There’s an internal meme where I work that perfectly sums up the “vibe” at NAB last week: Pretty sure this is still the most upvoted meme at Google.
I suppose it’s so popular because it describes succinctly the heady mix of uncertainty, anxiety, and depression that’s known to affect Googlers tasked with “thriving in ambiguity.”
At NAB this year it became clear that we’re all Googlers now– our economic and democratic institutions, our relationship to the federal government, America’s relationships with our allies– all of that is now shot through with ambiguity. And in Hollywood at least, that ambiguity is starting to look a lot more like a full-blown existential crisis.
As one of my friends put it: “The year started with half our city on fire, and it hasn’t gotten better since!” So when people ask me how NAB was this year, the only word I can come up with to describe it is: depressing. Fatigue and anxiety were pervasive in every conversation. Whether it was how productions need to get more efficient, how post-houses are starved for work, or how studios are “restructuring” the implicit questions in every conversation were “Can we keep doing this?” and “For how long?”
On Sunday I sat down with Richard Atkinson at the CDSA Member’s Day to discuss “The Tsunami of Change” affecting the industry, with a handful of what I thought were pretty good AI use-cases and some practical advice about rolling AI out securely. But our wide-ranging discussion soon veered into the potential (inevitable?) rise of AI-generated influencers, hyper-personalized personalities able to tap into every private detail of your life to push product on you: “Hey, I know you’ve been dealing with a lot lately. When I was going through something similar last year, it made me realize I really needed to focus on taking care of myself. Have you considered a SoulCycle membership?”
Dystopian visions are easy to conjure these days, even easier to believe in. And the CDSA itself, of course, faces its own uncertain path forward. Nothing is stable now. We’re in a post-deterministic world.
But in the midst of all that fog and uncertainty, there were good discussions. Rich and deep discussions, even. Because one thing that’s true about people is that when times are good, we tend to put on our happy mask. It’s only when times are difficult that we suddenly feel the urge to come clean, get vulnerable and open up to one another.
There was a lot of that on display this year, as well. I’m personally grateful for all the people who shared their struggles with me, and for all who listened to mine.
So I won’t end this summary with a Pollyanna “change brings opportunity!” message, because that’s frankly not where I’m at right now. I’m worried about the movie industry I love, the country I love and all the people I love; people whose lives are getting tossed around on this wave as it heads for shore.
For them, and for all of us: let’s not be afraid anymore to have hard conversations. Let’s get raw with each other and ask plainly for what we need.
AI has entered the chat, we now have to learn how to live and work alongside this new type of machine/computer/intelligence. As we do, remembering what makes us human– and what it feels like to be human– is the best investment we can make.
That, and learning more about agentic AI. 😇