The future of storytelling is being revolutionized by the accessibility of generative AI tools, allowing anyone to become a creator without the traditional barriers of entry. Host Jesse Hirsh welcomes Erich Archer, a seasoned public broadcaster and media innovator, to explore how technology intersects with creativity and public media. Archer shares his journey from commercial television to community media, highlighting the vital role of public broadcasting in a democratic society amidst current funding challenges. They discuss the implications of AI on storytelling, emphasizing how these tools can empower aspiring creators to express their visions more freely than ever before. As they navigate the complexities of AI, copyright issues, and the evolving media landscape, Archer provides insights into the collaborative spirit within community media that fosters creativity and innovation.

The conversation between Jesse Hirsh and Erich Archer dives deep into the intersection of storytelling, technology, and community engagement, particularly through the lens of generative AI and its implications for public broadcasting. Archer, an executive director at a community media station, provides valuable insights into how AI tools are revolutionizing the creative landscape, making it possible for anyone to tell their story with minimal resources. This democratization of creativity is a central theme, as they explore how technology can empower individuals to become filmmakers and storytellers, regardless of their background or access to traditional media avenues.

Throughout the episode, they discuss the challenges facing public broadcasting in a rapidly evolving media landscape, particularly the funding issues exacerbated by the shift from cable to streaming. Archer emphasizes the importance of community media as a platform for diverse voices and local narratives, which are often overlooked by mainstream outlets. The discussion also touches on the collaborative spirit within public broadcasting, highlighting initiatives to share knowledge and best practices among community stations to adapt to the changing environment.

As they navigate the complexities of generative AI, the conversation shifts towards the ethical considerations surrounding content creation, particularly around copyright and artistic ownership. Archer shares his perspective on fair use and the blurred lines that AI tools create in the creative process. The dialogue concludes with a forward-looking vision of storytelling, where the gap between imagination and execution continues to shrink, promising an exciting future filled with innovative narratives and community-driven content.

Takeaways:

• The intersection of public broadcasting and generative AI offers unique opportunities for creativity.
• Generative AI tools are enhancing storytelling by making production more accessible to everyone.
• While generative AI has great potential, it also raises legitimate concerns about job displacement.
• Adoption of AI technology in public broadcasting remains slow despite its rapid advancements.
• The future of storytelling will see a shrinking gap between imagination and execution.
• Public broadcasting plays a crucial role in supporting community engagement and media literacy.

Links referenced in this episode:

• www.wired.com
• www.midjourney.com
• www.cgacreative.com
• www.1623studios.org

#podmatch

Hello, I'm Jesse Hirsch and welcome to Metaviews, a show about the big picture, about the future, about our role in it.

And today, well, we've got a blockbuster, the future of storytelling, which, you know, is a subject we've certainly dealt with a lot here on Meta Views because we love the intersection of technology and entertainment and creativity.

But I'm particularly happy about our guest today, in no small part, Eric, because you're the first guest I've had who combines my two favorite topics, which is public broadcasting and generative AI.

Even though they're distinct.

I'm not saying that we're talking about them together, but as two polls, they're something I'm quite fascinated with.

But Eric, we start every show here on Metaviews by kind of doing the age old media tradition of the news.

And this is partly because Metaviews publishes a daily newsletter.

And our episode today gets into some fascinating research around Cambodia and the way in which Cambodia has become a kind of, dare I say it, center of excellence when it comes to cybercrime, that they've created a kind of infrastructure that allows scammers to launder their money to really facilitate those exchanges.

So this was originally reported by Wired magazine yesterday, and I sort of picked it up to share with some of my folks.

But Eric, our news segment really is meant to be an opportunity for our guests to share any news that they would like our audience to know.

This could be personal news, this could be world news.

Look, it could be fake news as long as you disclose it ahead of time.

But it's really meant to have our guests share their perspective with our audience and what they're thinking about, what they're reading, what they're keeping an eye on in the event horizon.

Well, my mind goes straight to just all the tools that I'm tracking.

I'm really focused on all of the image generation and video generation tools that are coming out.

And it can be sort of tricky to decipher what's news versus just today's flashy thing.

But I'm.

I'm definitely seeing deep Google DeepMind's.

I think it's.

VO2 is looking like a real step ahead in this whole thing.

I've had a chance now to use Sora a little bit and that was sort of a letdown, I think, in a lot of ways.

Although there's some really interesting parts of it.

I think VO2 looks really interesting in terms of the realism and the movement and the shot length.

