Disney creates task force to explore AI and cut costs -sources
Walthas created ato study artificial intelligencehow it can be applied across the entertnment conglomerate, even as Hollywood writersactors battle to limit the industry’s exploitation of the technology.
Launched earlier this year, before the Hollywood writers’ strike, the group is looking to developapplications in-house as well as form partnerships with startups, threetold Reuters.
As evidence of its interest,has 11 current job openings seeking cidates with expertise in artificial intelligence or machine learning.
The positions touch virtually every corner of the company – from WaltStudios to the company’s theme parksengineering group, WaltImagineering, to-bred televisionthe advertising team, which is looking to build a “next-generation”-powered ad system, according to the job ad descriptions.
Aspokesperson declined to comment.
One of the, an internal advocate who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, sd legacy media companies likemust either figure outor risk obsolescence.
This supporter seesas one tool to help control the soaringof movietelevision production, which can swell to $300 million for a major film release like “Indiana Jonesthe Dial of Destiny” or “The Little Mermd.” Such budgets require equally massive box office returns simply to break even. Cost savings would be realized over time, the person sd.
For its parks business,could enhance customer support or create novel interactions, sd the second source as well as a formerImagineer, 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 movementspersonality.
Machine learning, the branch ofthat gives computers the ability to learn without being programmed, informs its vision systems, so it is able to recognizenavigate objects in its environment. Someday, Baby Groot will interact with guests, the former Imagineer sd.
has become a powder keg in Hollywood, where writersactors view it as an existential threat to jobs. It is a central issue in contract negotiations with the Screen Actors Guildthe Writers Guild of America, both of which are on strike.
has been careful about how it discussesin public. The visual effects supervisors who worked on the latest “Indiana Jones” movie emphasized the pnstaking 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’
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, filmsmerchise, according to a search of the U.S. PatentTrademark Office records.
Bob Iger, now in his second stint as‘s chief exeive, 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 researchdevelopment initiative with top technology universities around the world, funding labs at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in ZurichCarnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It closed the Pittsburgh lab in 2018.
‘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 Switzerl,Research has been exploring, machine learningvisual 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,this technology has been used in more than 40 films, including Marvel Entertnment’s “Black Panther: Waka Forever.”
“research atgoes back a very long timerevolves 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?” sd one exeive who has worked with.
Hao Li, CEOco-founder of Pinscreen, a Los Angeles-based company that-driven virtual avatars, sd he worked on multiple research papers with‘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,” sd Li, a former research lead at-owned Industrial Light & Magic. “Some of these techniques will be adopted byentities.”
Imagineering last year unveiled the company’s first initiatives in an-driven character experience, the D3-09 cabin droid in the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser hotel, which answered questions on a video screenlearnedchanged based on conversations with guests.
“Not only is she a great character to interact withalways avlable in your cabin, which I think is very cool, behind the scenes, it’s a very cool piece of technology,” Imagineering exeive Scott Trowbridge sd at the time.