FLOW: AI & Blockchain streaming a river of new blood

Is A.I. going to steal my job? Plagiarize my script? Deepfake my face into a shampoo ad I never shot?  

Welcome to the million dollar existential crisis echoing through studios, sets, and streaming rooms alike. The noise is deafening, and frankly, it’s only getting louder.

So, I hit pause, tuned out the chatter, and rewound to my own creative roots a.k.a. Media On The Block. Haven’t read the book yet? If you’re into media, tech, or owning your creative future - yeah, you should probably read it. Let’s unpack what A.I. and Blockchain really mean for the future of content, creativity, and control.

What does blockchain have to do with A.I.? A lot, actually. Think of it this way. If life were a chessboard and AI the king, blockchain is the white knight that puts a series of checks and balances in place. But in the media scape used responsibly and effectively in tandem, these two tools can be a critical aid to make the creator a hyper efficient lean, mean machine. 

Is AI going to steal your creativity? Probably not, as long as you have an original thought in your head, it’s not possible for AI to actually extract it from your mind. What it nudges us to do is move beyond the cookie-cutter, mainstream hacks and filter out pure creativity. 

What does that mean for the media and entertainment industry? Everything.

Script to screen, animation to amplification… AI is a fabulous creative tool – but it can’t replicate true human ingenuity. All it can do is scour what’s already out there, and come up with a fairly decent approximation of it. 

That means it can help you outline an idea, but not necessarily fill in the gaps.

It can help you come up with fresh ideas, by telling you what’s already been tried and tested.

It smooths out the wrinkles in the creative process, by taking over the mundane functionality of certain tasks and frees you up for more out of the box thinking in the process.

What AI also helps you do is to scale up, and quick! A single command and all your repetitive processes are taken care of. It takes the tedium out of production, and opens up your mind-space so that you can get really creative.

I also love the fact that AI allows you to really play around with an idea. The time and cost efficiencies of AI in the media space means that you can try different things, with little or no investment. AI makes the cut – literally. It can dub, edit, script or code for you, allowing you to free your mind and use that headspace to generate another original idea.

So how does blockchain enter the big picture? Think of it as a pivotal keystone in your creative process.

With AI in the mix, digital media is exponential. But if you’ve placed it on a blockchain, you’ve taken a critical step towards protecting your (natural/native) intellectual property. With blockchain, you have true transparency (if you choose) and total traceability, allowing a piece of creative work to be traced back to its original creator. 

And what happens when you have more than one? Let’s say you’ve created a film, and everyone from the actors to the director, the scriptwriter to the lyricist needs to be acknowledged.

That’s the beauty of blockchain – you can make sure that they are credited seamlessly and accurately. And we’re not just talking about gratitude for their work, but also crediting the royalties for their share of the pie straight to their account in real time. 

This isn’t just a change in the way the industry works, this is a seismic shift, a massive disruption that puts the power back where it belongs, in the hands of the artists themselves.

The smart contract is the smartest thing about blockchain. So smart that it might even just eclipse artificial intelligence in the way it protects your creative contribution. So, let’s see how that works. A smart contract is a beautiful piece of code that ensures that every artist in the creative pyramid is compensated financially and legally, without human intervention. 

No delays. No hold ups. No having to call accounts to track down that payment that went into a blackhole. No legal wrangles because you didn’t get paid. There’s just no margin for these things to happen, and that’s the beauty of blockchain.

Artist or artisan… do you have a work that you’d like to auction? Move over, Sotheby’s – there’s a new kid on the block, and we’re talking NFTs. Love them or hate them, NFTs have revolutionised the creative space, democratising the process in which art is disseminated and sold. 

Where blockchain scores big is that it cuts across borders. You can reach millions of people. In milliseconds. I’m talking about universal distribution at a fraction of the cost. That’s a game changer, one that’s going to shake up the media world forever. 

But wait, there’s more. With blockchain, the artist can get really up close and personal, because he or she can now go direct to market. No intermediaries. No gatekeepers. Blockchain offers you the opportunity to monetise your content at the micro-level. Instead of costly subscriptions, a single read or view can earn you some revenue. The beauty of the micro-payment is that its affordable and exponential. You can scale it up to go global, with just a few clicks of your mouse. 

You get what you pay for and with quality content, blockchain allows you to set your price, target your audience, and puts you squarely in control of how it is portrayed. No censor – just your sensibility (and a few extra cents in your pocket). 

With blockchain, you’re a star, undimmed by the mire of distributors, censors, and middlemen. Unfettered. Unblocked.

In a tech-enabled world, the barriers of communication have been razed, and the boundaries between technologies are getting blurred more and more day by day. True genesis lies at the intersection of these, and AI and Blockchain coming together is the confluence of two streams of consciousness, running into one another to create an unstoppable river of new blood. 

This isn’t a fad – it’s a new foundation. Are you ready to hop on and join the joyride?