And I think that's going to really, when the public has access to that will really take all of this visual storytelling that we've been seeing over the past 18 months or so and level it all up.

Well, and I think this is a great news story because this is a subject I'm following closely as well.

And as you noted, what I sometimes struggle with is I need to play with these things to really get a sense of whether the hype is real or whether it's not yet ready for prime time.

I felt the same way about Sora in the sense that it couldn't live up to my imagination, it couldn't live up to kind of what I wanted to get out of it.

But we may get into this later when we talk about generative AI.

But as a follow up question, it does seem like Google is really picking up the pace here and that they've been releasing tools.

I love their Google Notebook, which I call a custom podcast engine, where OpenAI and anthropic were, I think, real leaders last year.

It really feels like Google's got this momentum and they're going to really cause a lot of attention.

And I'm curious your thoughts on that in terms of the, the industry players and them jockeying for position.

Yeah, I mean it's, it's, it's going to certainly be a fascinating thing to watch.

I mean the amount of money these companies are pouring in to AI and all of the research and technology, I mean it's going to be, there's going to just be, it's going to be leapfrog of, of wild proportions I think for the next while, while they keep having their own breakthroughs and they're focused in different areas and things.

And you know, Google as a endless piggy bank, you know, I don't know what kind of numbers they're investing, but I'm sure it's staggering.

So it's really not that big of a surprise in that sense that they caught up so quickly.

Imagine whatever they point at.

They, you know, they hit pretty quickly.

Well, and, and to your point about the significant resources, it strikes me the differential is going to be in, in the products, in the user experience, in the capabilities.

And that's where Google does have a mixed record.

They've got some major blockbuster successes, but they're littered with all sorts of failures from Google.

Circle was their social media platform.

I remember that had huge hype and they put a lot of resources into it and they still couldn't really get it off the ground.

I think to your point, this is a fascinating time to be in the media industry, to be in the creative industries and to be looking at how these tools play out.

Which relatedly brings us to our next segment, which we call WTF or what's the Future?

And this is our opportunity as a future centric podcast to ask our guest, is there something about the future that you've got your eyes on, that you're looking forward to that in your own kind of prognostication that you would like our audience to be thinking about when.

When they're looking, you know, forward at what's to come and what they should be preparing for?

Yeah, well, I'm particularly excited about the surplus creativity that I will unlock because, you know, I went to college to study film.

I got a film studies degree, and I've been lucky to stay, you know, adjacent to the filmmaking industry and be able to sort of work intelligence, be creative and use cameras and stuff.

So that's all been great, but kind of let go of the idea that I would ever make a film until recently, and now it feels like, wow, I can.

I don't need permission.

I have the tools.

This is incredible.

And while they may not be there all the way, it's pretty clear that they're coming.

And so, you know, that's as true for me as it is for anyone anywhere now with a few subscriptions.

And so if you've ever thought of yourself as a storyteller or a creator that just didn't have the access to the big cities or the whatever, I don't think that's required anymore.

And the permission certainly isn't required anymore either.

So that's really exciting to me to just think that that dream is within reach for so many aspiring creatives.

Yeah, 100%.

And that is, I think, what we're going to unpack later in this episode, because I agree, I think it's revolutionary.

And I say this because I'm of a vintage where I remember, like, I remember when I first got WordPerfect and I could put out a newspaper, and I thought that was crazy.

Let alone radio and television, which was so prohibitive, so expensive, and they would filter out crazy people like me, so there wouldn't even be that opportunity versus, you're right now anyone could make a potentially the next blockbuster, or at least the next kind of underground cult classic.

And.

And I'm absolutely excited by the potential.

So we are absolutely going to talk about that.

But before we do, you know, I break up each episode into different segments, and our features usually revolve around ideas that I want to talk about.

With the guest and mine with the guest.

And when I was researching you and looking you up, I saw that in addition to, you know, your background in TV production and in all sorts of media, you're currently affiliated with what I would call a, you know, community public broadcasting.

And I've always been a huge fan of public broadcasting.

You know, here in Canada we have the CBC which is obviously smaller than the BBC, but it has a huge influence in our media landscape, especially now our digital media landscape and where I personally have some issues with how CBC has adapted to the digital age.

And they've been very risk averse and conservative and me being someone who's the opposite right, trying to push them in that direction.

But I've always believed that public broadcasting has a fundamental role in a democratic society.

It has a way of allowing greater voices, greater experimentation, different programming ideas.

So I got a two parter for you.

