💡 Musings of the Angry Optimist: Is a revolution underway?

My thoughts, tips, and other tidbits that I believe are suited for a fact-based optimist. This newsletter is for you who are a Premium Supporter at Warp News. Feel free to share it with friends and acquaintances.

📺 Is a media revolution underway, or not?

This text doesn't have a conclusion. Usually, when writing an opinion piece, it carries a thesis or a message. Not this one. It ends with an open question.

I'm writing it anyway, for three reasons:

1. To sort out my own thoughts.
2. To provoke thoughts in you.
3. To seek help from you in getting closer to a conclusion.

The question is this:
Will generative AI create a real revolution in the media landscape? Not just a change, but will the media field be dramatically reshaped by AI?

Media has changed, yet remains familiar

Looking back at the media landscape of the 1980s, we had newspapers, radio, and TV. Content was packaged in these channels and presented to readers, listeners, and viewers.

Today, the core of the media landscape remains quite similar. We have newspapers, radio, and TV that package and present content, but increasingly we consume it online. The biggest difference is the diversity we've gained through the internet and social media, such as individual creators having YouTube and TikTok channels, large social media accounts, blogs, and now increasingly, newsletters.

Converging AI tools

Observing generative AI, we see several parallel developments:

Text: High-quality, longer texts are being produced. The quality and quantity will continue to increase.

Images: The quality has dramatically improved in the last 18 months. This trend will continue, with images maybe being entire worlds. You might be able to generate an entire city and walk around in it, where every detail you see is full of sophistication.

Video: Not as advanced as images yet, but it's now possible to create three-second videos with a simple written instruction (prompt). Longer videos and movies are likely not far off.

Music: Frank Sinatra singing "Barbie Girl" is one aspect. Another is creating music through a prompt.

GPTs: With OpenAI's GPT builder, anyone can now build their version of ChatGPT. These GPTs can do things like programming, drawing, booking flights, etc.

Virtual and Augmented Reality: Allow us to step into other worlds. These worlds, with generative AI, can be much easier to create and the content much more intelligent.

Creative explosion: Since we control generative AI with the everyday language we write and speak, all this becomes accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Suddenly, we can all create things we couldn't before. We can write, paint, make videos, create music, code, and much more. This unleashes a tremendous amount of creativity, previously trapped in our heads.

Put all this together. What will arise when this explosion of human creativity meets a mix of generative AI?

A sense of revolution

I have a feeling that we are on the cusp of a dramatic shift in media and news. Something that replaces today's model of content packaging --> content presentation. Or creates a completely new complementary form of expression.

It feels like something is lurking beneath the surface. Peek, and you might find something shockingly different. Something cool, fantastic, and revolutionary. New forms of art? New ways of communicating? Perhaps I'm thinking too narrowly. Or too broadly. Maybe it's something entirely different?

But it's just a feeling.

What do you think?

Mathias Sundin
The Angry Optimist

❗ Other stuff

📚 Book tip

Looks like a very interesting book. With a foreword by Steven Pinker (Warp Premium Supporter.) Released on March 1st.

👩‍🔬 R&D

Amazon spends more on research and development than France. Alphabet more than Italy. Meta more than Spain. Apple more than Sweden.

Source: Ethan Mollick

🙏 Infectious Generosity

TED head, Chris Anderson, launches Infectious Generosity. A nice message and fun to see a TED talk from the person who has seen the most TED talks in the world.

It contains a wonderful quote from his mother:

“If you commit to a journey of generosity, sooner or later two companions will join you on that journey. Their names are Meaning and Happiness.”