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The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Partner on Sora

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Re: The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Partner on Sora

#361

Post by eli_gottlieb »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #6

This will not end well for Disney, there were certain historical characters removed from Sora 2 because people kept making racist videos that are hard to censor, and it became increasingly unhinged. This feels like another circular investment where Disney is hoping to make money back I'm sure. On the other hand, assuming they do the freemium stuff, I look forward to making a few videos of my daughters favorite Disney…

My impulse is to agree, and I'm almost wondering whether Disney figured that they'd have more restraining influence by getting in legitimately than by having generative AI companies wink and look away from rampant trademark violations because Disney won't pay them to care.

Re: The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Partner on Sora

#362

Post by eli_gottlieb »

jeffwask wrote: post #151
godzillabrennus wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney is the same company as it was 20 years ago. In fact, it's the same company as it was 100 years ago. They only care about profit. They do just enough brand management to preserve the profit motive.

To be fair to Walt Disney, he cared about a lot beyond profit and believed in advancing technology and society in a way modern corporate leaders absolutely do not. He was no saint but he's a far cry from modern CEO's.

I think that, given the times, we might rate him a little bit above "no saint". Perhaps slightly below or at par with the norms of his time, which we could now look back on as the peak of some rather nasty tendencies in society.

https://www.vulture.com/2013/12/walt-disney-anti-semitism-ra...

Re: The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Partner on Sora

#363

Post by eli_gottlieb »

CodingJeebus wrote: post #243
BowBun wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I firmly disagree and think this shallow take dishonors a pretty great man. While not perfect, Disney gave us the bedrock of American children's culture which has been a soft tool for the US for generations. Not to mention technology and other advancements. I'm not a Disney nut, but the man was one-of-a-kind and an impressive industrialist who instilled a great culture of innovation and a deep love of children and pl…

> While not perfect Yep, Disney was also a leading producer of racist tropes and content during Jim Crow. Historical clips of Mickey Mouse characters putting on minstrel shows with blackface alongside other racist stereotypes like crows can easily be found online[0]. Not to mention Song of the South[1], a film Disney produced based on Uncle Remus stories following slaves who happily live on a Georgia plantation. Disn…

One could argue that the company reoriented itself so purely towards children's art and kitsch because they needed to get themselves into a market segment where they could completely sanitize their output of these kinds of embarrassments.

Re: The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Partner on Sora

#364

Post by eli_gottlieb »

armenarmen wrote: post #173
caminante wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen. Blaming Disney for bad content is like blaming politicians. Who asked for the content? Who elected the politicians? ** [Jiminy] crickets**

Fwiw I think the all US presidents since Clinton were elected on a non interventionist/pacifist campaign. Blaming the voters when every one of them (less so with Biden) violated those promises is a bit unfair, if you still believe in democracy.

I don't recall George W. Bush ever actually promising to stay out of wars and interventions. It's been standard for the two parties to criticize each-other on grounds of doing interventionism badly or going too far towards one extreme regarding foreign policy, but nobody has run as a real pacifist or isolationist because they would lose in a landslide. It especially doesn't help that pacifism and isolationism are associated with activist fringes in both parties who often lean into crank theories or make friends publicly with adversarial states.

Re: The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Partner on Sora

#365

Post by echelon »

mbreese wrote: post #355
afavour wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I became a parent I was really surprised at how much crap Disney puts out. My previous exposure had just been their blockbuster movies which showed a close attention to detail. But you scratch under the surface and it's an endless pile of awful quality clothing, crappy lunchboxes, that kind of thing. To the point where you assume it's an unauthorized rip off until you discover they license to anyone. And to say…

> Mickey Mouse Clubhouse's lazy CG animation and unimaginative storytelling I think it’s important to remember that you probably aren’t their target audience. Their audience expects to see simple characters with simple stories. The CG doesn’t need to be advanced, so having it fast to produce is the goal. It has to hold the interest of a toddler for 25 min without annoying the parents too much. Shiny and simple render…

I think y'all are thinking about this wrong.

Right now the deal is structured as Disney pays OpenAI. That's going to invert.

Once OpenAI pays Disney $3B/yr for Elsa, Disney is going to go to Google and say, "Gee, it sure would suck if you lost all your Disney content." Google will have to pay $5B/yr for Star Wars. And then TikTok, and then Meta... door to door licensing.

Nintendo, Marvel, all of the IP giants will start licensing their IPs to platforms.

This has never happened before, but we're at a significant and unprecedented changing of the tides.

IP holders weren't able to do this before because content creation was hard and the distribution channels were 1% creation, 99% distribution. One guy would make a fan animation and his output was a single 5 minute video once every other month. Now everyone has exposure to creation.

Now that the creation/consumption funnel inverts or becomes combined, the IP holders can charge a shit ton of money to these platforms. Everyone is a creator, and IP enablement is a massive money making opportunity.

In five years, Disney, Warner, and Nintendo will be making absolute bank on YouTube, TikTok, Meta platforms, Sora, etc.

They'll threaten to pull IP just like sports and linear TV channels did to cable back in the day.

This will look a lot like cable.

Also: the RIAA is doing exactly this with Suno and Udio. They've got them in a stranglehold and are forcing them to remove models that don't feature RIAA artists. And they'll charge a premium for you to use Taylor Swift®.

Anyone can make generic AI cats or bigfoot - it's pretty bland and doesn't speak to people. But everyone wants to make Storm Troopers and Elsa and Pikachu. Not only do teenagers willfully immerse themselves in IP, but they're far more likely to consume well-known IP than original content. Creators will target IP over OC. We already know this. We have decades of data at this point that mass audiences want mass media franchises.