How did you get into public broadcasting?

What was your intro, your relationship and what are you doing now?

Right.

Tell me more about the role that you're playing and the organization in which you're doing it with.

Yeah, it's become a major part of my life.

I after school went to New York to get into like commercial television and I did that for five years and was doing a lot of sports and music and reality stuff and then went out to LA and was trying to do big studio stuff and did that for a couple of years.

But then it was, I got to a point in my life with my now wife where we, we were settling down in Los Angeles and wanted, we're both from the east coast.

And so it was time to make that decision about where we were going to put down roots, raise a family and that sort of thing.

And so we moved back to Massachusetts for non work reasons for me.

And it was, it was a difficult choice because it was not a career move at all.

It was the opposite.

I was leaving producing for NBC to come back to my hometown in Massachusetts with no prospects and you know, started painting fences and taking the real estate exam, thinking it was all over and saw an opportunity in the cable access industry for this one community.

They wanted a full time producer to create original content about their community with health and benefits.

And I was like, please give me this job right on thing to do at the time with its mission or values or any of that.

It was just a lifesaver, a career saver for me.

And then I got to do that for three years and start to really gain an understanding of the value of community media and get it be like, oh, okay, now I see what this is all about.

And then a few years later, I had the opportunity to take over one of those stations as the executive director very close to where I grew up.

And so it was a real coming home for me and felt like, oh, this is it.

And so for the last almost 12 years, I've been running a small, nonprofit regional community media TV station.

And it's this great little brick and mortar place that is fighting for relevance and trying to do cool things and punch above its weight class, but also do all the real fundamental community things like municipal meeting coverage, community events, community member forum shows, things like that.

But we also do a lot of original content now, and we're a real evolution up from the old days.

We've rebranded, of course, and we're doing all kinds of fun stuff now.

So it's been a really wonderful challenge to try to build that up all on the back of content and creativity.

Right on.

And I want to kind of bridge public broadcasting into generative AI in a moment, but before that, because we do talk about politics and policy on this show.

Do you have any concerns about what may happen to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting?

And I don't know if your funding is tied to that particular apparatus, but it does feel, certainly from what I hear on npr, that this is a real moment to defend public broadcasting in the United States.

As you were arguing, as a pillar of the community.

Right.

As a place for citizens to be informed about local politics and local matters.

Is this a concern of yours as an executive director?

Huge concern, yeah.

Among all of the leaders in our industry.

It's something we talk about all the time and advocate for and try to work on legislation for.

There are a number of threats that are putting our industry in peril, cord cutting being the main one.

You know, everyone moving to streaming from cable moves funding from us, away from us because we, we get funded by a percentage of cable subscription revenue within the community we serve.

So as people do that, where our funding declines.

But then there's also sort of the, the political headwinds that change things.

And FCC chairs, you know, different parties have different feelings about, about our industry.

And, and certainly the incoming administration does not seem to be a big proponent of it.

I've read some very concerning things about their opinions of it.

And fortunately, we have great groups like the alliance for Community Media and Mass Access and groups like that here that advocate for us, and they do a great job so keeping us all up to speed on that.

But yeah, it's, it's it's existential crisis, period.

Absolutely right on.

And this is where I'd say if you ever need any international allies, there are a lot of Canadians who really support public broadcasting.

And I think if you think about politics as being a social media participation exercise, there'd probably be a lot of people who'd be boosting that signal.

So just putting it out there to the larger fans of public broadcasting in general.

And while I do want to get into the nuts and bolts of generative AI in to some of the big issues, I kind of feel an interesting bridge.

Do you have any thoughts around how generative AI could be used in public broadcasting?

And I say this both in terms of the resource constraints that all public broadcasters have to deal with, but also what I'm sure we're going to get into, which is the creative potential, especially from the point of accessibility, which is kind of again, the ethos of where community media public broadcasting got its start.

Yeah, well, it was really with my executive director hat on that I got excited about AI first.

And it was the resource gain that you alluded to because we're resource starved.

And if most non profits are, that's sort of a standard operating standard operating for non profits.

You know, you're fighting for every penny.

And so when it was clear that chat GPT and mid journey were going to be useful to me, it was like, oh, all right, awesome.

Let's, let's learn more about this.

And so I've spent a lot of time over the past year and a half or so thinking about how AI could impact our industry support it.

You know, as I said, we're in a major crisis and we needed a solution that was major also.

And maybe AI is that size solution.

I mean it has that feeling that it could be the transformative.

