AI: A Call to Arms to Elevate Ourselves

By Adrian Pennington

The potency of AI has swept our industry into a riptide of uncertainty. Instead of letting inevitable change wash over us, we have the chance to catch and surf the wave. Provided that is, according to Seth Hallen, we work together.

Hallen wants to wrestle the narrative of fear of the unknown to one where humans are empowered by continuous innovation.

We know AI is really powerful but we've spent a lot of time either marveling at this technology or fearing it, he says. We need to shift the focus back to the human. We need to talk about the way humans fit into a future of media and entertainment where AI is a force.

Hallen recently left Light Iron where he spent over four years as Managing Director to pursue new opportunities that align with his passion for AI innovations that empower humans and companies within M&E.

AI tools are going to continue to replace tasks that humans currently do, he says. But new tasks will be necessary, and that's no different from any other technology introduced into cinema over the last century. And in fact it's consistent with virtually all major technological advancements through the last 125 years. Tools replace tasks; and the human roles evolve.

I believe AI in M&E is no different. We're just at a puzzling time where it's hard to conceive of what many of those new tasks will be because they haven't been developed yet.

Hallen wants to refocus attention on how AI can unlock and unleash human potential across the supply chain for media and entertainment. The key to that is for people to arm themselves with information about the technology.

I have a fundamental belief that through education and collaboration we will figure out new ways of working and unlock new creative opportunities. That's how technology has played out until now and we have no reason to believe that AI is going to be any different.

Hallen's personal journey includes taking courses and certifications about AI, ML and Natural Language Processing. A better understanding of the technology will demystify what can seem from the outside to be a magical black box, he says. Knowing more about how AI works will help shape how we adopt AI in technical, operational, and creative processes.

Some of the most compelling near-term opportunities for early adoption are likely within departments associated with data management, security, lead generation, legal, HR and finance.

Those are the prime opportunities to employ AI in any business, not just in M&E, Hallen says. In a supply chain that is challenged economically we must look at every way to drive efficiencies. Instead of paying editors less or letting VFX artists go we should be looking at how AI can be applied to the core business functions to save time and money.

Turning to production, Hallen believes that AI will transform human creativity but not replace it.

Take editing, for example. Would it have been possible in the 1960s to imagine how the process of splicing physical reels would be transformed with digital files and NLEs and an entirely new job description?

AI feels scary now because none of us can conceive of what new roles it will bring but I believe they will be born. There will be a role for the assistant editor and it will be just as transformative as the leap from splicing film to drag and drop.

Hallen is also optimistic that entirely new forms of storytelling will emerge. There may be a niche market for entirely AI-generated narrative video but he prefers to focus on the ways the technology can unlock human imagination.

The real essence of immersive storytelling in professional feature film and episodic television begins and ends with the human role in their creation. Human imagination and experience has been the crux of our art throughout time. That won't change except that AI can enable us to create fresh and unique stories, especially during the concepting phase.

Even now, when you use a large language model to write a script, remember that the output is based almost entirely on work that was created by humans, which means it's not truly unique. I believe there is a component to human imagination, fueled by emotional experiences, that enables fresh, unique and authentic storytelling that can not be achieved by machines today.

The first wave of Gen-AI tools are having their compliance with copyright laws challenged in the courts. The outcome of these lawsuits notwithstanding, Hallen thinks the industry will manage the issue with greater maturity going forward.

The next level of Generative AI will be using models that an organization or a person has the rights to and because it was trained on licensed material. There is considerable R&D going on at the studio level to build AI models trained on their own libraries of content and their own IP. A number of start-ups and artists are also exploring this route. I am confident that we will soon look back on copyright as an outdated issue because I think Big Tech and the content creation industry will unite to solve the problem.

At Transformbase in London last month, Hallen was among cross-industry leaders talking about the importance of responsible investment in Frontier Technologies' including AI, quantum compute and blockchain. Next, he will be moderating a session at Digital Hollywood with panelists from Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia and Paramount and will go on the road to communicate at the IBC broadcast show in September alongside SMPTE President (and HPA Board member) Renard Jenkins and then at Infinity Festival in Hollywood in November.

Hallen isn't brushing concerns under the carpet. He knows that uncertainty itself is a concern. Getting a handle on the real uses, issues, impact and opportunity is a critical focus at this time. It's a conversation with many la

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