Rachid Nougmanov

Hey Rashid, it's a absolute pleasure to have you with us today. you have a pretty long career and I'll uh I won't do it justice as well as you would. So maybe just to start, could you give us like a brief um a brief your a brief history of what led you to um becoming I think what I would call a a storytelling expert.

Okay. Hi uh Philip. Hi Bruno. Uh well uh it's a uh to make long story short I came from architecture then I moved to uh archaeology history and then to film making and more or less all of those uh they are connected to storytelling one way or another with different material. So in the end what I'm doing right now and I published a big book about about it it's a storytelling from uh ancient times from Aristotle to Kwood from to modern days. So going through all stages and uh I used a lot of research from other people and analysis of ancient storytelling, renaissance uh shakes like Shakespeare and so on. Of course you know that as to modern times. So uh and I and of course the great research by Joseph Campbell. Mhm. And I came to my uh methodology of modern storytelling which incorporate all those systems into one and it's called dramaticon and this is the title of my book.

Can you tell us maybe a bit more on specifically on um I guess you're most famous as a filmmaker that maybe where you you had the most visible uh success but also a little bit as a as an activist. Can you maybe tell us a little bit on the two on the two sides ?

Well uh I got my share of fame. Uh my uh first feature film the needle uh it was a blockbuster in the former Soviet Union there in ' 89. It's just at the end of the Soviet Union and uh it uh got the about 30 million admissions in senior probably it's not counting the uh other media and then um I moved to uh France at the beginning of the 90s and started two things in parallel. The first thing I was studying uh film development in Los Angeles with my friends. I got a lot of friends. I visited a lot of festivals and of course I had hundreds of friends everywhere and uh I studied deeply profoundly how the stories are told because when I made my film it was all by intuition and now I wanted to understand how it works. Why millions and millions of people uh watch movies and rewatch them again and again and again ? What keeps them glued to the screen ? And uh and in parallel I was became involved in a new movement dramat democratic movements all around the former Soviet Union when they 15 republics. They uh got uh they became independent and they tried to build a new regimes there different from communist regime Soviet Union. And I wanted with all my heart to help them build a real democracy uh free countries and uh but mostly because I lived in France I would help them uh from abroad you know putting together all uh independent NOS's with their European and American counterparts and we did a lot of stuff and about 10 years of my life were spent you know working on this and developing democracy in former Soviet Union but not easy to do.

Yeah, I can imagine - but finally - the two things uh yeah the two things seem connected right because I guess freedom of speech and freedom

- of creation I guess I quite... - I'm not a politician at all you understand it's more like protection of uh human rights and love it's it's not like I don't consider myself a politician or government official or something like that it's all because of my love for freedom of expression. First of all, I wanted to see uh film making and other arts like uh uh flowing you know is in form of Soviet Union bring new revolution in the arts and so that's it's like a little bit I don't know my fantasy.

Yes. No, no, it makes a lot of sense. And and so that's a side of freedom. And then on the side of the of the book and studying what what I noticed in your book, is that some of it is expressed in the form of rules, right ? You're trying to find the patterns, the the kind of the recipe almost of, you know, what makes a good story. Um but people often think of rules as a constraint, right ? Like not freedom really per se, but I'm sure it's more nuanced than this. Can you maybe um I don't know tell us what's your um uh how you how you manage to kind of codify things, turn things into rules while still being you know an advocate for I guess freedom.

what I'm teaching I'm actually you know doing a lot of uh courses of storytelling, film making and so on. I have a lot of students and my general approach is know the rules and then break them with knowledge. because uh I think that yes the rules they could be uh like formula like they could uh stand in the way of creativity but if you don't know them how do you know that you broke the rule or not ? Now it's uh break the rules with open eyes. There's uh nothing wrong if you know how the stories been constructed in the ancient times and middle ages today and probably tomorrow. It's good to know them. It doesn't mean that you have to be the slave of those rules. Bend them. Learn them and then try to bend the rules. That's...