Right.

So like I am excited about it, even if we haven't figured out exactly all the ways yet.

It's like here's this big resource tool thing and let's, let's learn about it.

So I'm looking at automations for our operations.

We have chat GPT for teams trying to figure out GPTs we can make and use that really help us out.

And it's changing production workflows a lot.

You know, when you can quickly transcribe things and edit from transcriptions now and all these new tools are making things faster within a lot of the tools we already use like Canva or Premiere or Photoshop or whatever it might be.

So it's not necessarily massive transformational changes yet.

It's a lot of just like let's just clean up a lot of the inefficiencies for now because there's huge wins when you start stacking those right on.

And I mean I'll say certainly from my own experience, I started podcasting again not because I have any excess of time, quite the opposite it but because the tools have streamlined the process.

Right.

And they make it easier for me to focus on like conversations we're having now rather than the kind of back end production which in having that automated I I think that's incredibly empowering.

I I'm also curious, is there any dialogue within public broadcasting kind of associations or larger communities around best practices and shared tips?

Like is there a kind of collaborative culture within the US kind of community media ecosystem?

That's kind of.

Because to your point, it is an experiment on the fly.

Right.

And I think public broadcasting and community media have their own distinct needs compared to other forms of media industry.

Is there any collaboration, cooperation, dialogue happening that you're aware of or engaged in?

There is.

Yeah.

I just spoke at the alliance for Communities East Coast Conference in Mystic, Connecticut just a few weeks ago on the topic, actually showing executive directors how I use AI for my work.

And I'm going to be hopefully doing that again at the their next conference is going to be in Boston where I live.

So.

Right on going to be doing that again soon.

And we have forums and things online.

We're always sharing tips and things.

So yeah, absolutely.

Very cool.

Because without stating the obvious, you know, you're clearly at the forefront and it's important that you know many of the other I say this from my own experience.

A lot of public broadcasters are risk averse and they need to get access to success stories and case examples for them to adopt this stuff.

So let's transition to generative AI in general.

We've been sort of teasing it and kind of going around it, but it has a lot of substantive issues to it and without itemizing them, I'm going to throw you a bit of a curveball, which I expect you're still going to knock right out of the park.

How do you deal with some of the people who not so much are naysayers or critics, but are straight out prejudicial and discriminatory?

And I say this because I see this, I see this really kind of stupid frame on social media a lot, which is it's just dumb or it's just dumb because of X versus to me it's far more nuanced.

And while there are Kind of legitimate issues.

I'm kind of curious as someone who has your level of media literacy and your level of kind of proficiency with the tools, how you deal with those sorts of folks.

Like what is your kind of argument as to why this is worth their, their time and their attention?

Yeah, I guess one kind of recent example comes to mind where I was giving a talk at a senior center of all places about AI and there was a gentleman in the room who raised his hand relatively early and was like, you know, I had a family member who had AI pornographic pictures with her face on them and was bullied.

It was just like horrible story about.

It represented why he was anti AI basically because he had had this first hand experience or secondhand experience that was very negative.

And so that's where he was starting from.

He was coming in a little bit angry and kind of wanted me to sort of answer for that in a way.

And it was like, well, you know, that's, that's obviously, there's obviously lots to worry about that I completely understand with AI.

I mean I share a lot of those concerns.

They're valid.

And I think I'm accustomed to people struggling with change of any kind, so I get that too.

Like it's, you know, and if you're sensing this shift and you're not super tech savvy, I'm sure that's very uncomfortable.

And so I, I get it.

You know, I don't really have any feelings, negative feelings towards people who are real, very anti at this point because it makes sense to me.

But later in that talk with that gentleman, I was like, you know, let's, I was, this was a while ago, so I was, I think I was just showing off chat GPT and perplexity and stuff.

And I was like, let's just see if there's a use case for you.

And he actually had a, a dog with him.

Like a, like a, what do you call like a medical service dog.

Service dog.

Thank you.

He had a service dog with him and he's like, well so I just started asking about his life and I brought up the dog and he's like, well, you know, I, one of the concerns I have is I'm trying to retire my service dog and I don't want it to have separation anxiety.

I don't know how to do it.

I'm nervous about, you know, so I pull a perplexity and I literally just prompted what he said.

I'm trying to retire my service dog.

I don't know what to do.

And of Course I had like a step plan for him and we did some deeper dives into some of the things he was like tearing up by the end.

I emailed him the whole thing on the spot.

It was just like, I think you just need your own use case.

