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Intelligent Jello? Let's see. Your father Dana, your uncle Ted, your brother Theodore, everyone in your family that I've heard of is preternaturally brilliant. That might account for the Intelligent part. And your poet father had a double life as a General Foods executive who invented Jello Jigglers and brought sales growth to life for the failing Jello product line. So there may be a connection there. How'd I do? :-)

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You write, "I anticipate AI tools will let more people execute on more ideas with far less resources required."

This is exactly what's happening to me right now. I've been building countless websites since 1995, and had eventually gotten to the point where I was weary of more of the same. ChatGPT and Dalle have opened up new opportunities for me, and reawakened my interest in creating websites. The site I'm currently building wouldn't have happened without AI, because to do it all manually would have simply been way too much work for way too little reward.

Yes, new ideas made possible, with less resources.

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Yes, lower return ideas that are fun but 'not worth it' will get executed. And also high return ideas that are really, really, really hard will also get executed. But I'm mostly thinking about the grassroots uses of AI in art. The enterprise uses doesn't interest me as much.

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"But I'm mostly thinking about the grassroots uses of AI in art. "

That's where I'm living these days. Will always be happy to hear any of your ideas in this direction.

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Excited to read what comes! It’s super interesting to me that you’re specifically studying AI and film, and are an advocate for it. With your uncle Ted seeming to be really against AI and music + Dana being phenomenally knowledgeable about the arts 🤯🤯 I think you will provide some interesting perspectives!!

Also, cool name, great vibes

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Thanks! I'd say all 3 of us share a skepticism of institutions and a preference for grassroots arts, but they are probably more protective of artistic tradition than I am. I've been using computers to make stuff and reveling in meme-culture for years. As far as AI, it promises different impacts on different art forms. Film has a much higher barrier to entry for newcomers than either music or literature. The filmmakers I know are all creatively constipated, unable to execute on ideas because film is so costly. Knocking down that wall is what I’m most specifically excited about. And I advocate everything that works towards that!

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I'm curious how AI can help would-be filmmakers make films. It seems like it can only do the part that a regular person can do for free, and the costly part-- turning a script into a film-- is still nigh impossible for us normal folks.

Intelligent Jello might be some kind of inside AI joke, like making a computer intelligent is the same as making a bowl of Jell-o intelligent. Or it could be referencing your father's past life as the King of Jell-o.

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Dec 2, 2023·edited Dec 2, 2023Author

AI can produce high quality visuals! That is the most promising part. Check out Pika Labs (https://twitter.com/pika_labs/status/1729510078959497562/video/1) or RunwayML. These are only getting better, cheaper, and more malleable. I will write about them in an upcoming post of.... INTELLIGENT JELLO.

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So in theory I can tell AI my idea for a movie and it will create a movie for me?

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Yes, in theory. In practice, there is still a lot of time-consuming iteration and AI wrangling required.

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