FOOM! @watchfoom

Creating new things requires you to go to unexpected places. Radical ideas that give birth to new technologies tend to come from high-risk, out-of-distribution efforts. They reject conformity, taxonomies, and existing categories because the thing being created does not yet fit inside them. This creates a problem when a new technology becomes a boom. Technological booms contain a paradox. They are born from ways of thinking that they eventually make less common. A boom begins as exploration and matures into exploitation. Exploration searches for something that does not yet have a name. Exploitation then makes what has been discovered into something safe, legible, obvious and repeatable to many people. This is necessary for a technology to spread. A boom naturally attracts a larger number of people, and if the average person is risk-averse, the opportunity must become obvious enough for them to understand and bet on. But as the market grows, the thinking that created the market becomes less common within it. The technology succeeds while at the same time the force that shaped the discovery gets flattened by in-distribution thinking. That is the curse of a technological boom: if the boom succeeds, what made it possible in the first place most likely will become less commonplace. In Inheritance, Harvey Whitehouse argues that humanity has been shaped by three main biases: conformism, religiosity, and tribalism. The natural human tendency to avoid change is deeply ingrained in our survival instincts. If change gets exponentially faster as technology and AI advances faster, conformity and tribalism will grow as collective and individual defense mechanisms to adapt to change. A successful boom activates the instinct of conformism and tribalism. Once a technology becomes high status, people begin to define what it is, how it works, and what does belongs inside it or not. The boom becomes a category. The category becomes a taxonomy. The taxonomy becomes a plan. Taxonomies are where ideas go to die because it gives a false impression of arrival. The biggest challenge in an organization that continuously innovates is to preserve the way of thinking that made the discovery possible in the first place. This means going to unexpected places and questioning the plan instead of merely executing it. Rewriting the plan of the world. This is why long-term thinking can be a major competitive strategy. The further into the future you look, the fewer established categories there are to tell you what should exist and therefore the more opportunities to create and discover. Signs of unexplored creativity and long-term opportunity are often the same. You don’t have a name for what you are doing. It might feel like a toy. Traditionalists insist that this is not how things work. Most people don’t get it at first. None of this means you are right. Most out-of-distribution ideas are bad. But every genuinely new idea must initially appear out of distribution. This means only that you may be somewhere the category has not yet reached. But if you succeed you might create a boom. And then another. And another.

Everyone. Every object. Everything has a story to tell. With Runway, you can share yours, no matter what it is. FLICKER is a short film about a lamp with a past. Imperfect and all-but-forgotten, FLICKER tells the story of what it means to bring light to others lives. Make your own story come to life at app.runwayml.com

Le Runway

Runway @runwayml

a month ago

Today we're announcing the opening of Runway's first office in France, establishing a new research hub in Paris anchored by an initial team of ten employees. France is one of the world's strongest AI ecosystems. Its concentration of world-class research institutions, the depth

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Can AI dance and choreograph? Yes. Yes, it can. I had a song stuck in my head last morning, and before noon, I managed to get it out by making this music video. From idea to execution, it was created in a single morning with @runwayml. Good ideas don’t need big budgets. Just great storytelling.

An exclusive trailer for our new movie, “What We Forgot.” A documentary set in the future about the present. Streaming soon on @runwayml

Submissions for the 4th Annual Runway AI Festival close April 27th. Don't miss your chance to have your work featured amongst the very best in Film, Design, New Media, Fashion, Advertising and Gaming. Enter today at the link below.

The story of stories: Someone brings fire into a cave. He sits. He tells his day as a story. Two others watch. They go to their own caves. They tell their own stories. The first man frowns. Too many stories, he says. Why would we need so many stories? Someone writes a book. Another makes many copies. The first man frowns again. Too many books, he says. Why would we need so many books? Someone builds a printing press. Pages spread faster than voices. The first man frowns again. Too many pages, he says. Why would we need so many pages? Someone sends messages by wire. Stories travel faster than feet. The first man frowns again. Too many messages, he says. Why would we need so many messages? Someone puts stories on radio. Voices fill the air at once. The first man frowns again. Too many voices, he says. Why would we need so many voices? Someone captures light with a camera. Moments turn into endless images. The first man frowns again. Too many images, he says. Why would we need so many images? ...

Join us now for the first live installment of Prompt Lab. A 30 minute show where we test new techniques, try to break the models, find what works and lean into what doesn't. watchfoom.com

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Today we’re launching FOOM! A 24/7 broadcast of AI culture. Weekly shows, interviews, films, research discussions, endless inspiration, livestreams and experimental new programming. Have a show you want to host or content you want to stream? Reach out at the link below.