Yeah.

You know, because this is a general purpose tool and we all have general needs and questions and things and these tools are incredible for helping us with anything.

So, you know, it's just a little bit of a nudge toward like what, what matters to them, I think, and it will open the door that will open more and more as they get comfortable, that it's not all terrifying.

There's a lot of useful, non scary stuff there.

Well, and, and you alluded to it before that with these tools you kind of have to use them to understand them.

And I've always felt that way about the Internet in general, that it's a participatory media, that in order to really understand its benefits, you have to play with it, you have to experiment.

And certainly I feel that's very much the case with AI.

As a researcher, I was following it really from its earliest inceptions and initially I resisted playing with the tools because I'm a huge climate change proponent.

I shouldn't say proponent.

I'm not in favor of it, but I'm very conscious of it.

Right.

It's part of why I'm a farmer and why I'm into alternate tech and green tech.

But then once I kind of understood the copyright dynamics of what was happening, I decided I didn't want to sit this one out, that if this was the redefinition of Fair use as we know it, or if this was the redefinition of how copyright can be remixed or remashed up, I thought, no, this is a really cultural, a cultural moment that I want to be part of.

So I'm curious, as someone who has a background in the cultural industries, who has a background in the media industry, where you fall on the whole copyright issue, which is clearly an unresolved debate for lots of different reasons, but certainly for creative types, for them it can be a big turnoff.

And it's something that I've often, you know, been frustrated by them.

You're saying, well, no, this, this isn't going to work, it's going to violate copyright versus again, I feel there's more nuance there that it's not so clear cut.

So I'm curious how you approach or address those concerns.

Well, I'm very familiar with working in Fair Use all the Time in from my public media days, we're always trying to sort of like beg, borrow, and steal for assets.

You know, steal like an artist is something you might hear once in a while.

You know, it's just we're always sort of, Is this okay?

You know, it's a remit, and fair use is a very, like, case by case type of thing.

And playing with a lot of the image generation tools, I.

I find myself wondering about, is this fair use?

This is so new, you know, I'll give you an example.

I had to make a.

An ad using AI recently for a company, and I was trying to generate a certain look, and I remembered a magazine, I remembered a Vanity Fair cover with the Game of Thrones cast shot by Anna.

Annie.

Annie Leibovitz.

Yeah, I remember that.

And I was like, okay, that's kind of the look I want.

So I found the picture and I.

I don't remember the exact process, but I essentially was able to ingest the photo.

And then like, I.

What I could have done is say, okay, mid journey, describe this photo.

And then it would describe it.

And then I could say, okay, well generate that description and it would generate something else, right, Similar.

And then it's like, okay, well maybe describe that aesthetic or something, and then.

Or use it as a style reference for my prompt about the image that I want.

And then I would do, like, I'd get some images and then do versions of those images, and then, you know, maybe even some more effects and things like that.

And by the end, if you can tell me what photo I stole that this originated with, then, okay.

I push back and say, I don't even agree with the use of the word stole because what you're describing fundamentally is the artistic process, right?

The artist goes out to the theater, is inspired by the play they see, goes home, right?

Writes their own play, creates their own paint.

Like, that has always been the creative process.

We are inspired by each other, and through that we tell our own stories.

And that's kind of the nuance that I feel.

Those of us who use these tools.

I often describe ChatGPT as just the latest word processor that, like the old word processor, which, again, WordPerfect blew my mind, right?

It's you who are creating it, is you who are actually making it happen.

And you are influenced by all of the culture and the art that you're consuming.

And again, I feel that that nuance is often lost in the larger debates around how this plays out.

And of course, I will disclose that one of the other greatest Moments in my life was Napster, right?

And discovering all the world's music at my fingertips.

And for anyone who experienced that cultural moment, it was transformative.

The other aspect of Generative AI that I would love to kind of get your insights and your reflection on.

And this may be too, not technical or theoretical, but it seems right now the big debate I'm hearing in AI circles is are we about to hit a wall?

We've been seeing these tools and in your narrative today you keep, oh, right, in the old days of using midjourney and perplexity, because now you might be using something more advanced or now the tool itself has changed.

We've seen such a breakneck pace of development over the last couple of years that there's now rumors that it might be hitting a wall.

Right.

Everyone's saying, where's ChatGPT 5?

And if it doesn't have a exponential improvement for 4, there's worries about the company's valuation.

So as a user, as someone who is closely watching the industry and the landscape, what's your prediction on where these tools are headed?

