Disney creates task force to explore AI and cut costs -sources
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[August 08, 2023] By
Dawn Chmielewski and Krystal Hu
(Reuters) - Walt Disney has created a task force to study artificial
intelligence and how it can be applied across the entertainment
conglomerate, even as Hollywood writers and actors battle to limit the
industry's exploitation of the technology.
Launched earlier this year, before the Hollywood writers' strike, the
group is looking to develop AI applications in-house as well as form
partnerships with startups, three sources told Reuters.
As evidence of its interest, Disney has 11 current job openings seeking
candidates with expertise in artificial intelligence or machine
learning.
The positions touch virtually every corner of the company - from Walt
Disney Studios to the company's theme parks and engineering group, Walt
Disney Imagineering, to Disney-branded television and the advertising
team, which is looking to build a "next-generation" AI-powered ad
system, according to the job ad descriptions.
A Disney spokesperson declined to comment.
One of the sources, an internal advocate who spoke on condition of
anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said legacy media
companies like Disney must either figure out AI or risk obsolescence.
This supporter sees AI as one tool to help control the soaring costs of
movie and television production, which can swell to $300 million for a
major film release like "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" or "The
Little Mermaid." Such budgets require equally massive box office returns
simply to break even. Cost savings would be realized over time, the
person said.
For its parks business, AI could enhance customer support or create
novel interactions, said the second source as well as a former Disney
Imagineer, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized
to speak publicly.
The former Imagineer pointed to Project Kiwi, which used
machine-learning techniques to create Baby Groot, a small, free-roaming
robot that mimics the "Guardians of the Galaxy" character's movements
and personality.
Machine learning, the branch of AI that gives computers the ability to
learn without being programmed, informs its vision systems, so it is
able to recognize and navigate objects in its environment. Someday, Baby
Groot will interact with guests, the former Imagineer said.
AI has become a powder keg in Hollywood, where writers and actors view
it as an existential threat to jobs. It is a central issue in contract
negotiations with the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of
America, both of which are on strike.
Disney has been careful about how it discusses AI in public. The visual
effects supervisors who worked on the latest "Indiana Jones" movie
emphasized the painstaking labors of more than 100 artists who spent
three years seeking to "de-age" Harrison Ford so that the octogenarian
actor could appear as his younger self in the early minutes of the film.
'STEAMBOAT WILLIE'
Disney has invested in technological innovation since its earliest days.
In 1928 it debuted "Steamboat Willie", the first cartoon to feature a
synchronized soundtrack. It now holds more than 4,000 patents with
applications in theme parks, films and merchandise, according to a
search of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records.
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SAG-AFTRA actors and Writers Guild of
America (WGA) writers walk the picket line during their ongoing
strike outside Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, U.S.,
July 31, 2023. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo
Bob Iger, now in his second stint as Disney's chief executive, made
the embrace of technology one of his three priorities when he was
first named CEO in 2005.
Three years later, the company announced a major research and
development initiative with top technology universities around the
world, funding labs at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in
Zurich and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
It closed the Pittsburgh lab in 2018.
Disney's U.S. research group has developed a mixed-reality
technology called "Magic Bench" that allows people to share a space
with a virtual character on screen, without need for special
glasses.
In Switzerland, Disney Research has been exploring AI, machine
learning and visual computing, according to its website. It has
spent the last decade creating "digital humans" that it describes as
"indistinguishable" from their corporeal counterparts, or fantasy
characters "puppeteered" by actors.
This technology is used to augment digital effects, not replace
human actors, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Its Medusa performance capture system has been used to reconstruct
actors' faces without using traditional motion-capture techniques,
and this technology has been used in more than 40 films, including
Marvel Entertainment's "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever."
"AI research at Disney goes back a very long time and revolves
around all the things you see being discussed today: Can we have
something that helps us make movies, games, or conversational robots
inside theme parks that people can talk to?" said one executive who
has worked with Disney.
Hao Li, CEO and co-founder of Pinscreen, a Los Angeles-based company
that creates AI-driven virtual avatars, said he worked on multiple
research papers with Disney's lab while studying in Zurich from 2006
to 2010.
"They basically do research on anything based on performance capture
of humans, creating digital faces," said Li, a former research lead
at Disney-owned Industrial Light & Magic. "Some of these techniques
will be adopted by Disney entities."
Disney Imagineering last year unveiled the company's first
initiatives in an AI-driven character experience, the D3-09 cabin
droid in the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser hotel, which answered
questions on a video screen and learned and changed based on
conversations with guests.
"Not only is she a great character to interact with and always
available in your cabin, which I think is very cool, behind the
scenes, it's a very cool piece of technology," Imagineering
executive Scott Trowbridge said at the time.
(Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles and Krystal Hu in New
York; Editing by Kenneth Li and Matthew Lewis)
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