Harnessing AI for Storytelling: Jagger Waters on Creativity and the Future

Jagger Waters: 00:00:00

But I'm also interested to see what the model actually produces, if it's useful, if this is an overcorrection, if the studio ultimately realises, oh, this can only go so far. So now we are going to hire human beings again.

Joanna Shilton: 00:00:12

Hello and welcome to Women WithAI, the podcast dedicated to amplifying the voices, experiences and perspectives of women in the ever-expanding field of artificial intelligence.

Today, I'm super excited to welcome a creative strategist and public speaker who's immersed herself at the intersection of technology and entertainment.

But before we get into our conversation about how she's embracing AI and its practical application for both creative and business strategy, let me tell you a little bit more about her.

Jagger Waters is a storyteller, writer and producer based in Los Angeles with 10 years of experience in original content development and production, spanning from film, television, live events, virtual reality and extended reality to social media and scripted podcasts.

e Hollywood Writers Strike in: 2023

She's currently working with Curious Refuge again, and her AI filmmaking has been featured by the Producers Guild of America and the Television Academy. Jagger is currently competing in the Culver Cup, a generative AI short film competition hosted by AWS and Fabric AI.

She's also the founder of Workflow, a community of female and non-binary creatives aiming to stay educated about emergent technology and its impact on the creative industries. Jagger Waters, welcome to Women with AI.

Jagger Waters: 00:01:47

Thank you so much.

Joanna Shilton: 00:01:49

Welcome to the show. Let's start by hearing a little bit more from you about your journey. Can you share with us how you first got involved in AI and filmmaking?

Jagger Waters: 00:01:58

t a year. What a year. All of: 2024

And I'm honestly, from a human perspective, I'm integrating with a new community of creative people who I think are more focused on the future than the past. And that community that I found in folks who are embracing AI is ironically very human, very close, very warm, very welcoming.

And it sort of contradicts, I think, some of these public opinions about AI and the people who use it.

Joanna Shilton: 00:02:48

You have such a unique perspective, I guess, both being in Hollywood and working with AI in the film industry. What's it like? What's it like being a woman navigating these worlds but just in general, like, there's a lot of challenges that filmmakers face.

Jagger Waters: 00:03:00

Yeah, well, it. I did start educating myself about AI last year during the Hollywood writers strike.

And with a quick peek behind the curtain, I decided I was going to learn about this, embrace it, try to fully understand it.

Because I do think that the production workflow process for creating film and TV and any piece of video, narrative content is changing fundamentally because of this. But we don't know permanently how quite yet. It's all in flux.

It changes every week, every couple days, there's something new, a new update or a new tool that kind of modifies or speeds up a certain aspect of production.

So we're not at the end, we're in this kind of uncomfortable, liminal space where the old ways of producing still can still work, but there's also this new way of working that also works. So it's a crossroads, it's a transition.

And I want to educate myself every step along the way, no matter how fast it feels like it's going, until we do settle on a new standard or a new process for how are we doing this as an industry, as a community, as individual filmmakers. So that, that's all in flux right now.

Joanna Shilton: 00:04:28

Wow.

And something like the Culver cup that you're involved with at the moment, like, how does AI sort of change the way that you might approach sort of filmmaking? I mean, how does it make you sort of think about how you tell a story differently or.

Jagger Waters: 00:04:43

No, it's more that the tools really empower you to really develop pre visualization materials.

Storyboards, pitch deckments, pitch decks, treatments, things that can be used to communicate the essence of your story either to buyers, someone who could help you publish it, someone who could help you fund it.

That's the biggest, like, practical application of AI right now for storytellers is you can bring a visual enhancement to your idea and send that to someone so they don't just have to read a script and imagine it themselves. You can actually show them, hey, this is not what it's going to look like because this isn't, isn't production and this is not for commercial use.

But here's a deck made with AI that really captures the feeling the world. And I think that's, that, that's really valuable. But the Culver cup is a generative AI filmmaking competition.

The top 50 creators in generative AI are competing to make a 2 to 5 minute short film inspired by a creative treatment by a director named David Slade. So he's provided just some loose parameters and Requirements for, okay, build a story, use these elements, do it in this amount of time.

And I've paired up with three other filmmakers and we're competing as a team.

Joanna Shilton: 00:06:07

Cool. How did you get selected?

Jagger Waters: 00:06:09

I applied. So AWS and fabric selected from the applicants.

And yeah, I've had some success with competitions in the past and was really excited and honored to sort of take place in it.

Joanna Shilton: 00:06:24

Yeah. Because I know you've been on our other podcast, creatives with AI, and you were talking about.