The "normies" will eat this up and add fuel to the fire.

Disney revenues are $90B a year. I would not be surprised if they could pull a brand new $30B a year off of social media IP licensing alone. Same for Nintendo and the rest of the big media brands. (WBD has a lot more value than they're priced at.)

This is the end game. Do you see it now?

Re: The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Partner on Sora

#366

Post by otterley »

_fzslm wrote: post #357
torginus wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Disney on of the oldest tech companies of all time? The engineering that goes into their parks is insane, and they have been consistently pushing live experiences. The logistics that goes on in the background to let as many people as possible have a good experience is also insane. And that's just Disneyland. There's a guy on youtube who makes fascinating hour-long documentaries about every aspect of Disneyland.

> There's a guy on youtube who makes fascinating hour-long documentaries about every aspect of Disneyland. you can't nerdsnipe me like that and NOT drop a link. :p what's the channel?

If you’re a Disney+ subscriber, be sure to watch The Imagineering Story miniseries. Fun fact, it was directed by Leslie Iwerks, who’s the granddaughter of Ubbe Iwerks, the co-creator of Mickey Mouse alongside Walt Disney.

Re: The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Partner on Sora

#367

Post by steveklabnik »

_fzslm wrote: post #357
torginus wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Disney on of the oldest tech companies of all time? The engineering that goes into their parks is insane, and they have been consistently pushing live experiences. The logistics that goes on in the background to let as many people as possible have a good experience is also insane. And that's just Disneyland. There's a guy on youtube who makes fascinating hour-long documentaries about every aspect of Disneyland.

> There's a guy on youtube who makes fascinating hour-long documentaries about every aspect of Disneyland. you can't nerdsnipe me like that and NOT drop a link. :p what's the channel?

Not your parent, but I'd expect they mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defunctland

Re: The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Partner on Sora

#368

Post by dragontamer »

dylan604 wrote: post #316
throw0101d wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And to say nothing of the shoddy quality of their TV shows. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse's lazy CG animation and unimaginative storytelling is shocking given Mickey is supposed to be their signature character. ≤4-year-olds do not care: there's bright colours and motion, and some semblance of story. The point is not to give some kind of lesson, but to distract/entertain (and probably release dopamine). See also Paw Patrol…

Bluey is just one show. Disney has an entire network and platform to fill with content. There's not a lot of producers making Bluey level content, yet the vacuum still needs to be filled. Bluey level content also costs more to create than the one step above AI slop to fill that void. Just like not every song on an album will be a banger, there will always be fluff/fill/padding.

On a foreign language scale, Bluey and Peppa Pig are around B1- or A2+.

Or in other words: a typical adult needs about one year of self study (or nearly 6 months of more focused intensive study) before they can fully understand a show like Bluey or Peppa Pig.

And maybe half that for substantial understanding. (3 months intensive, 6 months typical self study to reach A2+ / watch Bluey with substantial understanding but not complete understanding).

If I were to guess at Mickey Mouse clubhouse, it's damn near A1 or A0+, it's so repetive and slow that you can learn some words from it.

Yeah, that's a lot more boring than the 'advanced' shows like Bluey or Peppa Pig.

Also note that children are not aware of tools (ie hammers or screwdrivers) yet. So simple learning exercises to know that hammer hammers nail but not screws is the kind of thing needed at pre-school level.

I'd imagine that the appropriate age for Mickey Mouse clubhouse is under 3. Bluey/Peppa Pig are closer to 6 or 7+ year old material.

Or in foreign language levels: B1-ish / 2+ on the American scale.

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Seriously. Just switch the shows to a different language and the level gap becomes blatantly clear.

In perhaps more Techie terms: Mickey Mouse Clubhouse level of understanding is achievable with Duolingo. Peppa Pig / Bluey (and similar level shows) are so far beyond Duolingo that I bet most Duolingo users will NEVER be able to achieve Bluey-level understanding in a foreign language (and that deep textbook + 1000ish vocab study memorization needs to be done before Bluey can be understood).

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Maybe the vocab estimate is easiest to understand. Bluey feels like a show that uses 1000 words with mastery (and maybe 2000 hard words as learning exercises in the show).

Mickey Mouse clubhouse uses maybe 250 words with mastery and maybe uses the top1000 list as learning/teaching words.

How (and why??) does Mickey Mouse clubhouse make an ENTIRE song consisting of a single word? (hotdog?) Because it's written for people where 'Hot dog' is a difficult word and needs repetition.

Re: The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Partner on Sora

#369

Post by whywhywhywhy »

philistine wrote: post #158
podgietaru wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually straight up don't think they give a shit anymore. I think decorum works in an environment where decorum is the norm, but we have entered a political moment where that is no longer the case. And I think that this kind of thing bleeds so heavily into culture that they no longer give a shit about having their characters next to it. They have enough plausible deniability; they did not create the content. I thi…

Yeah, basically Disney invested a billion dollar in Pregnant Elsa Spider-Man Beach Castle .

You need to realize more children in the world interact with Disney IP through Pregnant Elsa Spider-Man than through actual Disney real IP.

Perhaps this is a play to own and monetize that vector in the future.

Re: The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Partner on Sora

#370

Post by squigz »

buellerbueller wrote: post #301
squigz wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are a half step from flooding the market with Disney Princess porn. I would think that whatever demand there is for that is already filled.

rule 34 would strongly suggest that is not the case.

Rule 34 suggests there is demand, yes. The various rule 34 commision artists suggests there is supply.

I was mostly making a joke, as the idea of this deal causing a load of Disney princess porn to pop up and causing a sudden surge in people into that is hilarious to me.

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