Technology, Connected - How Hollywood Uses AI - David Bianchi on Building RZR Outside the Studio System

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

When Hollywood passed on RZR, David Bianchi chose to build the series independently.He used NFTs to finance production, retained creative control, and incorporated AI tools such as Midjourney into the development process. The result was an Emmy-nominated science-fiction series created outside the traditional studio system.In this episode, Bianchi explains how Hollywood uses AI, where those tools are genuinely useful, and what independent creators can gain by controlling their funding, production and intellectual property.We discuss:How NFTs helped fund RZR without surrendering ownershipHow Bianchi used AI tools during production and what they savedWhat final cut means for an independent creatorThe practical limits and advantages of Web3 financingWhy creative ownership matters as studios and platforms adopt AIThis is a conversation about AI in Hollywood, independent production and the economics of creative control. It examines what becomes possible when filmmakers use new technology without relying on the traditional studio model.--Timestamps(00:00) Beyond Hollywood Gates: Funding Film with Web3(05:28) TikTok to Emmy: Finding New Talent in the Digital Age(11:07) Own the Story: How NFTs are Changing Fan Engagement (22:42) AI vs. Artist? Democratizing Creativity on Screen(31:26) Dystopian Visions, Real Tech: Learning from Sci-Fi (37:53) Finding Calm in Chaos: Bianchi's Creative Process --Learn more: www.thinkingonpaper.xyz

Disruptors and curious minds, the traditional Hollywood studio system is being challenged in real time. What we think of art is being redefined and today's guest is leading the charge in both of those things. What happens when blockchain meets filmmaking? How can NFTs change how stories are funded, how they're distributed, how they're owned? Is AI creative? How is Hollywood using this crazy tool? One question we'll seek to answer among others is how will your experience. change over the next few years.

Mark, who are we talking to and what is this all about? Very animated, Jamie. I love it. And today we're joined by David Bianchi, actor, filmmaker, NFT, poet. He has over 100 credits in TV and film. Including Criminal Minds, Resident Evil and Pretty Little Lies. His Web 3 series, Razor, is available on Gala now, and I've been watching a few episodes of that. And if you like sci-fi, check it out.

And his new film Catalyst is out now for your. Your viewing pleasure, David Bianchi, welcome to thinking on paper. Thank you for thinking on paper with us. Well, thank you for that. I think that given the conversation, the title of your podcast is kind of oxymoronic. But it's exciting, man. It's still, I still think on paper. I'm always like, I've got my notes.

We have lots. It's behind the scenes. Behind the scenes is where the paper exists. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. So thank you for that great introduction. I'm really, really excited to dive at this conversation.

Thank you for being here. And maybe for people who are not familiar with your work, could you give us a broad, high-level view of what Razor is? And what is an exclusively Web 3 miniseries film production? I started producing independent film. I think I directed my first short in 2003. Over the course of 21 years, I've just been producing primarily things that I could act in. That's always been my vehicle. And so through that process of see I want, I've got really, really good at producing.

And then flash forward to 2021 is when I was really logested into the world of NFTs, where I was arguably one of the first people to mint a short film as a one-of-one Ethereum NFT, an ERC-721 at the time. This predated the board APYat Club. And so that went really, really well. And the people that bought the $69 million people ended up acquiring my Genesis piece, which is a piece called I Can't Breathe, donated all these proceeds to the George Ford Memorial Foundation. And then that was a quick meteoric rise. Next thing, you know, I was curated at Aral Basel and all these incredible places for the films that I produced that were told entirely unspoken work poetry that are socially conscious. And what I found unique about that was that the NFT space for the first time in my career was heralding my work as a David Bianchi film. And I really started to study the power of what blockchain could do for film at large and intellectual property.

And I was immersed. And I haven't turned back since to get to your question about what Razor is. So Razor is a product of 21 years of producing, and it's the first Hollywood-produced streaming series to ever be produced entirely by Web3 companies. So from a funding perspective and from a production perspective, and actually produced with the intention that it will be released on a layer one blockchain. Through my team, I was able to create a really exceptional show. And I say that because I ended up, through my experience in my relationships in Hollywood, I was able to take it to the highest levels of television and got it to earn a primetime Emmy Award nomination. You know, I mean, that is the pinnacle. Yeah.

Yeah, thank you. That is the pinnacle of awards and television. It doesn't get any bigger than that, right? Do you see yourself as a trailblaze? I know that people throw these words around, willy-nilly sometimes, but what you're describing is an opportunity, not just for filmmakers, but for writers, content producers, musicians. Jeremy might add his awesome analogy about highways going to Hollywood,

but it's setting the precedent for a new way for artists to create. Yeah, I mean, I've been called that a lot. I don't like to say it myself. I think it's a bit self-indulgent. If you say it yourself, it's like someone can say you're humble, but as soon as you say it yourself, you're no longer, right? But I do concede that I am on the cutting edge of immersive technology,

transmedia producing, and carving new experimental pathways for Phil. That I do feel pretty good about saying, and it's the truth. I'm always looking for new ways. And if Hollywood in 2020 was funding my projects, I would have never turned left and found NFTs. And the only reason I did that was because I've been collecting Bitcoins is 2017, so I was already aware of the underlying tech, right? So NFTs was the side effect of Hollywood closing the doors on me.