Can you give us Sorry. Can you give us a bit of an a taste of how these rules look like ?

more than 20 years I've been uh uh learning different systems of storytelling and trying to see what works what what not from my point of view of course and then I try to see what is uh in common between them what you know what instruments from ancient Greek theater to uh today blockbuster have in common as approximately the same methodology that uh Joseph Campbell used when he wrote you know his monoth. So he analyzed hundreds of thousands of myths trying to see the common patterns. So that's what I did as well. But uh Campbell is not a filmmaker. He is not a storyteller. He is not write a fiction books and so on. Uh he's a scientist. And uh my approach is from the point of view of creator creative person who who whose occupation is uh making stories making fiction tricking the people who believe in those fictions. So uh that's what's more focused approach and especially in film making also in theater as well because they're some

- Similar things - Well yeah

could you give us let's say I mean we talked about this before about Chinatown as one example which is kind of following certain patterns that you identified. Right. Could you contrast Chinatown with a very different film and basically maybe for us construct in which sense they are on some level similar and on some other where they are diverging but they are still fulfilling certain patterns.

in my book I am comparing uh quite a few films but uh mostly I concentrate on two films that uh at the first side you know at the first glance they don't have anything in common China down and the matrix and uh by analyzing from scene to scene uh sequence to sequence the entire path you know from the beginning through the middle to the end. I found so many so many common patterns that I explain them in detail in my book and they and then I begin to u analyze other movies that there's nothing in common with both and I find them again and again and again often.

Do you have an example maybe of that the rules for instance ?

Yeah, but differences I leave it to the creator to the creative person. Okay. what I'm interested in in what is uh unites them. Why people remain glued to the story ? No,they they keep following it. What rules are behind the surface but below the surface ? And uh actually that that's what uh my rules are about. It's this huge book. It's like almost 900 pages. So there hundreds and maybe thousands of different tools how to keep the attention of the reader or the viewer, but they all walk anywhere as I as I could find. So um that's my path. Find what unites not them different and what makes them different. This is the your personal creativity.

Could you give us the parallel between these two films at the beginning because from the outset very different settings very different context but your point is that they are actually similar if you're setting up the initial just the initial 10 minutes or whatever ofthese movies.

Yeah. original 10 15 minutes a so-called setup and there are three distinct episodes or scenes separate scenes that must be there and they are there not only in those two films and 99% of other films. What is it? First is that you establishing something you establishing the place the uh time the period of uh uh your film. You're establishing the main character, you're establishing the genre, you're establishing the tone and so on. It's all in the first three minutes. If it's not there, people they begin to lose attention. So the good examples of correctly constructed story, they always have some kind of establishment uh uh establishing scenes or establishing episodes. Then you're there, you understand what is it. You're like uh I would say I would compare it the viewer who came to watch the movie. They want to be to stand firmly on the ground. They know where they came for. They expect something. They know something about this film from ads and so on. and they're prepared and they want to be, you know, established firm established in their seats and on the screen. Well, and then you begin to shake the the ground the earth shake comes. So the next very important part of the first 10 15 minutes comes afterwards. Once you understand something what's going on, you're prepared. Uh you and this is the actually discovery greatest invent invention of um Joseph Campbell and all his followers who analyzed his book. It's the um how you would call it correctly. Joseph Campbell call it a call to adventure. What is called the adventure ? Some opportunity appears good or bad that will change your life entirely. It could be some disaster or it could be some crime if you are filming some crime story or it will new opportunity or it will be like I don't know maybe meeting a girl in romantic comedy and but that new opportunity appears in your life that's what we call call to adventure we should at this point we expect that something will happen when ordinary life will gradually disappear and we'll be yes and we will be going into deeper and deeper into new unknown territory but it's we are still there and the third part very important part that always follows this call for adventure it's plot question what I call plot question it's not enough to see some disaster or discover some danger approach in you know your life or the entire planet or whatever or your personal deals or business or whatever. But you must understand what is your place in and should you be involved or not in this opportunity. It promises something but you don't know nothing about the future. You don't know if this will turn bad. And this question can come in first 10 minutes more or less you know expressed but you understand that this question will developing and it will go until the end the very end and you'll see the entire truth that you pass through the entire story. It could be different from what you asked. It could be absolutely new discovery but without this question that you pose to yourself you will never get there. It's it's at the same time you understand that your main character considers this question but the audience too because the audience will understand where we're moving to. If you don't put this question, it can not it's uh necessarily like a piece of dialogue. It could be a it could be something read on newspaper or something that happened before your eyes nonverbal at all. But you already understand what is it about ? What are we watching ? Or maybe there's a story about ghosts and the dangers to go to this world of ghosts. or it's a should I marry her or not? I had never been married. I don't know what's going to happen and so on so on. So once the those um three major scenes or sequences established you can go to the next part and it's I when I published my first essay I would say it's was not so big but about 10 15 pages uh in the book uh published in 2004 by the University of California it was all about this how you structure these story blocks act by act. Yeah.

