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'I Fell in Love With an Algorithm' (w/Cristóbal Valenzuela & Alexis Gay)
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'I Fell in Love With an Algorithm' (w/Cristóbal Valenzuela & Alexis Gay)

On Dead Cat, we talk about the rise of generative artificial intelligence with Runway CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela. Non-Technical podcast host Alexis Gay joins as a guest host.
DALL-E with the prompt, “Illustrate the idea that someone ‘fell in love with an algorithm.’ Deploy the artistic style of Chuck Close. in the photo realistic illustration, the algorithm is one character and the other character is a CEO-type. Do not include any text. Have a heart in it. have the two subjects look at each other happily”

Generative artificial intelligence is sweeping the nation. People are turning themselves into animated characters, drafting their essays with ChatGPT, and illustrating with Stable Diffusion. Or, as was the case with the tiny special effects team on the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once, they’re using it to help edit a movie.

On the latest episode of Dead Cat, Cristóbal Valenzuela, the chief executive officer at generative artificial intelligence company Runway, talked about how he discovered that his AI-powered video editing software was used to help make the award winning film.

Runway CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela

When I wrote about generative AI burning white hot back in October, I talked to Valenzuela for that story and called him “among the most compelling founders that I’ve come across while reporting on artificial intelligence.” So I thought it would be fun to have him on the podcast and discuss some of the most pressing issues facing generative artificial intelligence.

To help me interview Valenzuela, I invited Non-Technical podcast host and viral comedian Alexis Gay to guest host the episode. You’ll probably recognize her from some of her viral tech parody videos. (Listen to my guest appearance on Non-Technical if you want to learn more than you ever thought you wanted to know about the man behind the newsletter.)

On the podcast, Valenzuela predicts that “very soon,” in “a couple of years,” artificial intelligence software will be able to create the sort of TikTok videos that people flip through online. “We’re heading towards a world — where a lot of the content that you consume online will be generated [by artificial intelligence],” Valenzuela said.

“There’s definitely an exponential progress rate that you can see and perceive more clearly now,” Valenzuela said. “What took years of progress is now taking months. And what used to take months is now taking weeks.”

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Newcomer
Newcomer Podcast
A podcast about Silicon Valley, hosted by newsletter writer and independent journalist Eric Newcomer. Listen in for interviews with the dealmakers and builders who matter. Subscribe to newcomer.co for summaries of the episodes plus tech industry news, scoops, and analysis.