Just like crowdfunding became the side effect of independent filmmakers not being able to get their money. Even if you look at the Duplas brothers right now, these guys are legends. Like these guys are publicly doing a crowd fund for independent television because the studios are telling them that their work is not valuable. And these are the guys that pretty small, wild country for Christ's sake. there's histories of cycles with open systems and closed systems. And there's a great book by Tim Wu called The Master Switch that talks about how film was closed and then was open and then was closed again. And we're in another cycle of it opening up. And let's really talk about what blockchain does,

what this technology, what this methodology of production really changes for creators like you. So what were you frustrated with about traditional production, about traditional film financing that led you to go, man, we got to break outside the system. We got to do something different. Who closed that door and why? Yeah. So on the production side, whether it, whether it's blockchain or not, the mechanics of filmmaking don't change yet. There's only been one major tectonic shift in the filmmaking process going all the way back to Thomas Edison's technology. And that is the advent of digital cameras. So that's the only major disruption in filmmaking in over 100 years, except now we're kind of on the precipice of text of prompt and generative

of AI. That's another major disruption that we'll talk about. But production-wise, as far as filmmaking is concerned, I'd explain blockchain to people in the web two spaces. I say, look, it's just another means of distribution, period. Because if I have a film that I meant as an NFT, whoever owns is whoever owns it. But if it's on OpenC in the world that large, can press play and watch it, that's a distribution platform, right? And it's just another mechanism for delivery. Now, what comes with that is the smart contract and digital ownership and its own native cryptocurrencies and sort of the financial mechanisms, which are very, unique and very different.

You know, just like streaming is a different distribution mechanism. What has it opened? Well, I think that it's opened a new community aspect to the distribution process and also to the funding process. But more importantly, what is the promise of Web 3, right, which is digital ownership? Web 1 was the information highway. Web 2 was password keeping the information highway. And then Web 3 is digital ownership and then the currency associated with that.

That's the stuff that makes it very interesting that for the first time, and we talk about razor the first time in Hollywood history, fans can own moments of a Hollywood produced scene as their own digital collectible. That's really fucking interesting to me. And the immersive aspects that it creates for fan bases and for communities to go deeper into the lore of a chosen intellectual property. That's the stuff that I find really exciting. The idea of owning a scene in a movie, how much of the population are down with wanting to own like a little piece of a digital scene versus how many people just want to sit on their couch and be entertained? I want that scene in Reservoir Dogs when they're all walking down the street and the music's

playing. I want that scene on my wall on a digital photo. Well, okay, so that's a twofold question. So the Reservoir Dogs question, Quentin Tarantino got sued by Mirabax when he tried to NFT, you know, unproduced pages from Pulpiction. Because at the end of the day, it was proven and they ended up settling outside of court that Quentin Tarantino doesn't own Pulp Fiction, Mirabax owns Pulp Fiction. And so the studios have what I call intellectual property entanglements. So me as an independent creator, I own the IP, the merchandising and derivatives around Razor. So as a result of that, I can then create permissions where people can own these NFTs because

the chain of command lands with me, right? So that's number one. Number two, who? Well, the same people that want to collect these digital scenes are the same people that want to collect Pokemon Go are the same people that want Don Mattingly's rookie card or the same people that want Michael Jordan's rookie card. In every segment of entertainment, there's also a sub-segment of collectability vultures, if you will. Some people want to buy that gold record that they can hang on the wall, even though they're not music producers. Some people want to buy the lightsaber and the poster.

But what's important is, why do I want to buy the poster of the lightsaber? I want to buy the poster of the lightsaber because the underlying IP Star Wars is fucking incredible, and I want to own a piece of that memorabilia. Now, we as collectors, we want to collect a lot, but we don't want to become hoarders. That's what's great about digital collectibles, is that like I can own a lot, but it doesn't stack up in my closet. So the moral of the story here is that the underlying IP has to be incredibly strong, because otherwise a collectible is with fuck all, right? Because especially in digital collectibles, there's this thing called intrinsic value. Intrinsic value is essentially what the marketplace is willing to pay for it. And the marketplace is willing to pay for whatever the IP's velocity

is dictating. So what I'm doing with Razor is that Razor is a great IP and people are buying these NFTs because they see value in these. That's just from an earnability perspective with the watch and earn, but also from a collectability perspective because they love the IP. If we take what I've done with Razor, and let's say, for example, we flip it on its head and it's a tent pole project, like, I don't know, let's just call it a complete unknown because that's on the tip of my tongue, right? Let's call it that. Let's call it, you know, get out, or one of these major studio tent poles. Now you've got a global home. that can create value around a digital collectible, right?