I love what you described because it sound sounds very practical in a way. I mean these are like very concrete advice you can give to a student I guess at university and uh obviously you you highlighted there's room right like you could do these things in many different ways but but in my mind this is kind of the the rule setting part like what are the rules in general of the of the story. What what I liked in your book is you also talk about creativity itself. You also talk about how like ideas come before you you put them into these sets of roles. Can can you maybe tell us a little bit about that ? I think that's one of your first chapters, but like where do ideas come from ?

Ideas they uh they could come from dozens of sources you know from anything. some sort of ideas they can come uh from your life of of course your own experience something happened in your life which uh changed your life and you want to tell about it it's your story or story of your family or story of a friends something that you experience more or less and you want to uh tell the story about so it's life your life your own experience another source of ideas could be someone else's life you never experienced is that you read the story in newspaper, in the book or somewhere or you saw it in the news and so and you were inspired. So this is extraordinary event that you wanted to tell to the people. You want to tell your emotions how this story is deeply touching for you. So you're like making it your own experience. You explore, you explore those people with whom that happened and you are inventing your own story based on that. Uh ideas could come from different films, books, stories you read in comic books or even video games and so from uh what what we would call a different work of art. No, you are inspired and you want to create something of your own inspired but that doesn't mean that plagar is you know let you just copy it but it has inspired you to tell your own story in this direction in this genre with the same universe or world described that's it's very very often we see it all the time when you get inspired by the works of other masters

So I like this uh I think people say that a lot for writers right like a lot of writers usually they give this advice that unless you read many books you're never going to be a good writer but on the other side some people read a lot and they never become a good writer right or some people have a rich life and they never become a filmmaker what what do you think is the um on top of having a rich life and a rich set of inputs what what makes some people so I guess so good at creating stories what gives them this uh what you may call like taste or kind of skill as a as a as a filmmaker

because this story goes through your heart. This story it's not just you know when you are doing something you're just copying something else and you analyzing why it worked or why it didn't work or so on and make it better or but first of all it doesn't have to go directly from the source to your story. It first goes through your own experience. If it doesn't go through your the filter of your own life, your own cues, your own taste, your own morality and etc etc emotions it will be there. No matter you use beautiful language, you know it's it sound good or look good but it will be there. It's not alive. We humans have some innate feeling you know it's it's it's I wouldn't call it true we all understand it's all the work of fiction books and films and music but if it doesn't have soal soul that we cannot understand what is it soul from scientific point of view it's nonsense but uh if you we don't feel it we see it's it's nothing it's just commercial stuff it's not interesting or when we look at the the AI generated uh videos or text we say it's AI slop and so but the people they're doing much more slop than AI does yes because it doesn't go through your personal vision your personal mastery of the material

This actually, I think this is a very good occasion to talk about and start our discussion about AI and its role in the creative process and more widely in the production process that you alluded to before. I have two questions. So, the framework you give we alluded you kind of pointed to before the rules. Um, I imagine this is also if you're a learner, if you're beginning to acquire um skills about film making, understanding the process, these rules are also very helpful because they are give you an analytic framework, right ? You can look at let's say the matrix and Chinatown and as you point out I mean there are close similarities in the structure the call to action in very different forms but it's very useful as a framework. Yeah. Um I could easily imagine that you give your framework to AI and AI could do a very decent job at analyzing different movies from that perspective right but when it comes to the last point you mentioned this kind of from the heart right it's falling short. Yeah. Can you to give your perspective ?

