The 'Will AI Kill Hollywood Narrative?' had a moment back in 2024 when OpenAI released their SORA video generation model. For the first time, people saw an AI-generated video that was nearly equal to what they saw on TV and in the movies. OpenAI didn't capitalise on that, but a new video AI model called Seedance looks like it might be about to fulfil that promise.

The US TV & film industry is already struggling. It rapidly expanded during Covid, but has now shrunk to be much smaller than it was before Covid. This isn't down to AI. The hours spent watching TV & movies are shrinking, as more and more people spend their time watching online videos. These are mostly made for free by other users, or in a content-creator ecosystem separate from traditional TV/movies.

AI like Seedance looks set to turbo-charge the online content-creator ecosystem. Soon they'll have (almost) all the advantages Hollywood has, but won't have its costs. It's hard to imagine that the era of movie budgets in the hundreds of millions can last much longer.

Seedance in Action - Tom Cruise Vs. Brad Pitt

Study: Social Video Beats Traditional TV for Young Viewers

"New figures reveal that total payroll growth was revised downward by approximately 403,000 jobs. Crucially, this downward revision occurred while real GDP remained robust, including a 3.7 per cent growth rate in the fourth quarter. This decoupling — maintaining high output with significantly lower labour input — is the hallmark of productivity growth………..and I identified a cooling in entry-level hiring within AI-exposed sectors, where recruitment for junior roles………But there is cause for further optimism…..."

Optimism? It's worth bearing in mind that, as AI companies suck up hundreds of billions in cash and get their electricity costs subsidized, for them to succeed, humans with jobs must fail. They'll argue that's zero-sum thinking, and AI will create more jobs than it destroys, but how many people really believe them?

The AI productivity take-off is finally visible New economic data suggests the US is transitioning to a phase of measurable gains from the technology

Now that AI can seamlessly imitate a person's voice and likeness, this means our digital likeness is virtually immortal. If AI has access to enough of your conversation and writing, it can probably do a good job of impersonating your personality, too.

The default in copyright law is that everyone owns their own likeness. It's why you often see faces blurred out on TV. It means the production company didn't get the person to sign a model release form. However, the law is much less clear about likeness ownership after death. It varies by country and state, and generally gives much fewer rights to the individual.

Is it time to strengthen those laws? The thought of being the property of Big Tech in perpetuity is dystopian and depressing, even if you won't be around to experience it.

Here's a fact that might surprise most people. Although the US is adding 70GW of new capacity versus China's 400GW in 2026, proportionately more of the US's will be from renewables. Largely because China is still adding coal and gas. By the end of 2026, 36% of total US generating capacity will be from renewables.

China's unemployment rate is 5.2%, and that rises 16.5% for its youth unemployment rate. If they are a centrally planned economy, why are they wasting money on coal & gas imports, when they could be building more factories to switch to 99% renewables for new capacity like America is doing?

The US's 99% adoption rate illustrates renewables' unassailable advantage. They are cheaper than everything else going, and not only that, they have years of price falls to come. Just imagine, renewables are at 99% adoption rate, even with a Republican administration that is deeply hostile to them. That's how unstoppable renewables are. Nuclear is dead in the water. Any fool investing money in its future only has themselves to blame when they lose it all, or have to coming begging for bailouts.

Solar, wind, and battery storage are forecasted to provide 99% of new electricity generating capacity in 2026 according to new data released by the Energy Information Administration.

As the "Are We the Baddies?" meme suggests. If you're a country's military, in a democracy, that wants to carry out mass civilian surveillance and use killer robots, maybe you're the one with the problem. Anthropic can be as principled as they like, there are plenty who'll be happy to help - Peter Thiel's Palantir is eager and enthusiastic about implementing this agenda.

It's depressing that none of the other Big Tech firms have any scruples about this.

Pentagon threatens to cut off Anthropic in AI safeguards dispute

"There's no question about it — whether you want it or not — the best way to help some of these communities is gonna be AI-based avatars," Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said recently at an event focused on addiction and mental health hosted by Action for Progress."

Medicare and Medicaid are the US's universal healthcare programs for older and low-income people. They've faced steep cuts in funding since Trump came to power, particularly in rural areas.

New research in Rwanda and Pakistan shows LLMs can outperform human doctors in diagnostic success. We're heading for a world where everyone gets the same standard of AI healthcare, and it's near free & universally accessible. It will be a big improvement in Rwanda and Pakistan, and it will probably be an improvement for poorer people in developed countries, too.

Dr. Oz pushes AI avatars as a fix for rural health care. Not so fast, critics say

Sick of expensive gasoline and overpriced gasoline cars? Not only are EVs getting cheaper than gas cars (and still have years of economy-of-scale price reductions ahead), but paired with renewables, their fuel source is getting ever cheaper, too.

This is how the fossil fuel industry will die. The alternatives will just keep getting cheaper and cheaper. In a few years' time, it will be obvious to everyone that only spendthrift fools will be choosing gasoline-powered cars.

This state’s power prices are plummeting as it nears 100% renewables - South Australia is proving to the world that relying largely on wind and solar energy with battery back-up is incredibly cheap, with electricity prices tumbling by 30 per cent in a year and sometimes going negative

Economic "growth" seems to be doing less and less for most people. Its financial benefits mainly accrue at the very top of society; most people just get squeezed. Less housing, depressed wages, ever more crowded and less available services, the list of consequences of constant growth goes on.

The issue has a toxic element of anti-immigrant racism, but many are turning against the idea because they think the net negatives outweigh the positives. Switzerland's upcoming referendum is this in a microcosm. The right-wing anti-immigrant Swiss People's Party got 100,000 signatures to trigger their referendum, but support for the measure is also coming from outside their base. Polling has the result at near 50:50. If it passes, it will force a Western government to do something no one has ever had to do before - run a country where you cannot have endless economic growth.

Switzerland to vote on plan to cap population at 10mn: Country has 9.1mn permanent residents and experts fear the move will limit companies’ access to foreign talent