But studios have trouble with that because of the intellectual property entanglements and everything that comes with that. Now, the other final piece of that is the, you know, the scarlet letter associated with cryptocurrency and Web 3. Now, with this incoming administration, not the incoming, but the administration, Trump administration, and the laxing of the SEC and so on and so forth, I think you're going to see a lot more comfortability

from the studio system entering Web 3 because it was still a major scarlet letter during the Biden administration. And so I think these lax policies are going to open the doors even more, even more. So you make a good point on the value piece of this puzzle. And I tend to think about it two different ways. So if we strip out Stevie Wonder's stem of the keyboard line of superstition, people have listened to that millions of times. They've gone through life moments with that in the background.

And it's part of them. And if I go over here and bang out a new synth line here and I put it out, it's going to have far different value between, you know, what Stevie Wonder and that history means, not just Stevie Wonder, but the history of that song, the association of that song to what I put out here, because there's no history and there's no association. But on the flip side, what's really interesting, that these, these collectibles can actually give you access to experiences and participation like never before. Maybe they can get to add a note to it. Maybe they can get to add a note or tell me how to structure it or something or some kind of participation. So how is that balanced in the value equation? Is

participation part of the equation for for razor for what gal is doing participation is absolutely paramount to what I described as intrinsic value right you know look at look at influencer culture right fluencers are worth more when there's more people around they're worth less when there's less people around so the more people around a specific um nfts collection or to your point a musical stem the more provenance associated with that than the more value is going to have you know to your um example you know we've been trying to do stuff like that since 2021. I did a generative,

I did a generative fractal spoken word poetry, NFT collection, which was wildly heavy, right? Async was a platform that is now gone defunct. But A sync was doing that where they were splitting up stems and allowing people to manipulate stems. And at the time, it was really interesting.

But at the end of the day, it was too highbrow and too techie that the small segment of the tech-minded people in Web 3 wasn't enough to sustain the tech stack that they built. So how do we create these unique, interesting opportunities within Web3, but still have them be relatively accessible to the masses in the community at large? That's the really tricky thing. The question is how do we make these accessibility points important to people?

A great example is with Razor. So decentralization is the philosophy of blockchain. So I wanted to decentralize the casting process. I said to myself, well, look, I wrote one page of dialogue, what we call sides in the casting. and it was unisex. And I said, okay, guys, here's one page. I'm putting this out to anybody on Twitter space. You guys get to upload your own audition, put it up on Twitter, hashtag RZR casting,

and then we're going to take the top 20 of those out of the however many come in. I'm going to choose the top 20. Out of those 20, I'm going to give them to the NFT community. And then you all are going to vote on who's going to have a speaking role and earn their screen actors guild card by playing in Razor. I don't care if you have an agent and manager, as long as you live in the domestic 50, and you could get yourself to set. You fit those parameters, great. So now the thing that I found interesting was people actually stepped up and did it.

But what I did find interesting was that the volume of submissions was far lesser than what I thought it would be. So that's an example of the access points are really incredible cherries on top of a cupcake. But if nobody knows the cupcake exists, it doesn't fucking matter. And so that's the tricky thing is we have to really communicate to people that these things are happening, but people have to understand the value and what is the why proposition. choice is inherent in blockchain. There's not one size fits all. It depends on what you're building.

Obviously, some projects are much more community-based where that active participation is warranted. Some projects there, like my mad visioner, I'm going to create this film, and I'm going to create this album, and you can be along for the ride, and at the end, you can have some stills or maybe some of this.

And it's almost this, create your own IP. And it gives creators that freedom, that choice to give as much or as little as they want. and which didn't exist before, which doesn't exist in the traditional gate-kept Hollywood paradigm. Yeah, I mean, if you look, if, if Bobby and Idaho does it, or Kai Sanat does it, you're going to see very different results.

Exactly. But you look at guys like Kai Sanat and he's like, I don't need to get experimental. I'm fucking print millions of dollars every month. Mr. Beast doesn't need to get experimental with Web 3. Although, well, yes, he makes, he makes D-Gen bags, but he's not dropping a meme coin, He's not dropping an NFT project giving people accessibility because they bought a digital currency.

Like he doesn't need to do all that. That's super experimental. What he's making in his own private bags is his own private bags. But I use that as an example is that the only people that need to get experimental are people that, for whatever reason are getting the golden goose in the big wide, wide world. I don't see Scorsese minting a collection anytime soon. That's because of his existing. He's got some Bitcoin, though. Smart map.