Are they still going to keep blowing our minds in terms of their capability, or are we going to hit a plateau, which is still phenomenal in terms of what it's capable of, but it may not be enough to keep this crazy hype cycle going in terms of the amount of money and resources that are being allocated to it.

I definitely don't see a plateau in terms of the technology, but I do see adoption going way slower than the technology advances.

So that's a push pull that'll have to work itself out.

That's probably, I don't know, that's above my pay grade to figure out how that'll play out.

But I mean, the investments in the advances aren't going to slow down and all these tools impact one another.

So I'm always kind of pulling in new tools and new workflows that elevate work in new ways.

And so I think there'll still be people taking advantage of all the advancements and blowing minds and everyone will be trying to catch up.

I've heard the same thing about data.

I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.

I think it's going to just keep going really mind blowingly fast.

Right on.

Now, in shifting to the creativity part of this, which I think we've been alluding to or touching upon throughout this, because a big thread I want to get into is this accessibility piece, because I think it is a little complicated, but before we go in that direction, what are you excited about in terms of your own projects or your own imagination or your own creative professional desire?

What are you using these tools for in terms of your own creative ambitions and for lack of a better phrase, your own creative learning curve?

Because I assume that that's a central part of this.

Yeah, I mean so far I haven't had to look more than an arm's reach from my own, from where I'm standing for inspiration that I can then use these tools to explore.

So my first project was based on some ancestry research my dad did that I found and was like, oh cool, let me make a documentary.

And my most recent project was I made after seeing my kids history textbook about the first artists in a cave in in Indonesia 35, 000 years ago.

So those are both cases of like, just like, oh, there's inspiration, there's some like.

And then using these, I haven't really changed the core tools very much at all.

They've been getting better but it's just like, oh well, it wouldn't take me very long to spin up a quick proof of concept about this or like, you know, and then, then, then agencies started calling and, and like Dream Flare called and that was for original cons.

So I've had some opportunities to like make these on purpose.

Like people calling, saying, hey, do you have an idea?

But it's really like the inspiration is everywhere now.

Every time I see like a, one of those historical plaques I'm like, oh, you could just blow that up into a video now or anything.

It's just like, you know, it sounds like what you.

For the artist, what used to be.

And again it varies by different artists, but the struggle used to be inspiration.

Now it seems the struggle is execution.

And I wouldn't say struggle but I mean that's the focus.

And then the issue is, well, what are you going to execute?

Because you have so many options, right?

You've, you've so many sources.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.

No, no, please.

I think, I think it was, the execution was, was a real limiter for most people until now.

And it's, you know, it's not like it's easy now, but it's at least like you don't have to.

If you have a laptop, you're pretty much good to go with it.

Like a few, few bucks in subscriptions.

You can make a film now which, you know, having gone to film school, I had ideas but I could, the idea that I could get anything made was like, yeah, right.

And I was in New York, I was pursuing it.

I was like, I had done it in school, like, and there was still no shot.

One of my ideas was getting made.

Like, give me a break now.

I can make anything.

The ideas are still flowing, but now I can just.

I don't have to go, hey, boss, how about this pitch or whatever?

Like, you know, I just don't do it.

Let me throw you another curve ball then.

And this is really me kind of inverting the concept to turn it into a problem to see if you can give me a solution.

I agree with you that we are at a point of accessibility.

And in some cases it may not even be a laptop.

It could be a smartphone.

Like, I'm seeing kids producing phenomenal media just with the smartphone that the barrier to entry is near zero, the source of inspiration is ubiquitous.

What then is.

Because you alluded to the paradox that the adoption may still remain slow.

So if we are identifying all these ways in which the media world we grew up in is gone and a far more accessible world is here now, then what remains as the barriers of accessibility?

Because clearly there are some, given the contrast between who is using these tools successfully and who is either turning their nose up to them or just not seeing the opportunity at all.

Right.

They don't have the base media literacy to see what we're seeing in terms of a revolution.

What would change that?

And this is me kind of going back to the public broadcaster side of this.

Yeah.

So, I mean, it's a really interesting question.

I mean, it makes me think, like, are the barriers just self imposed at this point?

You know, do you have an opinion?

I mean, I'm curious.

I don't.

I mean, my only thought is just the nature of knowledge, that knowledge is itself a kind of virus.

I'm learning lots from you today.

Right.

And in theory, I'm provoking you to think about new things.

So it's a kind of each one teach one scenario where we're communicating in our communities, we're communicating online, but there is still a little bit of an echo chamber effect where the.