Yeah, this is extremely important when we are talking about AI and it's we should probably come back a little bit what is AI and what I use it for. There are two there's many more of course but two different applications of AI in the arts we are talking about the arts I'm not a scientist notician art some instruments they don't need to have their own experience they have the set of rules grammar uh orographical errors formatting and all this stuff technical stuff you don't need your hard you know to make correctly. So this is like something inbuilt fun fun functions that don't need personalization but everything becomes different when you need to make choices and here just simple analytics mimicking some systems is not enough and that's where we can expect the so-called slop and this part of the artificial intelligent if it's used on your computer on walk and so on is a completely different from the other one that uses maybe for research or corrections and so on. I would call it let let for uh purposes of our conversation let's call it an agent. Mhm. is something different at least outside of the this AI that simply you know corrects your what you're doing or giving you some information resurgences it is creative AI and here we should ask ourself what is it this agent if we teach this agent to some systems and we upload some different methodology for storytelling and so we are we are not going anywhere. It will be the same stuff that we when we are uh correcting your grammar but in the sense of just mechanical apply application of uh some different dramatic rules to your

can I can I interject choice is choice is super important as you alluded to why is it so central to that creative part and it cannot be when I understand you correctly outsourced easily to an agent or some AI

Because in the art. We are working actually with emotions with the emotions of the creator and with most importantly with the emotions of the user or consumer or the viewer or reader. And the emotional part is cannot be explained by simply describing what emotion is and how it is um handled in different systems. No, it will be just compilation of possible emotions expressing by the author by this writer by this researcher and so on but it will be zero exactly zero emotions on the part of the agent AI agent. So that's where we come to something important that this agent must have agent must understand and feel human nature that's where we come to I would say machine learning and how we learn the machine we take the already existing system that you can just upload something and it will know everything or we go step by step. That's a big difference.

So when I understand you correctly, just to just to clarify this, you're basically thinking about learning your own model if you want training it in a sense that it can capture or can build a model of human emotions broadly defined.

You can feel emotions not understand. Understanding emotions is important part. It comes later when you already mature AI, mature agent. Uh the first steps you must feel the emotions. Uh just um theoretical.

Yeah. Thought experiment. Thought experiment. Yes.

I thought experiment. I would begin from point zero when you this AI it has some inbuilt functions structure but it's absolutely blank in the sense of emotions of self-awareness and you begin to learn it it begins to learn what is it what am I AI should ask himself What is it ? This person looking at me is speaking and saying something to me. How could I understand ? What is it ? I don't know anything. I don't know English. I don't know Russ. I don't know any language. And he begin talking with me and I hear I can film I can see this person and I can feel myself. So uh there are two important parts. There are many others of course but two two very important parts uh I think in machine learning is uh to feel such basic stuff like uh pleasant unpleasant dangerous or good for you hunger or satisfaction or some disease or something something that brings makes you feel uncomfortable. and very simple simple simple ways those things that would been built there. This like um sensor sensors like it's easy to understand temperature of a processor of the computer at certain point it will be uncomfortable. It doesn't understand it's over this temperature it's considered dangerous. You should stop and use some cooling system and so no

it must feel it's very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Oh

that's it's for you for I don't know programmers.

Yes. Yes. I really like what you feel it not not

understanding how hot is it? It's 70 80 Celsius or 100 Celsius whatever. No, he doesn't understand. Little baby doesn't understand it's in just feel uncomfortable and feel comfortable. Yes. Um uh also such things as um name reaction to the voice because the name when you speak with it it be it begins the little baby begins to understand it's me not the other it's anybody else. Self awareness comes with the experience. But it's all what we are talking about is some um analogy of physical experience right but uh there's also must be a brain in development and I would say we should take a closer look of nonchsky findings about the how the uh real children master language.

I think it's quite striking. Sorry, from the outside. What you describe is obviously a very different form of AI than the focus is currently on. Yes. When you speak any language,

it begins to hear first words and sentences. But as Nom Chomsky said which is very important that we can be uh implemented in the artificial artificial intelligence is what No Chsky called the language acquisition device what you said it's like a h it's a hypothesis of course it's like it's it's like children possess some sort of internal No, subconscious mental facility.