That's because of his position within the existence. producing production framework, right, in the, in the process. The old system, he's, he is navigate that. He's moving freely through that. There's no friction, but there's friction for many others. And let me ask you this. Could, would, would Razor have happened without this methodology, this use of? Absolutely not.

Absolutely not. No way, no how. No way, no how. The only reason why Razor exists was predicated off the clout that I had built as an NFT artist. You know, when I met Sarah Buxton, who was the CEO at the time, I was speaking at VCon for Gary Vaynerchuk, the first one, and we met. Now, if I, if my career wasn't predicated by becoming one of the few, I guess, smart thought leaders in film three, as we call it, that luck, as you call it, which is preparation, met opportunity, would have, wouldn't have nourished.

So because of what I was already doing, it made sense. And they were already in the process of building this ecosystem that I knew nothing about. So when I sat down, down and I pitched Gala and I talked to them about what I wanted to do. In fact, speaking to Catalyst at the time, Catalyst was already complete. I had actually pitched them Catalyst to fractionalize it and meant that. I was like, look, let's just make it easy. I've got a done movie. Let's go. But they were like, no, no, no, we want to do something from scratch because they wanted to have that community engagement from the sort of from the bulb of the growth. And I was like, okay, well, that's really interesting. So I said to him, I was like, well, look, I got this

idea. It's like Black Mirror meets Mr. Robot. It appeals to the web three. community it's blockchain it's cyberpunk it's really tech infused it appeals to the 18 to 45 year old white male demographic which is basically blockchain you know perfect and i was like and i think we do a short form because that'll appeal to short attention spans and blockchain i was like so that's basically the pitch and they said david we love this idea can you send me a deck and i said great yeah i'll send you a deck no problem i had no fucking deck like i had nothing like i had the idea i didn't know the title i didn't know grim's name i didn't know the main character so i just went to work and i can came up with this idea and I started brain-dumping and I was inspired by

neural link technology about what Rila Moss was doing at the time is still very inspired by that so that was basically the architecture of and I sent over a deck and then I think within a week they said hey we want to do this and then we just boom went to work we produced three NFT collections and even before we went into production I was even writing the script that I'd already built three NFT collections and so on and so forth that we released to the community so if it worked for Wet Three with Gala wanting to build this new dream ecosystem if it weren't for the work that I was doing. Razor absolutely would not exist because there's no world in traditional Hollywood where they

want to make a basically a Mr. Robot meets cyberpunk short form series about neural implants, black market crime and cryptocurrency. Like that just doesn't exist. And I can further authenticate that as I've talked about traditional distribution channels around Razor and unanimously. I'm talking about the biggest distributors in television. I'm not going to name drop them, but the biggest sales teams in television unanimously said, David, we love that. this show, but we just don't have a sales position for it. There's nobody in foreign sales that wants eight, 14-minute episodes. In drama or sci-fi, drama is typically 45 to 60 minutes per episode based on streaming

trends, and comedy is typically 23 to 30 minutes based on streaming trends, right? So unless you're creating four by 45, or excuse me, six by 45 or eight by 45, you don't have a sellable drama series, period. I think what's interesting about that is the fact. mindset that is producing those old blocks and widgets, the 45-minute blocks and widgets, there's a disconnect between how the younger generation is ingesting this content. They want, there are three-minute episodes that get tremendous viewership. I think it's really interesting speaking to that and how the disconnect is starting to short-circuit

a little bit. So we've talked about the production side. We've talked about the creator side. Let's focus on the audience side. This whole idea of owning and earning. So if I buy a scene and Mark watches it, I can get a little bit of film token on there. And then we also have this idea of theater nodes where you could be curators and hosts. What else are we missing on the audience side that this new tech is enabling that people can get excited about?

Velocity. What do you mean? It's plain and simple. You know, you can have the shiniest Maserati. But if it's sitting in the garage and no one knows you have it, what's the point? Having an incredible tech stack is only as good as cultural adoption. And one of the things that a gala has done exceptionally well is create these really elegant UIUXs and this really elegant back of the house engineering with the watch and earn ecosystem and the tokenomics. And they have entrusted me, I mean, Razor launched their platform.

And, you know, the pitches ecosystem, for example, that's a very, very powerful way to essentially, you know, be able to crowd fund your own projects within the Gala film ecosystem with its own native currency. It's a very exciting proposition. But one of the things that I got to admit is one of the weakest links there is their ability to get it out to a massively wide audience. So this is public information. If you go on the Gala Film site and you go on the charts tab, you'll be able to see the viewership of each of the IPs that they host on Gala Film. You'll see that Razor is the clear leader if you look at the all time. Razor is a clear leader with about 600,000 views and about 250,000 unique viewers. And as far as distribution is concerned, those numbers are negligible, you know.