Because here, now that I'm saying it, I'll be a little blamey.

The mainstream media still sees AI as a threat.

So rather than use it as a means of teaching people about this new thing the way they did with social media, like every TV show in the world was like, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Right.

And they engaged in a kind of, you know, frontline education.

Like you were doing at the senior's home.

But there isn't, you know, there aren't really a lot of shows who are teaching people about this.

You know, the traditional news is talking about this in the business section, but it's not talking about this in the education or the cultural section in an empowering way.

It's us on the grassroots.

Right.

It's us kind of as practitioners doing it.

And that's a shame because you and I recognize, oh, my God.

We're not only at the point where anyone can have a voice, we're at the point where anyone could be an auteur, a director.

Right.

The next Oscar winner.

And it almost feels like it's a paradox that that isn't, as recognized, more widespread.

Yeah, I think that's a really.

I agree with that.

And I think I have felt a.

I have felt compelled to help people with it in a way that I have not felt with other technology.

Like, it hasn't really made me feel like, you know, advances in the past haven't made me feel like I need to, like, help people learn this, to look out for them.

Yeah.

Like, it feels like that now.

Like, whether it's my kids or the seniors or aspiring creatives or my mom, like, people need to learn this.

They really, really do.

And it's, you know, it's not hard to teach people.

I tell people it's the easiest technology they'll ever learn.

I mean, it's have a conversation level learning.

You know, there's no.

You don't have to learn code or anything, but it's really, really important.

You know, I feel the gap will be wide and widening between the people who learn it and don't and use it and don't.

And that's gonna be.

You want to be on the right side of that, you know, help people get on the right side of that.

And then, you know, let me.

Let me throw the.

The fastball right down the plate and get back to the title of this episode, then.

What is the future of Storytelling?

Because I think you sort of just answered it in reverse.

But what do you see?

A lot of what we've been talking about today is kind of what's happening right now.

Right.

And the tools that are happening right now.

But what do you see as the future?

Right.

What is the future of storytelling, given that these tools will and should be accessible to as many as possible?

Well, I think the gap between your imagination and what you can execute is going to just continue to shrink down to nothing.

It really feels like in the last Year to two years, it's shrunk dramatically and it's just going to continue to happen as the other sort of sensory inputs get better.

Like you can give ChatGPT video inputs and you can speak to all these things, and then they start to know how to talk to one another and systems get built.

And like, I mean, you know, I just think, yeah, it's just going to be imagination to output eventually, you know, and interaction and personalization and the processing will be there to do it all in the moment and stuff.

It's just going to be immersive and incredible, and I want to be a part of that.

Well, and you kind of reminded me of the moment I first saw an avid nonlinear editing suite, which at the time was revolutionary.

And I remember seeing, you know, people using it and learning how to use it and think, wow, this is so incredible.

And then you just kind of evoked the conversational video editing suite, right?

Where not only is it nonlinear, but you don't need to learn the Avid keyboard.

You don't need to learn the way that Avid organized all the buckets.

You just talk.

You go, no, let's move that scene over there and let's, let's cut these scenes so that they're cutting between each other really fast.

I mean, that's phenomenal, right?

That is, I think, again, a revolution in media as we've known it.

But I have to do diligence to some of my critical listeners in that I think where you and I share the same cognitive bias is that we're excited about this stuff.

I speak for myself.

I'm intoxicated by these tools because they are allowing, as you said, the gap between my imagination and the actual stories I want to tell to be almost instant.

Is there aspects of this that you're concerned about that you're fearful of?

And maybe the parallel here was my question about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in that there is concerns that the limited resources we have for community media might go.

Is there a parallel here in the AI space?

Is there something, some idiotic policy or some stupid technology fetish that you think could ruin the party and could kind of take this optimistic vision that you and I share and threaten it?

I mean, it seems like the stakes are very high.

It seems like the worst fears are legitimate, worst fears in most cases.

And I want to believe that we have the systems and the values to build in a way that will keep us all safe and financially stable.

But that remains to be seen.

And, you know, our country's been.

You.

Know, struggling to get aligned on much of anything.

So it's concerning and I could go on and on about, about those concerns, but I think I'm, you know, if I had to narrow it down, I'd probably just, just bring it down to the people that will be losing jobs in large numbers in lots of fields at the same time in the probably near future.

And like, that's really concerning to think that there's going to be this mass of unemployed job people.

I don't know that the opportunities will come fast enough.

