In just a couple of years, AI has come a very long way in generating realistic images and videos. In 2023, an AI-generated video of Will Smith eating spaghetti went viral for being hilariously unrealistic, looking more like a psychadelic-induced fever dream than anything else. This year, Google’s new Veo 3 model showed the world its capabilities by generating the same video except for the fact that it actually looks real at first glance. Google’s new video generation model also generates sound with its videos. The “Will Smith Eating Saghetti Test” (yes, it’s real: here’s the wiki article!) has become a benchmark for AI video generation and it’s safe to say that it’s progressing very quick by all measures.
These days, AI generated content is being shared all over the internet and many people are buying it. There are of course many negative implications of this, but all this does is reinforce the fact that AI generated content can already be realistic enough for consumption now.
It’s very clear what’s going to happen to the media industry in the near future. The last major media revolution was the transition to digital. The next one is the complete personalization and democratization of our media. In the near future, you’ll be able to be your own director and create your own movies with ease. It’s great for the businesses that pursue this venture as well. A customer can’t be mad about the movie they created after all. Not to mention how significantly cheaper and quicker it’d be to generate a movie with AI than to use people at every step of the production process.
Of course, acting and directing isn’t likely to go away anytime soon. Even though a lot of people will enjoy their personalized content, many will still want to support their favorite actors and watch their movies. Even in human-made movies though, AI will probably still be entrenched in the process just like CGI is today, changing the game forever.
What am I doing about it?
I see the progression toward personalized media coming and I’m acting on it now. I’m not building an AI-generated Netflix or any movie generator at all. Instead, I’m building Imagibrary: An AI-powered custom storybook building app. Parents already buy physical personalized books, but they are very expensive and have all the problems of other physical media. What if you could get the same kind of books 10x cheaper and instantly? In my next posts I’ll be documenting my journey building my first SaaS: Imagibrary.