I mean, nowadays, if you don't have a million views on YouTube, who the fuck are you? You know? And then if you look at it and then if you look at the number two, the number two title on their platform, which is ghosts of ruin, they've only had thousand total views. I think maybe 60,000 total views. So as far as distribution is concerned, those numbers, again, they're inconsequential. And that is one of the biggest challenges that I think Gala has faced. There were millions of people on this planet that would love Razor, but they just haven't seen it because they don't know it exists. So my job as a producer, not as an actor, is how do I proliferate the brand to the best in my ability?

So by the grace of God, and I say that by the grace of God, because I struck lightning and Ebola when it comes to Razor because I own the IP, right? So that was Gala following the philosophies of Web 3. They said, David, you're the artist. You go ahead and do this. We're going to help fund the project. We're going to shoot at the project. But we're not going to get in the way of your creativity. That never fucking happens in Hollywood.

I went to production, wrote the script in my writing partner, produced three NFT drops. We went all the way through principal photography. I didn't even show the executives at Gala Daily. They didn't see Daily. And I picture locked it. Daily is just for just to break it down. Dalies are snippets and snapshots of what happened during a day of shooting. Correct.

Typically in the studio system, dailys are basically the footage that was shot each day. And typically in the studio system, those rushes, they're called rushes, are sent to the executives. And they get to thumb through them and they either give a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Now, what that does is that it slows down the creativity. It turns the speedboat into a tugboat because you've got to go through layers of chain of command and approvals. Now, because Gala trusted me, they just let me do a razor is what it is and got to be a primetime Emmy nominated series because I didn't have to ask Big Brother every single time I wanted to make a decision.

Even if you look at the archetypes in Hollywood, even Tom Cruise doesn't have that kind of creative prominence. You know. Back to velocity, right? Back to velocity, what you said. You said that with Tarantino. I think that's a perfect point.

Let's open Pandora's box. So we've spoken about the distribution. We've spoken about blockchain and web thing. Let's talk about the creativity. I've got two questions for you, David. I've got one is how do you think and define creativity? What does creativity mean for you? And the second part of that question is, has that changed in the past couple of years as AI has entered your life?

Has the very human notion of creativity for you changed at all? Yeah, powerful question. Creativity is a side effect of an individual's perspective on the world. So how I see and move and view the world, my creativity that is birthed is the side effect of my perception. and that is conditioned by a multitude of things going all the way back to my formative years. And so that stuff is followed by my perception of the world, which instigates the creativity and then the create instigates the inspiration and the inspiration instigates the product. Now, how do we get to the product is where artificial intelligence lands?

Because that is basically the break in the stream, the break in the riverbed that converges the water into a different direction to ultimately get to the sea. artificial intelligence right now, I think for creatives, and I'll speak from a filmmaking process, is basically creating an accessibility that otherwise didn't exist. It's what digital cameras did in the late, in, I don't know, the early 2000s or so. You know, it gave people the ability to have a relatively decent looking image and shoot films without having to do with processing and labs and digital interface scanning and all the things and all the clunky things that come with celluloid. It created an accessibility. And that to me, I think is the biggest thing that

artificial intelligence is doing. It's giving people accessibility. Our ability to text to prompt and scour the entire internet in a matter of seconds. That's power. And so it's putting power in the hands of the creatives. That I find very, very interesting. And the jury's out on how that's going to affect things. So within my creativity, do I use artificial intelligence? Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, when I produced Razor, and this was early January 2023, Bit Journey was still in beta mode. You know, my production designer had no idea what Mid Journey was. So I was creating all the, all the production design and all the neural diagrams and all this stuff that we needed in the background that I knew was going to be out of focus, but I needed texture. I was building all that stuff for her.

I created a whole Google drive and I just dumped it on her. I was like, here, print this, I'll print this, I'll use this, use this, use this. And so I had, if you look at Razors, it's full of screens. Now, if I had green screen that stuff, I would have had a visual effects budget that would have far superseded my production budget. But going into this as an independent filmmaker, right? You know, creativity, desperation is the mother of creativity. So how do I get creative as a producing partner, as a producer?

Got to figure out how to make this work with the money that I have. So because I was desperate, I didn't have the money, I had to figure out how to fucking make it work. So having all these screens in pre-production, I said, well, I'm going to build all these assets so that when we shoot these screens, I don't have to do compositing in any burn-ins. We're shooting stuff natively in camera.

So about 85% of the screens that you see in Razor already had assets that were on them on the day during production. They weren't burned in. So as a result of that, I was able to save a ton of money in visual effects, but that's where AI came in. Because I knew this stuff was going to be soft and out of focus. So I just go, okay, mid-tranny. Make me a diagram, that's cyberpunk, it looks like a neural scan.