That's one of the narratives, actually, we've explored here on the show before, and I'm still skeptical.

I'm not convinced that that mass unemployment is going to happen.

I acknowledge its potential, but I also think that education under the right circumstances could mitigate that substantively.

Now, granted, don't get me talking about the current state of our education system.

That might be its own problem, but I think the through line of our conversation today has been the participatory nature of these tools.

You got to use them to understand them.

They allow people to express themselves.

And I think the more people who are using these tools, the more we as the users will be empowered to ensure that this future of creativity, of storytelling is accessible.

Right.

That it is small d democratic and it is kind of part of a renaissance, as it were.

One final question before I go to our Shout out section because you just kind of inspired it when you were talking about the contemporary politics.

What do you think about this TikTok ban and the kind of politics and drama around TikTok?

Because TikTok has become a juggernaut of the cultural industry and touching almost all sides of it.

And if it does shut down next week, which I kind of anticipate, it's going to create a huge vacuum in the American media landscape.

So any comments, thoughts, insights on this kind of media maelstrom that's currently underway?

Yeah, I mean, it's a little above my pay grade and, you know, I.

I've been watching it, but also sort of feeling like I agree with you that it looks like, you know, very, very likely.

And so I think the most interesting thing will be the exodus of the users to where.

Where are they going?

That will be really interesting.

I think the options are challenging.

Most people have opted out of the other places already.

Yeah, in a lot of cases.

So that will be very interesting.

I'm not sure.

I wish I had something more insightful for you, but.

Well, to your point, it's ripe for a newcomer and who that newcomer is if I was Satya Nadella, I would be looking at OpenAI and saying, Guys, what can we do here?

Can we create a kind of social media platform from scratch as quick as possible and just be, hey, we're not meta and hope that that's enough?

Right.

And I suspect there are some smarter people than us who have more wealth than us who are having that conversation and thinking.

But it's at this point in every episode of Meta Views that we do our Shout out section.

The purpose of our Shout out section is to ask our guest if there's anyone that they want to say, I'm thinking about you.

But specifically it's about bringing folks to our audience's attention.

Right?

Someone that you think they should know about more, someone that you've been reading.

It doesn't have to be a living person.

It could be a dead person.

Heck, it could be an AI.

I'll go first.

I want to give a shout out to WMYC's show on the Media, which I listen to as a podcast.

And it's kind of NPR's media industry show that really looks at the media in general, from AI to social media.

But of course, as part of the NPR kind of ecosystem, they've got a real angle in terms of that public broadcasting stuff.

So I recommend to you and our listeners the on the Media podcast, I think comes out twice a week.

And it keeps me informed about the media industry, in particular the public broadcasting element within the United States.

But, Eric, I'm curious if there's anyone, any organization, any bot, that you want to give a shout out to.

I think maybe I'll, in the name of sort of raising awareness about for your listeners, the Midjourney magazine, the actual printed magazine, is something that I'm really enjoying lately.

And it just arrived, so that's why I think a lot of people don't know that it exists.

And there's something about pairing all this AI image generation with the, you know, real Deal magazine.

I find it just a nice thing to go through and.

And you can read the prompts that generated the images.

And this is, you know, tens of thousands of images curated down to I don't know how many are in a magazine, but that's pretty cool to see the different styles and the reasons that they pick these things.

And it's like four bucks a quarter or something like that.

So it's kind of a collector's item in my mind at this period of time, the beginning of AI and all this.

I kind of think it's a Cool thing.

Yeah, far out.

I didn't know about it and I've been on and off an active paying mid journey user.

So thanks for the heads up.

So yeah, that's a great hot tip.

Thank you very much.

And you know, before we conclude, is there any where can our listeners learn more about you and the stuff you're doing and or connect with you on social media?

Yeah, thank you.

I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn.

Right on, right on.

Well, thank you Eric.

This has been a really thoroughly enjoyable conversation.

Yeah, I appreciate the time.

I mean you're more than welcome to come back on the show, you know, six months a year from now to talk about your projects and to talk about the stuff going because of the people I've been having on and the people I've been meeting.

You are by far, I think the most effective public educator when it comes to AI because you're really grounding it in a substance and I think a virtue, which is the creativity part.

So thank you very much, I think has been a great episode to all our listeners.

Thanks again for watching, for listening.

You can reach us on the usual socials, let us know what subjects or guests that you would like us to feature and of course we'll see everybody soon.

Thanks again.

And for the Canadians, stay warm.