Yeah, the 48 hour challenge, love at First Bite, which I have watched. We'll put a link for those that haven't. But how that was, that was all completely AI generated.

I mean, how do you even go about doing that in 48 hours?

Jagger Waters: 00:06:44

Well, that one, that film has real footage, it's just covered with a style transfer lens. So the acting and I think the part of the reason, it's quite successful.

Of course, style transfers do use AI, but the actual characters that you see on screen in this short film, it's me acting and another actress. So you have this human layer underneath which I think helps, you know, detect emotion, relationship.

It doesn't have the uncanny valley the way that a lot of other AI films do, because we used a style transfer, which is basically, basically a heavy AI generated filter that changes the aesthetic and environment of any footage.

Joanna Shilton: 00:07:27

And so I guess like in your in LA and you know, tech and art are colliding. Are people embracing AI? I mean, how do people feel about it?

Because we mentioned like the writers strike and obviously, you know, people are getting worried. Is AI going to steal their likeness? They're going to put people out of work? I mean, is there hesitation there or are people excited?

Jagger Waters: 00:07:47

It's a contentious time. I mean, there's circles of people who are, hey, they're fully embracing it, we're talking about it, we're sharing ways to use the tools.

But I think that the industry has been changing for the last 10 years. I mean, 20, really 30 if you, like.

You go back far enough into the history of the entertainment industry and you see that we were kind of cornering ourselves with streaming already. The relationship between studios and creatives was already very strained.

And then you introduce something like AI, which seems like an even bigger threat to the other huge financial hurdles that have made working in this industry very difficult. And that kind of pushes people over the edge and it gives them something very specific and tangible to blame. So I really do understand it.

But a lot of the pitfalls and a lot of the problems that we're facing in the industry were happening before AI and it is sort of just making it more severe.

Joanna Shilton: 00:08:54

Do you think it's offering more opportunities to people? Like, it's. The timing is quite interesting, isn't it? Because it's sort of. It's being disruptive, as you say.

Is it an opportunity for underrepresented groups?

Jagger Waters: 00:09:05

Yeah, I can give an example of how I, I think that will happen and some content that I think we're going to see soon. So this week, Runway dropped a new feature called Video to Video, which is basically, you can take any.

It's similar to the style transfer that I was just talking about with our film, but this is actually even more advanced than what we were working with four months ago at this point. So video to video, you can take any footage, but you could shoot something on a smartphone, right? You could shoot a short film.

But when you upload the footage, you can prompt and completely transform the aesthetic. You can hold in like, you can hold props as like stand ins and then tell it what to turn it into.

There's a really great example of a guy who puts on like a, like a motorcycle helmet and then like walks out through his alley. But the style, the prompt that he gave Runway Video to Video was obviously like an astronaut on Mars or something sci fi related.

Because when you see the footage, it looks like an astronaut putting on a helmet and then like walking through like an alien sort of desert planet. And this is just footage that he captured in his own backyard.

So I see that feature and many of the other features for AI filmmaking as a way for filmmakers and creators who have no budget, they don't live in Los Angeles. They don't even. Maybe they don't even live in a major metropolitan city where you could take a film class or submit a film for something.

So I think that tools like that make it easier for people to make short films. Right now, the game to creating a feature length or pilot length video is not. We're not quite there yet.

But short form content and AI pair together very well.

Joanna Shilton: 00:11:02

Yeah, it's like getting rid of the need for a green screen. Isn't it behind. You don't need the whole studio set up. You can just, as you say, grab a smartphone.

Jagger Waters: 00:11:11

Yeah, it's. Some people use the word like it's democratizing. I don't know. I don't know if it is, but it's definitely.

If YouTube democratized distribution, which it kind of did, this is a way to democratize production. And that's confused because that kind of happened out of order. Right. Historically, we got these social media, we got platforms before.

We got a way to create high quality content. Right. So we have a way to distribute it, but we haven't had these ways to make high quality content.

Especially something like genre that involves like, you know, sci fi aesthetics, horror aesthetics, things like that. And now we sort of can.

Joanna Shilton: 00:11:58

Yeah. So it's almost like more of an equalizer.

Jagger Waters: 00:12:02

It's in a huge disruptor.

I mean, I think that Hollywood, Hollywood's foundation is like rooted in the assumption that someone can always stand between creator and audience, that there can be a boundary between those things and that they can control that. And that's what's like unraveled over the last 20 years, is you and I can make something and we can go straight to our audience.

We don't need someone to help us with that. Unless, of course, I guess, the social media platforms themselves. Right. Or YouTube itself. That's the new, that's the new middleman.