That's something that like blah, blah, blah, blah. And I create all these assets and I was able to use that. We created artificial intelligence news anchors. But that fit into the world and the lore of razor. Did it take money away from actors? Absolutely. Okay. But it fits into the world.

the one I was building. So I think artificial intelligence is going to continue to not only disrupt filmmaking, but it's going to create more accessibility, which means that the dinosaurs of Hollywood, and I consider myself a dinosaur of Hollywood, if you will, we have to keep up with the 19-year-olds in Bangladesh. I've got to keep up with the 20-year-olds in Jacksonville, Florida, that are ready to take my job. And they've proven to the commercial houses and the ad houses and now the studio system that they can create stuff for a fraction of the dollar. Like if you, what was that? What's the movie, um, the movie that just won the Academy Award that was made entirely

on Blender. There's an animated series and animated feature, just won the Academy Award. It beat out a $200 million dollar Pixar film and it was made on an open source piece of tech, right? So the apex is here. And that's the biggest thing is disruption and accessibility. And that creativity is what's driving that divergence in the water. That's what's giving people to the sea.

Yeah. Wonderful example there. The technology has made a lot of things accessible for a long time. Just look at a full recording studio and analog tape is now on my iPhone. We unpacked an essay by Pachy McCormack. I don't know if you've read much of his stuff. He's been on the head of emerging tech and how it affects culture, but he has this Not boring newsletter.

Not boring newsletter. And he had one called Most Human Wins that talked about it. It was almost a guideline. It was a dispatch and a guideline for human. that want to exist in the world of technology. We have a whole episode that we dedicate to it. And I want to get your thought on his general thesis. According to what he wrote, the success of human participation in economies and creativity will be judged on their ability to move up a higher level of abstraction, meaning things that used to be something that you did, now you have to take a step

up and grab the Lego block that's already created by a tool. And you use that as your ingredient to make something new and you keep moving up. So what is your what is your thought on that? Can I just like just explain that for our listeners who have a listen to that episode? Essentially human plus AI is more than human or AI on their own when you if you're if you're thinking creatively and you're willing to put some of your old thought process in the background and move forward with AI you can create more than you could on your own and that and the people who do that who move up those layers of creativity using the tools will ultimately succeed where others don't. A thousand percent. I mean, that goes without saying. If you look at nanosurgery, if you look at

even how Tesla vehicles are produced, a man is far more capable at progress with the utility of machine. And now the mind of the machine is artificial intelligence and the ability to have their own sort of cognition, if you will, right? AI will never be sentient. They can't feel shit. But cognition? Absolutely. The fear is singularity, right? You know, I mean, we're on the edge of some sort of AGI that people are afraid of, right? Specifically in the military sector, that's terrifying if we can get, you know, a sector artificial intelligence to the point of singularity. Now we're in serious deployment issues, right? Now, to your point is that yes, Razor is a microcosm of that. I was inspired by what Elon said a long time ago. He said, look, I'm exponentially smarter with my

device in my hand. The problem is, is that the latency from device to my frontal lobe is too slow. How do we turn that trickle into a broken dam? And the way that you do that is you put the artificial intelligence on the gray matter of the brain so that the electrical circuitry is happening, is happening right there. And so to this gentleman's argument is that, yes, we as human beings will progress much, much faster, much, much further with the utility and the understanding that artificial intelligence is working for us. AI agents are here. They're not going anywhere.

More and more, AI is slowly matriculated into our culture. We're not going to think about it. People in Minnesota right now are going on Google and they're doing Google searches and it's basically LLM that's giving you the answer. And now it's starting to become normalized, right? That to me is very exciting.

You know, the prospect of singularity is terrifying. But for where we are right now, I think it's an incredible thing. And I think that we will continue to excel if we lean into this stuff. Can I ask you one question? I just want to follow on with that. Just continue that thread, that chain of consciousness. You mentioned the military.

Again, Nexus. We've spoken about dictatorship, totalitarianism and democracy and how whether our nightmares come true or whether that's just media hype. It only takes one bad and nefarious actor to ruin everything for everybody. So we don't even need to talk about military AGI if somebody's somewhere in a remote country wields that power. How do you, maybe if we borrow down on Razor and Hollywood and AI in your creative industry, how do we, or how does humanity make it safe and fair that everybody has the same access to it? And it's like, I know, I don't know much about Hollywood, but I know

that there were the writer's strikes last year. There was a lot of pushback against AI. Like, how do you and how should Hollywood think about making it universal? accessible and fair. I have to say that I don't see the word fair being injected into progress in artificial intelligence. We work and live in a capitalistic society. Film making is an autocracy for a reason, right? You can't have five directors and get through anything that decent. Too many chefs in the kitchen, as we say. So the studio system is always going to be looking to help their P&L and nowadays, you know, have to answer to their boards of directors and so on and so for. So what does that mean? The dollar is always going to win. And if artificial intelligence