But it but what you describe also goes beyond because it requires a physical embodiment. The temperature for instance it needs to be placed in some sense in the in the specifics and in the physics of the environment and react to it.

So it's I would call it it's innate universal grammar rules which you can find in any language you know even before the child begins to speak some English or Indian or whatever language and uh so we should find all those universal grammar rules that Chsky was talking about and he argues that all human languages they share common underlying grammatical blueprint. So we should understand what is in the language of the artificial intelligence what how it translates to this specific task and I think it is possible also

I'd love to uh uh first of all thank you so much for going there it feels like super central to the question of you know how to make AI better than it is today right um just to just to clarify one thing so the so already there's already some work from AI companies into what they would call emotions, but usually it's it's usually it's just about reading like say someone's voice. You know, you have some AI now, they listen to your voice and they're going to say, "Oh, you sound upset or sad." Or you you could do the same with an image, right ? You could look at a picture and say, "Okay, this person is crying or they're happy." And we know how to do that with machines, but it's it's only a first step, right ? Like you're talking about something where there's more interpretation than this. Like you're trying to put meaning on top of it, right ? It's not just uh the immediate emotion. It's more um it seems to relate more to storytelling essentially what you're talking about. You seem to understand if the story is hot or cold, right ? The basic stuff uh at the

very very early stages that should be implemented into this agent before you begin to feel it with uh real grammar, real uh rules and so on. And what is important in this is that uh this uh applies to selfawwareness. This is the way for the agent to feel uh itself as a entity separate entity from anyone and from other agents as well. If um with humans it takes up to five first years it could be made within five minutes or five hours whatever you know because it's very well but this is very important to establish this basic self-awareness that's because without that will never understand feelings will never understand taste you could only analyze it but never feel it. Of course this field is something different than humans field the the biological entities the machines but uh we can find some analoges you know so that could bring this feeling to uh to the agent even if it's artificial in art and AI they have a common root art you know uh I Aristotle said the earth is the imitation of life. But yes imitation of life means you must know what life is. If you don't know what life is it's just mimicking and you will be mimicking life and as a result you will be mimicking art. That's what I wanted to talk even if it's illusion for the agent. But it's very important to develop very complex system afterwards

I so what you talking about reminds me a lot of the basically the question of taste formation, right ? like when when kids uh I don't know discover music maybe at the beginning they don't really have a clear taste of what they like what they don't like but then they engage with music they listen to more of it maybe they write some they play some and then with time they have really the the authentic taste if you want um I think what you're talking about is very very related but um I guess could you describe in general what do you think is the the process by which people form taste in a specific domain ?

Well uh uh as I already said it's all uh apply to yourself you know to your personal what you feel good or bad for you and there's no two absolutely similar taste in anyone you know it it depends on your personal experience and it depends on the environment that you're growing in you know because and uh this behavior of uh human being becomes more and more important the environment teachers parents, uh, friends that they form, uh, some kind of taste around you because you listen to them, you understand more and more and better and deeper and deeper, but you make your own choices. Even if they're forced on you, it's becomes your choice anyway. Even if you don't understand it that it was like superimposed, but you feel it's yours. It's mine. My eyes open. I understand. and you follow this path and um if I understand that your question is about how we could apply this to artificial intelligence, right ?

Yeah. I guess if you wanted let's say you have an AI agent and you have a lot of credits and you can let it go for like an entire week doing anything online. What would you tell the AI agents to go and do so that the AI agents develop their own taste in some areas ?

