Bob Iger calls on Hollywood to 'embrace' technological change, including AI

Release date: May 28, 2024

Bob Iger calls on Hollywood to 'embrace' changing technology, including AI

Movieguide® Contributor

Speaking at the Canva Create showcase, Disney CEO Bob Iger said that new technologies like artificial intelligence should be embraced, not shunned.

“Walt Disney himself, early on, was a big believer in using technology to tell better stories, and he thought that technology in the hands of great storytellers was incredibly powerful,” Iger said during his Showcase presentation.

According to Variety, “Iger, who is an investor and director of the privately held online design platform, praised Canva for embracing the potential of generative AI tools and other cutting-edge technologies to make high-end visual media design tools easily accessible to everyday users.”

He called on the creative community to change how they think about artificial intelligence.

“Rather than focusing on destructive power, [tech’s] “It makes us better, it makes us able to tell better stories. Not just better stories, but the ability to tell them to more people,” he said.

“You can't get in the way of that. No generation has ever been able to stop technological progress,” Iger added. “What we're trying to do is embrace the change that technology has created and use it as the wind at our back, not the wind in our face.”

Iger's interest in embracing emerging technologies isn't surprising: Last year, Disney created a task force to explore how it could use AI internally.

“The group, which launched ahead of Hollywood's writers strike earlier this year, aims to develop AI applications in-house as well as partner with startups,” CNBC reported.

“On the one hand, I think it's disruptive and will commoditize something that is so inaccessible to today's artists and storytellers… In the good old days when I was making animated films, it took 500 artists five years to produce a world-class animated film… I don't think three years from now it will take even 10 percent of that,” he said.

But WISH executive producer Peter Del Vocio stressed that the company is taking a cautious approach to the technology.

“We are taking a very cautious approach. [to AI]”We're interested to see how things develop,” he said. “Honestly, we like tools that enable artists to improve their work. But we don't see it as an end in itself.”

Movieguide® previously reported on AI in the entertainment industry:

While many in Hollywood worry that artificial intelligence will take over the entertainment industry, others believe the technology will never be able to replace the “human experience.”

According to Deadline, “AI became a hot topic in Hollywood last year, with both the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and SAG-AFTRA at odds with studios over the issue. The unions insisted on including clauses in film and TV contracts to protect their members from the use of AI, which was one of several stumbling blocks that ultimately led to two simultaneous 100-day-plus strikes.”

Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos spoke out about AI while appearing on actor Rob Lowe's podcast.

“I think the winners will be the creators who learn to use these tools better than anyone else — not the companies that create, but the people that create,” Sarandos said.

But he doesn't see AI replacing filmmakers because “AI can replicate or mimic those things, but there's an authenticity and reality of the human experience that humans see, and they can tell when it's not real.”