the rights to the legendary classic stars of cinema will think very strongly about joining in.
So, aspiring actors… Don’t quit your day job.
Closing
I’m certain there are other changes coming, changes that I’ve not even begun to consider. How will our lives and consumption habits change in the future? The only thing for certain is that we need to avoid one potential future: The one that is shown in the movie Wall-E. Humans have devolved into sedentary creatures who don’t even get out of their chairs. Beings whose every content needs are fed to them via computers and AI.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m turning off my screens and going for a walk.