Hollywood was the middleman before, and now the middleman is this sort of tech platform.

Joanna Shilton: 00:12:49

It's kind of the unknown, isn't it? It does feel like we're maybe at the beginning of another era of.

Jagger Waters: 00:12:54

Yeah. And you know, people love to ask me, it's like, where do you think it's going? Or like, what do you think is going to happen? And it's.

I want to stop answering it because it's like, no, there's no use in sort of predicting it's changing so quickly. You just, just keep your ear to the ground, you know.

Joanna Shilton: 00:13:10

But how do you, how do you stay on top of all this emerging technology?

Jagger Waters: 00:13:13

I mean, it's in, it's really. I trained my, both my own brain to sort of understand it.

Like when I first immersed myself and I was basically like reading through AI headlines and tweets and things and I didn't understand it and I felt stupid, right? I felt stupid for like two or three months and then something kind of clicked.

And I can not only connect with a recent update, but I also understand what it means in the context of the rest of the industry, other updates, you know, so it's just, it's in my algorithm now. It's in my brain. It's, you know, my every. Everything that I scroll knows that that's what I'm looking for. And it's putting it right in my lap.

And also just Runway and Luma Labs and a lot of these other generative AI companies, like they're very public when they release a new update and it's it's just on their. On their social media pages. So you check every day and it's like, what. What did Runway change? You know?

Joanna Shilton: 00:14:09

Yeah. That's so cool. Yeah. It's like signing up. I've signed up to so many newsletters and things because I, you know, knew nothing, well, very little about.

And the more people I speak to and the more I learn, it's. Oh, yeah. And then you spot it and you. You kind of realize everyone's letter.

Jagger Waters: 00:14:23

I kind of. I feel like a newsletter routine where it's like, let's spend 15 minutes in the morning looking through this.

And then with the tools and the updates, I find it useful as a filmmaker to be. To use it right away, to test it just immediately.

Even if part of me feels like, intimidated or not sure how a certain tool or feature would be useful to me, once I do it with my hands. Right. Like, once it's like, oh, I've gone through the process of using that tool.

Maybe I don't know what to do with it right away, but that'll get like, filed in my brain as like, oh, if I ever need to.

Joanna Shilton: 00:14:55

Yeah. That's how you learn, isn't it?

Jagger Waters: 00:14:57

Yeah.

Joanna Shilton: 00:14:57

Just by doing it.

Jagger Waters: 00:14:59

It's curiosity. I'm. I don't know, I think that I'm trying to meet that the fear is endless with this stuff. Absolutely endless.

And there's so much of the fear that I think I'm just more interested in staying curious about it.

Joanna Shilton: 00:15:19

I like that it's good answer, staying.

Jagger Waters: 00:15:20

Curious because we don't know what this is. I read a book, I read a book called Ways of Being by James Bridle last year, and it's a really great book. I highly recommend it.

It's basically about how we. How we judge and interact with intelligence that we don't understand. And he makes a really great point about that.

The way that humans treat non human things, right? Objects, animals, the environment, you know, not great. You know, we sort of. We feel separated from it. We don't feel a responsibility towards it.

So animals specifically, we sort into these three categories of like, beasts or like things that could threaten us or kill us. Livestock, which basically serve us either through labor, labor or food, and then pets and companions that we can connect with.

And he says that we've essentially done the same thing about robots and AI where we categorize them in the same three categories of there's a major threat, something that's going to kill us.

There is a practical function and a way for it to serve Us and there is a way for this to kind of alleviate loneliness or make relational experiences easier. So yeah, I think that, that to step back and be like, what assumptions am I making about this intelligence that I don't understand?

And just sort of examining that and.

Joanna Shilton: 00:16:48

I guess is that how you were chosen to comment on Oprah's recent. She, Oprah Winfrey did AI and the Future of Us a special and you were on that? I mean, I was trying to find a link earlier.

I don't know if it's because I'm in the uk, I can't find a link to open. I need to get through that. Yeah, can you tell us about that?

Like how you got chosen to comment on it, but also what your comments are and what you think.

Jagger Waters: 00:17:14

My friend Juan has a podcast that I've been on called Creativity and Robots and he basically did a live stream for the podcast of us chatting about Oprah's AI special. And I'm so glad he reached out to me for it. But we talked about the special which really felt like spark notes for the general public about AI.

And because it was a pre recorded special probably many weeks ago, some of the examples that they were showing for the impressive AI capabilities, they were still very impressive and very new.

But it changes so quickly that that was already slightly out of date and the average person probably wouldn't know that, but someone who spends a lot of time with the tools would.

