Having hoovered up the entire internet including even EOSHD (which it cites as a source for many camera related queries), ChatGPT has built a business based on the theft of copyrighted information, especially for Sora which is the company’s very capable video generation tool. As a world-generator it has to get the understanding of that world from our footage and immense libraries of copyright material. Today marks a landmark deal however and a huge precedent because instead of being sued by Disney the two Goliaths have got together and made friends with a payment FROM Disney to invest $1bn in OpenAI for an equity share, including the use of AI tools by Disney staff and creatives at Disney’s studios, in return for Sora users being able (within tight guardrails) to generate content based on Disney’s IP.

So this sounds like an unbelievably good deal for OpenAI (press release here). Not least the financial aspects but the fact it sets an amazing precedent for the licensing of major works and big-brand content. Instead of paying out of their own pocket to license Mickey Mouse so that Sora users can make “fan content” of it, Disney is paying OpenAI.

Now OpenAI can go to other major studios and content providers, like Netflix, Warner, Paramount and HBO, point to the Disney deal and say how great it is and by the way would you like to do the same?

I can only assume that the legal situation around generative AI was pointing to the annulment of any claim Disney might have had over the company in terms of copyright infringement.

I suppose it’s going to be that way for the rest of us too, except we won’t have an equity stake!

Say for example that if an OpenAI tool cites from an EOSHD article and puts a link to it, that’s only what Google has being doing for years, and much to my benefit as a business. Say on the other hand ChatGPT only understands certain topics because of the information on this site or on the forum, then you could arguably say I should have some equity in the company or other form of compensation. A very very small amount (in percentage terms) but this is what the Disney precedent suggests is legally the case for the rest of us whose knowledge has gone into the training models.

Say on the other hand ChatGPT synthesising and remixing copyrighted works like books, camera guides, LUTs or blog posts and passing it off as original content, I think that’s where it gets even murkier – and that in effect is what their whole business model is based on, be it chat bots or Sora the video generator.

Yet for the rest of us there might be a chance to gain from the biggest theft of content in history.

As a tool Sora is going to be able to bring to the screen in perfect cinematographic realism pretty much whatever we can write down and imagine, which places a premium on a good script, and a good imagination, and the human touch.

And the big money long term is not actually in the generative AI algorithms themselves.

It is in the human-AI interface design.

I have long believed that generative AI should move away from the simple text prompt interface we’ve come to know from OpenAI and all these early days applications of AI.

If someone would offer Sora in a hardware box resembling an editing console with lots of dials and levers, and out the back of the HDMI comes a finished film, with a polished on-screen editing interface to manage the virtual stage of characters, scenes, lights, cameras, sets and virtual storylines you could generate first rate episodic TV this way in the future and even cinema.

What would be missing however would be the real chemistry of real people on set, as all this would have to be simulated by the AI and this by definition could only really be computational, whereas the human experience and consciousness is not and is something deeper.

Anyway, interesting times and if you’re reading Sam I am waiting for my first cheque in the post for all those blog posts you’ve nicked.

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