is going to help cut costs and that's what it's going to be. And as that trickles down, it will not be fair to the lower man at the bottom of the pyramid. It will only be fair to the top five percent. And I think that the Screen Actors Guild specifically is making leaps in terms of trying to protect the intellectual property of our physicality because synthetic versions of ourselves are already here. Like, look, Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, like these major influences, already licensing out their synthetic selves. I mean, CAA and some of these bigger agencies, they already have photogrammetry boots so that they can scan and have synthetic doubles of all their players. Because if I can be in LA shooting something, but also in Budapest at the same time,

so you get my synthetic double for 80% of the dollar, and then you get my physical cell for 100% of the dollar. Well, then that's a win-wit for the agency and for the talent. The only thing that the Screen Actors Guild is trying to do is trying to put guardrails around the idea of synthetic doubles, because that's here. And it's here. to stay. I just don't think that there's going to be a fairness, guys, because let's be honest, look at blockchain. Financial systems, these social structures that are held by tyrants, are primarily accessible to the top 3%. As it relates to financial technological movements, the layman is usually last to the game. The retail sector is last to the game. And so I just don't see that there is going

to be much fairness. And I know that sounds very doom and gloom, but unfortunately. But it's honest. So we like kit. Thank you. I wrote an article about three or four years ago that got me thinking about these new systems and you have, I used to call them like these calcified old structures that no longer serve their participants. You said something very akin to that, David, earlier with new systems coming up. But we have to be careful, don't we, to just not move the gatekeeper to these new systems. So like we could build all these great new decentralized systems. But in the work, work of Tim Wu, Master Switch, that decentralized system can quickly turn closed and controlled again. What do we need to think about? What can we do once these decentralized systems gain so much

popularity that someone wants to control them? I'm not part of the global administrations or the global geopolitical power. But as far as I'm concerned, what tipped Donald Trump? Larry Fink tiped Donald Trump. When the likes of Larry Fink come in and say, this is the thing for the next generation of financial structures, guys like Donald Trump pay attention. When when Black Rock says, yes, the world moves. And so that's what you're just describing. At the end of the day, like, Bob Marley said something very fascinating and very simply. He says, have no fear for atomic energy, because none of them can stop the times. That's basically the theme of this whole thing. So what can we do that is within our control to get a small piece of this pie? That's all we can do. And as far as the wider world is concerned, if I live too much in the macro, I lose sight of my micro. And if I live too much in my micro, I'm not paying attention to wider trends. So it's about finding the balance of what works for you as a creative. I use artificial intelligence to my advantage so I can keep my lights on and keep producing at the highest level I possibly can. You know, I'm never going to be the guy that's going to be able

swoop in and Michael Saylor a thousand Bitcoin in a day. But I can buy a hundred bucks a week on auto buy and not even think about it. So whatever that means to you to live within this technological new wave, using it to your advantage and feeling comfortable in your own skin with where you are and your creativity. That's success. Success is peace. How do you find peace in this complicated world of technology and everlasting and ever unfolding change? It all said. Well said. We had our last guest. Last guest was in the blockchain world. And we like to link these episodes together, just like you would link your episodes of Razor together. So we had the head of products for World ID that is looking to establish a new means of

digital identity for people operating in any type of system, any kind of. type of community, Ajay left a question for you. How do you balance educating audiences about new technologies with the often dystopian narratives that come out? So whenever like, without scaring people about it. The answer to that question is you don't fucking bother, dude. If I'm trying to, like, seriously, dog, like, if I'm trying to sell you an electric car, I'm going to tell you how it works. I'm going to tell you why you need it. And I'm going to tell you how it's going to make your life better, period. So when it comes to race, for example and all the tech stuff that I use it behind the house,

if I start getting into a conversation with a Web2 person about utility and blockchain and accessibility and decentralization, they're going to tell me to fuck myself. Like, my goal is how do I sell you a sexy product that's going to make your life better? And if you choose to tap into the back of the house, that's on your own volition off the back of the successful experience that you add with my show. If you buy a mystery box and you're a Web2 user, it's because you love the show and you found interest in this platform that is streaming.