So I also really, I think the program focused on like they featured real, average Americans talking about what they think about AI, their direct experiences with it. They had a mother, daughter who were victims of an AI phone scam, talk about their experience. And I think that was very important.

And that in particular, I hope that that encourages the American public who listen to that special to have conversations with their family about how convincing the Audi, the voice cloning and even sort of like deep videos can be and used by criminals to sort of like extort people for money. And that is just one of many other very real threats. So it's important and responsible that we continue to have specials like that.

But it also, we also depend on the American public to educate themselves. And that's a harder feat, you know.

Joanna Shilton: 00:18:54

Yeah. Because unless you're interested in it or unless you're understanding it, I guess you don't know where to turn either.

And it is all the scaremongering, isn't it? And it's very easy to take our jobs. It's going to do all this, it's going to do all the scams I wish we did.

Jagger Waters: 00:19:07

You know, like having a government program or something that was like encouraging and telling Americans, like, hey, these things are coming, this is happening. It's, it's moving very quickly. And these are the things that you should educate yourselves. And like, these are the warnings. And.

But instead of that, it's kind of just a social media echo chamber of, you know, sometimes it's misinformation or disinformation.

Joanna Shilton: 00:19:32

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? And it's like, you know, deep fakes and things, you know, and like, how do you know what's true? How do you know what's fake?

Because if you're not aware that it's being generated, you're not even looking out for it, are you?

Jagger Waters: 00:19:43

So, yeah, and it's, there's, there are arguments for, okay, well, what is the practical application of a deep fake other than to fool people? And that's true. But in fictional narrative storytelling, that's very useful for, especially reshoots.

You know, the cost of bringing actors back on set to reshoot something is very costly. You know, time, resources. And to be able to do it with generative AI is better for production.

Joanna Shilton: 00:20:13

Because someone, you might be able to tell me if this is true or not. I'm sure someone the other day said that, you know, because obviously there was the writers strike.

But there's also, you know, actors are having it written into their contracts now about AI and how it can be used. And as you say, sometimes it's going to be a lot easier to not come back in the studio to record maybe like one line or something along like that.

And someone told me that Tom Hanks brother quite often does his, his reshoots and stuff. And I'm like, oh, no, his brother might be out of a job.

Jagger Waters: 00:20:39

Yeah, there's a couple major, major celebrities who were quick to adopt this. Quick to sort of like claim ownership over like, yes, this is my likeness, but I'm licensing it for a fee and I'm willing. I'm.

Yeah, I can, you know, an A list actor being able to be like, I can do film shoots in New York and Australia the same weekend. There's no problem with that.

Joanna Shilton: 00:21:07

So, yeah, just got to embrace it. Well, you're, you're going to find out if it's any different anywhere else, because you're off to Poland this weekend, aren't you?

You mentioned just before we started recording off to the college of extraordinary experiences. Can you tell me about that? It sounds amazing.

Jagger Waters: 00:21:23

This is an immersive Design conference experience, slash. And it's a hundred creative, interesting people from all over the world coming together in a Hogwarts like group experience.

And I think we're going to be sorted into houses and do workshops and take classes and eat homemade vegetarian food all week. So I'm really excited.

Joanna Shilton: 00:21:50

And you're also. You're involved in the Workflow community, which.

Jagger Waters: 00:21:54

Yeah. So can you tell?

Joanna Shilton: 00:21:55

Yeah, Tell us about that.

Jagger Waters: 00:21:56

Totally, yeah.

Workflow is the name that I'm calling this group that I've created of female and non binary creatives who maybe they're skeptical about AI, maybe they're not sure how to use it, but we want to stay educated and understand. Right.

That's kind of my argument is this is not something that you have to use, but I would recommend that you do develop a basic understanding of how the tools function. And it's been really great to sort of gather an environment, a group of mostly women. You know, this is a. It's. They're fairly male dominated spaces.

Both tech, at least a lot of tech and entertainment is. So it's also a space to ask questions that feel dumb. Right. We don't. It's hard to ask a question in a big room of people.

You don't know if you feel like it's stupid. But in a small, low stakes group of people who are just learning as we go, it makes it easier.

Joanna Shilton: 00:22:55

Well, I guess, yeah. Creating that, like you say, like a safe space is encouraging learning and it's just. Yeah. Help people keep educating themselves.

Jagger Waters: 00:23:03

Yeah.

Joanna Shilton: 00:23:05

That's so cool. I mean, is there anything else going on in the news at the moment? Like, what's your sort of take on what's happening at the moment?

Are you excited by.