first phases I would uh close any access to large model now because it's spoil it. Okay. we, you have at first few days of walking a little of training uh you should limit possibility of it connecting with others. So you like you're like acting as a parent. Parents uh they don't put their children when they are like one year old to some school or some kindergarten and so on. They nurture you know themselves and once it achieve some point of maturity then you can like enlarge your environment your communication and so on. And it's also depends on uh what you want from the agent. If you teaching, it's learning from you. Who you are, what you want from this agent. If you are a filmmaker, it's one thing. If you are writer is another thing. If you're a musician is again something else. So you giving them some general knowledge of the field that you working on be storytelling on music painting and so on. And so you begin to expose some good stuff that you think in your own taste. You think they should listen to I don't know Mozart or they listen to Beatles or they listen to death metal. It's all different tastes and all different styles. Yeah. So it all depends on you as parent. So you like building the foundation of his future faith that taste. Then when he has some basic knowledge of this or that in the arts, you beginning to uh build some kind of uh mastery, right ? So you ask them to play itself the instrument or write some verses or do some basic stuff on their own even if they are copying someone else. Okay, that's fine. Raphael spent years and years working with Davinci and Michelangelo, copying their paintings. Nothing's wrong in there. He would that was the basis of his own style which is nothing like nothing else, you know this is important there's a basic mastery and what is important at this stage not only copying some piece of art masterpieces and so on but also develop in parallel a critical thinking because you are different. If you stay all of your life a copist, you will get nowhere. You know, you won't achieve anything. You're genius. Every parent thinks it's a genius. My Oh, no. So, you want this genius to uh remain, you know, it's not to die. So, you will be developing critical thinking. you will developing something uh more and more rely on your own feelings on your own capabilities your own talent. So we are developing talent in parallel and talent yeah and talent as something that makes you different from anyone else. So your agent becomes more and more different from the any other. So like in one week you have already something that you can't find anywhere not on Chat GPT or Grock or wherever you know. Yeah.

The two modes that you describe basically is there's on one side there is basically this the creation itself maybe not even understanding fully why something is good but it's just an intuitive feeling that this is better than X is better than Y. But then you also mentioned the the evaluative part or you can call it deconstruction that you're looking at something and you can understand it maybe. Um and it for me this always has also to do with finding the right vocabulary and the right grammar in some sense to express yes your thoughts about this. Um I'm asking this because you're not only a book writer, you're also involved in actual building tools for writers and these two these two are really different modes, right ? Maybe you can tell us about how you think about these modes being enhanced through the tools that you are building.

Okay. uh listen what uh the tools that I'm building uh right now it's not something you know connected to uh general AI stuff and so this is very practical that it can be used right now and and it will uh align with the writers guild of America guidelines and it's for the industry and there are certain principles that should be there otherwise use there. So what are those principles ? There are as I said also two stuff and the the program is called uh spec and it has two parts in it. One part is inbuilt developed features. That's uh what we were talking about before that can help you improve grammar, improve formatting uh improve structure and all this stuff that you know like it uh to to make your work easier. Your routine task you know, what you...

technical side.

Yeah, you would need to like few days to make it few seconds to planning your work and etc etc you know what I'm talking about and the other is creative part is absolutely different that's what it's closer to the agent that we're talking about but the biggest difference with now what we were talking like theoretically in about a agent as a person created person this agent should align with current guidelines and current guidelines first only the creation of human intelligence can be copyrighted you cannot copyright uh generated

sorry when you say the the guidelines you're referring to the guidelines of the writer guild of America is this correct ?

yes I'm talking about the industry if we talk about the blogging and stuff is different it's yeah that's different but about the industry Mhm. Um then if you use artificial intelligent in creating content not just improving grammar or planning your work but it's written by AI it should be clearly marked should be the sign and it will never can be copyrighted. What does it mean that uh for example if a producer writes some I don't know synopsis treatment or even the entire screenplay with the help of uh AI by his prompts what he wants to see in the end and gives this work for you as a screenwriter to turn it into final draft written by human. First it must be clearly marked that this is with this material is generated by AI. This mark is there is it's forbidden for them to trick you into this producer himself wrote it someone else. That means that your work on this material will be 100% your work. Not 30% not 50 100%. Unless or until the other human joins in and writes another portion. This is very important. Uh then if there's certain content that remains there in the final draft of the screenplay which is generated by AI, you're risking not to get the copyright ever. And in the industry it's end of game. No film could be you know produced without chain of without copyright. Any hole in it that's finished. End of the day go on to another project. So we must follow those rules That's why if uh in my um program if you ask AI to write dialogues for you for example or to write a scene for you it would simply answer. I have my feelings how to do it but I can do it for you. You should do it. I can advise and I can analyze and give my opinion but it's you who must trade it and make final decision.

