Artificial intelligence will lower the cost of creating blockbuster animated movies drastically, according to longtime industry executive Jeffrey Katzenberg.
“I don’t know of an industry that will be more impacted than any aspect of media, entertainment, and creation,” Katzenberg said in a panel discussion at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum on Thursday. “In the good old days, you might need 500 artists and years to make a world-class animated movie. I don’t think it will take 10% of that three years from now.”
The adoption of AI will accelerate the digital transformation of the entertainment industry by a factor of 10, said 72-year-old Katzenberg, who rose to prominence as a production executive at Walt Disney Co.’s movie studio before joining hands with filmmaker Steven Spielberg and Hollywood executive David Geffen to co-found DreamWorks.
Katzenberg was joined by other global business leaders in addressing how emerging technologies will change the way we live and work on day two of the forum in Singapore.
Sara Menker, founder and chief executive officer of GRO Intelligence, said machine learning is helping to predict the demand, supply and price of every agricultural commodity globally — and also aiding in extracting insights from large data sets and improving risk assessment. But there’s also a growing problem of having too many models: there are 2.9 million models just within her sector.
Also cautious about the pitfalls of AI is Kai-Fu Lee, a four-decade veteran of developing AI systems, who cautioned that “what we saw with Cambridge Analytica a few years ago is now on steroids,” referring to the reams of Facebook user data that were harvested by the now-defunct firm. Still, Lee argues that regulation must be measured so as to avoid stifling innovation.
The excitement around AI as a “bright and shiny new thing” has not been matched by the necessary training and understanding, said Bob Moritz, global chair of PwC.
“We have a huge challenge right now in front of us that if you go so far, so fast without the re-engineering of labor, we actually have a big mismatch, which is creating more social problems,” Moritz said. “That’s going to be problematic, especially going into a slowing economy.”
