Last year, in order to tap the potential of AI in the entertainment industry, Disney set up an artificial intelligence working group to integrate this technology into its entertainment empire.
At that time, Hollywood was in the midst of its largest strike crisis since 1988. The industry was worried that the development of AI might lead to the replacement of screenwriters and actors, so it needed to strike to protect its own rights. Although the strike ended with restrictions on the application of AI technology, it is no secret that production companies have begun to use AI extensively.
The wind of AI has blown to the entertainment industry. As the world’s largest entertainment company, Disney is in a delicate relationship between embracing technological change and balancing the impact of technology.
Park: Disney’s Technology Testing Ground
Disneyland is not only “the happiest place in the world”, but also a testing ground for Disney’s cutting-edge technology.
As early as 1995, Disney executives noticed that airlines had successfully increased their profit margins through revenue management and dynamic pricing of airline seats based on supply and demand. They thought that perhaps the same method could be applied to the pricing of hotel rooms and park tickets.
Mark Schaeffer, who worked in revenue management at People Express and Continental Airlines, came to Disney and led a data analysis team of 250 employees to dynamically price various businesses in Disneyland and launched additional services such as VIP dining and fast lanes, which greatly improved the profitability and operational efficiency of other Disney projects such as hotels and parks.
In 2021, Disney launched Genie, an AI-based real-time vacation planning assistant that can recommend attractions based on family preferences. The app-based queue management service works with Disney Magic Bands, which provide real-time data on the location of customers in the park, with the goal of minimizing long lines and maximizing the customer experience.
Disney has also applied AI to its own rides. In the same year that Genie was launched, Disney released Groot, an AI robot based on Marvel characters.
Groot is a life-size interactive robot that interacts with visitors through artificial intelligence and sensors all over its body. Disney researchers use infrared cameras to capture the expressions of the audience, and after training with a “facial landmark” data set, Groot can accurately predict the facial expressions required for the entire performance.
In February of this year, Disney launched a new hardware called HoloTile, the latest invention of Disney’s “Imagination Engineering” program. This floor-like hardware consists of hundreds of tiny tile-like discs arranged in a circle about five feet wide. Using lidar sensors, artificial intelligence algorithms and synchronously moving rotating discs, the floor moves subtly underfoot, creating a sense of walking, and combined with VR technology, visitors seem to be in the virtual world constructed for them by Disneyland.
Changing the way film and television production is done
Of course, AI has more potential in film and television production.
In 2009, Disney established a research department called StudioLAB to explore how to use AI and other technologies to improve film content. For example, it monitors audience emotions through AI and improves the practicality of early previews. Disney worked with Caltech to place cameras in cinemas to monitor the faces of each audience member through a deep learning system. This not only collects more data, but also more accurately understands the audience’s experience of the movie.
StudioLAB also created algorithms to check every pixel in the movie frame to ensure the quality of the movie, while human analysts only need to look at the pixels selected by AI. Other algorithms automatically draw in pixels to get a consistent image. The purpose of this is to allow the company’s creative storytellers to focus on the story itself, rather than various boring details.
In 2022, Disney launched the artificial intelligence tool FRAN, which can quickly help actors achieve “aging” or “aging reduction”. Special effects that used to require high makeup costs and hours of post-production can now be “done with one click”.
Disney introduced that FRAN is a neural network trained with a large database containing randomly generated faces of different ages. FRAN uses this information to predict which areas of a real person’s face will age and how they will age, and then superimposes new details (such as adding or removing wrinkles and chins) onto video clips.
This is “the first practical, fully automatic, production-ready method for re-adjusting the age of a face in a video image.” Judging from the video examples provided by Disney, this technology is definitely better than the aging filters on social media.
In addition, Disney is developing a new AI advertising tool called “Magic Words” for its streaming services (Disney+ and Hulu). The tool enables advertisers to conduct more personalized content marketing by identifying scenes in film and television works and programs. This new form of contextual advertising can also help brands and consumers establish a deeper emotional connection. At present, Disney+ has attracted more than 1,000 advertisers, ten times more than when it was launched.
Disney is also actively investing in emerging companies in the field of artificial intelligence. Not long ago, Disney included three companies engaged in artificial intelligence research in its annual business incubator program.
The three companies are: AudioShake (using artificial intelligence to separate audio tracks for mixing or dubbing), ElevenLabs (using artificial intelligence speech generator to convert text to speech) and Promethean AI (using artificial intelligence to build a digital giant).
In February of this year, Blackwells Capital, one of Disney’s shareholders, called on it to formulate an artificial intelligence strategy and suggested that Disney hire a corporate chief technology officer (CTO). It believes that the influence of artificial intelligence on Disney is at least equivalent to its influence on technology giants, and Disney’s potential in the fields of artificial intelligence and spatial computing cannot be underestimated.
Disney’s artificial intelligence dilemma
In 1928, Disney launched the world’s first animated film with synchronized sound and picture, “Steamboat Willie”. Throughout its 100-year history, Disney has been committed to working with top universities and making long-term investments in cutting-edge technologies. In the past, audiences were amazed at the progress of film technology, and Disney also reaped huge rewards for its long-term investment in technology. But in the era of artificial intelligence, people’s mentality seems to have changed.
In March 2023, the romantic comedy “The Prom Contract” landed on Disney’s streaming media. Although it did not “break the circle”, it received good reviews as soon as it was launched. But no one expected that seven months later, it quickly detonated American social networks because of a flash of the lens.
This shot shows the cheering crowd at a high school basketball game, but there is a row of spectators who look obviously different from the people around them. Although the people sitting in the front row are normal human actors, the people in the back row look disturbing: their eyes are dull, their limbs are stiff, and their eyes are looking straight ahead.
Obviously, they are not real actors, but digital people added to the picture by post-production. These weird-looking “extras” have been spread through social networks and have been labeled “terrible” and “hateful” by the audience.
The actors’ unions are right to worry: if film and television companies scan their likenesses and insert them into film and television scenes, days or weeks of work may be shortened to one day, which will have a huge impact on the income of ordinary actors.
Controversy is coming one after another. Disney has once again become the target of public criticism for releasing a picture celebrating Thanksgiving. The picture shows Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Donald Duck and other beloved characters having dinner together. However, the picture looks like an artificial intelligence synthesis. Soon, negative comments appeared again, and many people believed that Disney was undermining its foundation.
There are many factors that affect a company’s AI capabilities and success, which do not involve technology or even data. Leadership, culture, attitudes and skills are all human characteristics, and their impact on AI is as much or even greater than that on other aspects of the company.
For traditional companies, one of the biggest challenges in transforming with AI is to form a culture that emphasizes data-driven decisions and behaviors and is keen to drive business transformation through AI. Otherwise, even if there are a few AI champions scattered throughout the company, they won’t have the resources they need to build great applications with the technology, and leaders of AI functions won’t be able to recruit great talent. Even if the company builds AI applications, it won’t use them effectively. In short, without the right culture, great AI technology may not create any value.