on. So I don't, I don't get into dystopian narratives because dystopian narratives are for the dorks of the, of the community. We're the only ones talking about dystopia, right? You know, the wet, two people at large, you're not thinking about dystopic tendencies and artificial intelligence because they're not learned enough to understand why that stuff even matters. Most people don't know what singularity stands for. They don't know what AGI is. And so if you don't know what AGI is, you have no reason to think about dystopia. My job is just to create the best possible piece of motion picture that can move an audience and take them on a journey and an experience. That's my job. And whatever they discover beyond that is up to them. One thing I just want the audience to understand is that whether it's blockchain

or whether it's artificial intelligence or whatever those modalities are, the only thing that you should focus on is how do you maintain a sense of serenity through all of this chaos. Because that I'm not serene inside, I don't have the ability to have the mental cognition to be creative and I don't have the physical, emotional prowess to inspire. And if I can inspire, I can't raise money. And if I can't raise money, I can't do the thing. Whether you're a filmmaker, you're a startup, it's got to come from the inside. And if I allow, if I allow these outside factors to congest me and pollute me, all I'm doing is truncating my ability to make the world a better place, period. Because your creativity is yours and the world is waiting for it. Right. So

if you get too caught up in dystopian themes, all you're going to do is put venom on your ability to make the world a better place. There you go. Hey, last quick thing. Give us a question for the next guys can be about any topic, anything, doesn't have to be tech, doesn't have to be film, storytelling. It can be about clipping your toenails if you want. No, I think that that's a great question. Is that like whether you are a tech person, whether you are a creative person, what are you doing on a daily basis to stay out of your own?

I love it. Great question. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. All right, father. Thank you so much, guys. Take it easy. Bye.

All right. We're backstage, Mark. Nice. After, geez, interesting conversation, man. I wanted to follow on the, are we going to get to. summarizes for the listeners, but the art as educational tool. And that's not the right words, but science fiction has, by look or by crook, educate millions of people about modern technology and future technology. Most of the futurists in Silicon Valley have actually been brought up on

science fiction and created the things that they are now creating because of the books that they read and because of the films that they watched. And I think that art does play a role. Anyway, I digress. Jeremy. No, here's, here's, so what I got to. out of this last bit about the dystopian future. We learn a ton about the future from science fiction novels, like you just said, 100% agree with that. And there's no, there's no debating that. What I thought was interesting about what he said was it's not the responsibility of the new users of tech to advocate for the technology. I think that's what I got out of that. And he's like, dude, I'm just trying to make a show. I'm trying to make a film. I use a certain amount of tech

to do that. My stories might be tech dystopian a little bit. But it's not his. job to advocate. It's not a documentary about the tech as it emerges. So I thought that was really interesting. So what for you, what is one thing you want the listeners to take away from this show today about the future of blockchain and filmmaking? And AI. And I think that, well, David Biankey and Razer, they, I think they give us a real glimpse of predominantly the distribution model, but also the storytelling model that could define how people, make television and film and by association of art in the coming years and decades. I know that you often speak about this dual highway leads to the promised land and you have

traditional tech and you have this new Web 3 blockchain AI, quantum, all these new technologies alongside it. And I think that Razor is an early example of what this technology can do for people. I don't know if I'm missing something yet or maybe I'm just not as excited about it. Like, even if it was like one of my favorite musicians, one of my favorite films, you know, he referenced Bob Marley. Bob Marley is one of my favorites just from a philosopher perspective that I use that term with sincerity. I don't know that I want to have a five-minute MP4 scene as a collectible. Like I don't, to me, that doesn't resonate yet. And I might just be missing the boat and not seeing, you know, what a Lego block may be.

Jeremy, you might just be old. Maybe so. I mean, the beard is gray, my friend. I don't accumulating that in a hard wallet somewhere, cold wallet somewhere that, you know, I can admit, hey, Mark, look at this thing. I can press play. And you could have seen it on your own computer. Like, I'm not there yet with it. But there's a good chance I'm missing something.

But I also, I don't think that you and me and our generation and the generation before us will ever get there because we grew up in a world where collectibles were things which you held in your hand. And for the generations growing up now, collectibles are digital. They do exist online. They do exist in their phones. And that's cool for them. And they collect and enjoy that. And I think they would collect MP4s of their favorite scenes. And then also we forgot to really, I want to go back to this a little bit just really quick.

Because we said we were going to answer the question. How is viewing a film going to change for you as an audience member? So he referenced this towards the end of the show where you could collect boxes. It's you're watching this series. And all of a sudden, boop, there's a little box that pops up. picture it like a little mystery box, right, that you could choose to buy or not buy and you buy it it has additional content or additional ways to interact with with the content that you're seeing for free. So that, I see the participation thing changing, being more bidirectional, dare we say.

Directional value exchange, bringing it back. All right, let's land the plane, Mark. Who we got next week? Who's coming up? Next week, we've got Gihalsun, who is the founder of a flock, I.O. They make LLMs. The week after that, we have a special guest, but we call can't release details of that until May. And the week after that, we have Kevin Kelly on the show. And that's pretty big. Stay tuned for Book Club, too. We're reading Irreducible by the guy that basically created the first microprocessor.

So he knows a little bit about tech, a little bit about consciousness. We're going to balance in between those two. Thinking on Paper. Dot XYZ. Check them all out. Come see us. We'll be there sooner than later. Stay disruptive.

Be curious. Keep thinking on paper. See you next week.