In the second of a two-part interview on Variety’s “Strictly Business” podcast, Soul Machines CEO Greg Cross casts his eye toward the future of how his business marrying state-of-the-art animation with artificial intelligence will be utilized in the world of Hollywood celebrity.
Cross delves into the challenge of building technology ideally situated for the metaverse, which hasn’t materialized quite as quickly as advocates for that three-dimensional environment had envisioned.
Listen to the podcast here:
“We’ve got past the hype cycle that we had all got overexcited about it last year,” said Cross on the latest episode of “Strictly Business.” And we’re now into what are the building blocks of that metaverse experience? One of the really important things is artificial intelligence is an incredibly important building block in the creation of these digital worlds of the future.”
Cross expressed concerns that the software Soul Machines is designing could be misappropriated but said that’s true of any innovation since the beginning of humankind.
“Any technology that we can think of that has ever we’ve ever invented, there have always been a small percentage of the population who are bad actors who want to use it to rip people off,” he remarked. “And that’s a human trait that exists in the real world, it will certainly exist in the digital people world in the world of artificial intelligence as well.”
In the first part of the interview published last week, Cross discusses selling the ability to enable consumers to interact one-on-one with a CGI simulation of their favorite celebrity powered by AI.
“Strictly Business” is Variety’s weekly podcast featuring conversations with industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. A new episode debuts each Wednesday and can be downloaded on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher and SoundCloud.