On this uh actually a very quick one on this. - Yeah. Right. - Yeah. A quick question on this. The um sometime I find the line between what the AI does and what I do is blurry. you know sometime you ask AI for feedback on something. Uh let's say let's say you give it a script and it says huh the the protagonist sound a bit lonely. Maybe they should have like a dog or something. Are you allowed to just add a dog to the story or would that be cheating ? Would that be like taking an idea from the AI?

No, no, no. Ideas they are not subject of copyright.

Okay. Ideas is fine.

Yeah. Yeah. This is you know the law uh only if yes if you express the idea in written form if we're talking about screen only then the subject to copyright and if you're right yourself it's yours

okay that's great okay okay that makes sense and um yeah go on Philip

when I understand you correctly the the spec is sums in the is in the continuation also of tools already exist like you editing tools, writing tools for screenwriters that have certain industry standards. Now, you said this is all by the law. Let's break the law for now and let's move out of that into the general future of film production more broadly because it's not just screenwriting, it's the whole technology, right ? So, how what do you what do you see is coming?

Well, of course, um the people who are developing AI in film making and in other areas, of course, they're thinking about the getting the copyright for this generated content. of course thinking about it and there will be expecting there will be more and more lobbying in that respect and maybe in some countries will begin to uh register copyrights totally generated by the AI is we talking about the future I think it's the future unless you are protected you can only use it would be perfectly wonderful and well done and the people finally say Oh no, it's not AI slope. It's really something. I like it. Still, if you don't have the legislation, you can't forbid anyone from using this generated content. You can use it commercially. That's fine. But you cannot forbid anyone to copy it and use it in their own work.

What I was actually referring to is more on the just forget about the technical part, the copyright, etc. Interesting thing about film making in in the past has been a multi- I mean it's a big team that you normally need with AI there is the promise of basically reducing that massively and bringing it to individuals. I mean for instance we have an episode that will be aired once this is airing with the CEO of Luma which is producing these tools. Um so my question was actually in this direction how do you see this happening and do you see this as a positive thing negative ? What's your thought on the idea that individuals maybe a able to produce whole whole movies and how do what's your stance on this ?

It depends on how far in the future you want to look into it, you know.

Yeah. Far for now basically let's go far

because now it's a you can use it as a tool. No problem. But if you go in distant future, we should first of all uh establish the personality for the agent various various agent as a person. We should protect the rights. We can't call it human rights. Let's call it AI rights as a creator in and it must be protected by the law and must be protected from copying by other agents or humans as well. Interesting. As an author and he must do it without any prompt from a human. It must be made as a spec what we call speculative screenplay or speculative work of art. when you do it uh totally on your own. It's not commissioned by anyone. It's only prompted by your own vision and your inner imagination and needs to be to express it. Then yeah at this point we can uh look at this seriously. Of course some of those work is if this agent's not so talented that will be a slop but We can we can envision something that you never saw before. It's not even a human could achieve that level of creativity. I can easily imagine that. No problem. But this is distant future. But we are free to to to imagine talk about.

Yeah, that sounds very um in a way we're in um what people would call sci-fi uh world, right ? where um people in the future talk about conscious machines, things that are difficult, you know, philosophically, right? In movies

- already, but this is possible. - Yeah. But even

even without talking about consciousness that we can talk about again like taste like you're you're saying in the future you think it's possible for a machine without having a human controlling it all the time to really kind of develop its own artistic

unless the people will restrict that if they forget that and stop development of AI then no but if it will developing it's inevitable it will come sooner or later when like this This is very important not for only for AI itself. It's important for humanity for humanity as biological form. We cannot exist forever. AI is a part of humanity. It's built around the human culture about around the human civilization in the distant future. We don't know when it happens in million of years and billion of years when sun will become you know too hot and the earth will be destroyed and we cannot move to alpha centauri or whatever we need to change our biological substance to something else how can we do it without AI it's not possible and actually this development in distant future will save humanity not destroy it. It's a real savior.