Editors note: Please bare with me as I brain dump a bunch of random thoughts. These are rough ideas that I briefly wrote about, but I'd love to go more in-depth if RPN is interested.
Concept: entertainment is shifting from mass-produced content (everyone watching the same Netflix shows) to infinite, personalized worlds generated uniquely for each viewer. I feel like there is a lot of potential here to bring a video about this topic to life using the cinematic editorial format.
How to make it a unit of conversation: the "death of Netflix/mass entertainment" angle creates immediate debate. People will share this in group chats arguing whether personalized entertainment is utopian or dystopian and I can see it circulating high-level group chats because it has so many 2nd order consequences for huge companies that produce mass media.
Making the audience the hero: the story isn't about tech companies or AI, it's about how YOUR entertainment experience will become uniquely yours. Every viewer can imagine their own personalized worlds. They're not passive consumers anymore, they're co-creators of their own reality.
Idea on intro + visual hook: open with you watching the same show as millions of others on your screen. Suddenly, the screen fragments into infinite unique versions. "Entertainment is dying. And you're about to become the director."
More info regarding the tech: “Models like Veo3 instantly create cinematic landscapes, entire universes produced on demand. Mirage generates artificial actors indistinguishable from real humans, available 24/7 without contracts or constraints. Platforms like Odyssey and Decart build responsive environments with realistic physics and meaningful consequences for every action. The interaction layer, powered by Orion-style AR glasses, makes entertainment spatial and immersive. No more screens constraining your view. Your living room transforms into alien landscapes; your gestures direct narratives. The social layer supports shared experiences without forcing identical content. You engage with your personalized version while others experience theirs, intersecting meaningfully where connection matters most. Each piece exists today, demonstrated, functional. Their convergence will create a new kind of magic.” (quote from inspo source)
Other notes: this isn't another "AI is cool" video. It's a philosophical shift in how humans will experience stories and introducing questions on what it will change.
Concept: explore the idea that despite having free access to all human knowledge via the internet we're producing fewer world changing geniuses than in past centuries (or at least it seems that way). Then dive into how the secret ingredient for genius isn't IQ or information access, it's "aristocratic tutoring." Every historical genius from Marcus Aurelius to Einstein had personal tutors who engaged them intellectually from childhood. Argue that this genius production was more reliable when it was deeply unfair (eg exclusive tutors), but that changes now with access to LLMs.
The way to structure the video: The mystery -> why aren't we making Einsteins anymore? The discovery -> it's about personal mentorship, not information. The discomfort -> this system was deeply unfair but effective. The opportunity -> technology might democratize what was once aristocratic. Payoff -> this is how you can do it.
Why people will find it interesting/compelling: it hits multiple psychological triggers. Parental anxiety about their kids potential, cultural criticism of our education system, nostalgia for a more intellectual past, fear about human relevance in the AI age, and hope that there's a fixable problem.
Other thoughts: this kinda ties into RPN’s statement about how we should treat AI as a collaborator instead of trying to outsource all of our thinking.
Concept: video on Mechanize’s technological determinism article ie technological progress isn't something we choose, it's instead predetermined by physical constraints and economic incentives. We're not ship captains charting our course, we're a stream flowing downhill, following the path of least resistance. AI automation isn't a choice we're making, it's an inevitability we're experiencing. This could be visually conveyed well using the cinematic editorial format.
Why this idea is compelling/interesting: “the future of AI is already written” is clear, polarizing, and specific. It’s a bold evidence backed claim that flips the AI debate into a strategy question. Plus the stakes are personal. That relevance pulls in founders, operators, and policy folks (high-level people, which is the goal).
Positioning it in a way to provide value rather than scare the audience: those who understand this can position themselves accordingly while others waste energy fighting the inevitable. That's a message that makes your audience feel both informed and empowered.
One of many possible ways to approach the video structure: start with the illusion of choice (we think we control technology), reveal the pattern through historical examples, apply it to AI (showing how GPT-4 emerged exactly when the compute became available), and end with the conclusion that the outcome is actually desirable.
Visual ideas: the telephone being patented by two different inventors on the exact same day in 1876, the aluminum smelting process discovered simultaneously across an ocean, aztec and spanish civilizations independently developing nearly identical technologies despite 10,000 years of separation, the human eye and octopus eye evolving the same design independently. These aren't abstract concepts, they're simple facts that make viewers go "wait, what?"