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Walt Disney has formed a task group to investigate artificial intelligence and how it may be used across the entertainment business, even as Hollywood writers and performers fight to limit the industry's use of the technology.
The firm, which was founded early this year, before the Hollywood writers' strike, is trying to create AI applications in-house as well as build collaborations with startups, according to three people.
Disney now offers 11 job positions for people with experience in artificial intelligence or machine learning, demonstrating its interest.
According to the job descriptions, the positions span virtually the entire company, from Walt Disney Studios to the company's theme parks and engineering group, Walt Disney Imagineering, to Disney-branded television and the advertising team, which is looking to build a "next-generation" AI-powered ad system.
A Disney representative declined to comment.
According to one of the people, an internal advocate who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, legacy media businesses such as Disney must either figure out AI or risk obsolescence.
This advocate views artificial intelligence as one method to help limit the skyrocketing expenses of film and television production, which may reach $300 million (approximately Rs. 2,484 crore) for a blockbuster feature release like "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" or "The Little Mermaid." To break even on such expenditures, enormous box office returns are required. The cost reductions would be realised over time, according to the individual.
According to the second person and a former Disney Imagineer who declined to be identified because he was not authorised to talk publicly about the company's parks business, AI may improve customer service or generate new interactions.
The former Imagineer cited Project Kiwi, which employed machine-learning techniques to build Baby Groot, a miniature, free-roaming robot that resembles the actions and demeanour of the "Guardians of the Galaxy" figure.
Machine learning, a component of AI that allows computers to learn without being programmed, influences its visual systems, allowing it to recognise and navigate things in its surroundings. According to the former Imagineer, Baby Groot will interact with guests someday.
In Hollywood, AI has become a ticking time bomb, with writers and performers seeing it as an existential danger to their jobs. It's a major sticking point in contract talks with the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America, both of whom are on strike.
Disney has been cautious about how it handles artificial intelligence in public. The visual effects supervisors on the latest "Indiana Jones" picture emphasised the hard labours of more than 100 artists who spent three years attempting to "de-age" Harrison Ford so that the octogenarian actor might seem as his younger self in the film's early minutes.
'STEAMBOAT WILLIE' is a fictional character.
Since its inception, Disney has made significant investments in technology innovation. It premiered "Steamboat Willie" in 1928, the first cartoon with a synchronised soundtrack. According to a check of US Patent and Trademark Office data, it currently has over 4,000 patents with applications in theme parks, films, and merchandising.
Bob Iger, currently in his second term as CEO of Disney, declared technology adoption one of his three top goals when he was appointed in 2005.
Three years later, the corporation launched a large R&D collaboration with premier technical institutions across the world, sponsoring labs at the Swiss Federal Institute of technical in Zurich and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Pittsburgh lab was closed in 2018.
Disney's US research division has created a mixed-reality device called "Magic Bench" that allows users to share space with a virtual figure on screen without the use of special eyewear.
According to its website, Disney Research in Switzerland has been investigating AI, machine learning, and visual computing. It has spent the previous decade developing "digital humans" that are "indistinguishable" from their corporeal counterparts, as well as fantastical figures "puppeteered" by performers.
According to a person acquainted with the situation, this technology is employed to supplement digital effects rather than replace actual performers.
Its Medusa performance capture system has been utilised to recreate performers' faces without the use of typical motion-capture techniques in over 40 films, including Marvel Entertainment's "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever."
"AI research at Disney goes back a very long time and revolves around all of 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?" asked one Disney executive.
Hao Li, CEO and co-founder of Pinscreen, a Los Angeles-based startup that builds AI-driven virtual avatars, stated that while studying in Zurich from 2006 to 2010, he collaborated on many research papers with Disney's lab.
"They basically do research on anything based on performance capture of humans, creating digital faces," Li, a former research lead at Disney-owned Industrial Light & Magic, explained. "Some of these techniques will be adopted by Disney entities."
Last year, Disney Imagineering revealed its first AI-driven character experience, the D3-09 cabin droid in the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser hotel, which answered questions on a video screen and learned and evolved based on exchanges with visitors.
"Not only is she a great character to interact with and always available in your cabin, which I think is very cool, behind the scenes, but it's also a very cool piece of technology," Imagineering executive Scott Trowbridge explained at the time.