Jagger Waters: 00:23:12

Well, there was a big announcement this week that Runway is partnering with Lionsgate. That's a really huge piece of news for the entertainment industry in Hollywood.

So I'm interested to find out if it's kind of a dare, like, if it's the studio being like, all right, yeah, if we let you train an AI model on all of our content, what can you do?

I think it's experimental, you know, but it's also making a contentious relationship between creatives and studios even more contentious because, you know, writers, directors, people who have been out of work for many months now or were impacted by the strike. Look at that and just see. Why are you spending money on that instead of human beings?

And I do question it a little bit because I think it's the perception of saving money comes over actually saving money and that might be what this is. I don't know what the cost of the deal was, but it's, you know, it's something that certainly could have used to pay creative human beings instead.

And I think there's a lot of bitterness in response to it.

But I'm also interested to see what the model actually produces, if it's useful, if this is an overcorrection, if the studio ultimately realizes, oh, this can only go so far. So now we are going to hire human beings again. So we're kind of. I think we're just recalibrating, right. Like on a scale, when you're moving the.

The sort of toggle, trying to find the right balance, trying to balance it. I think that's what this move was about.

Joanna Shilton: 00:24:47

Yeah. Because I guess, well, nothing stays the same, does it? I mean, I'm sat here, I'm thinking, I've got my.

Got my headphones on, I've got my microphone and I can hear sort of everything so clearly. And it just. It always reminds me of Singing in the Rain, you know, when it changed.

When they're talking about the film industry changing from being the silent movies to the talkies, and suddenly, like, how it just changed everything. And suddenly people worried they're going to be out of a job if they're not speaking the right way or they can't do it.

But then it opens up opportunities for people to become the voice instead of the person that's on the screen. I mean, it's just every change is an opportunity. But do you think AI will fundamentally change what it means to be a creator or just change it?

Do you think it's going to harm the creative process or not?

Jagger Waters: 00:25:32

I think it'll impact employment globally, in all industries, in every way. And creatives are a small slice of that. So that is like, there's undoubtedly an impact there.

But in terms of, like, being a creative person, I think it can be a very useful tool. But. But also, these. These advancements that you were talking about have always sort of been led by a combination of creativity and engineering.

So, like, if you think about the first Star wars film, you know, the filmmakers that George Lucas brought together to make that happen were literally built robots and attached cameras to them in order to be able to repeat certain specific motions. That was groundbreaking for filmmaking. And they did all that manually, not knowing if it was going to work.

You know, a sort of human machine collaboration. That's what it was. And that was a step forward.

And then for the second film, he went back to a Lot of the same artists, but told them that they were going to do the same thing, but they were going to use computers. And many of them were heartbroken and didn't want to because they thought that without the tactile experience, without the building. Right.

Without the creation of these miniatures, it's that their job wasn't the same or that something was lost. So not everyone was open to that.

Joanna Shilton: 00:26:56

You can't really ask it to slow down.

Jagger Waters: 00:26:58

Yeah. And legislation tends to not function at the pace of technology, which is another issue.

We do need to find a way to speed up the legislative process because it's really lagging behind. And I think it's a security issue, it's an ethical issue. And we ultimately do need to find a way to.

Okay, if you're going to pass legislation or regulation on something, we need to be doing that faster. You know, this, this, the months and months and years that can go by with just one case, then it has changed and it might not be applicable anymore.

So I, yeah, I don't know. That's not necessarily a problem I know how to solve. But we do need to find a way to legislate more quickly.

Joanna Shilton: 00:27:42

And do you think it's being used ethically? Like, do you have any concerns like on what you're seeing or.

Jagger Waters: 00:27:48

I mean, I think that the data training is. It might get wiped entirely. Like I could easily see some of these AI companies falling into a lawsuit, losing and then it's gone.

But someone will rebuild something very similar trained on different data. So. Oh, for example, okay, here's a good example. Suno and Udio are AI generative music platforms.

They do scrape data from Spotify, I think SoundCloud too. They might lose their lawsuit. They are being sued by Sony and Warner and Universal Music Group.

I think if they lose, they're just going to be acquired and those companies, you know, Sony and Warner will just either buy them or develop their own in house models. Like the way that Runway is now working with Lionsgate to train a model on the content they own. I think Sony will do that with music.

These music companies can do the same thing, but they keep it in house, they keep it private, and we might not even know if it ever happened. That might be behind closed doors forever.

And that's an ethical thing where it's like, well, if we've shut down the general public from accessing this tool, but it's something that these major companies have designed for themselves that they keep behind closed doors, then we're kind of back at the same Problem again, at least with the public access there is, that's a step towards like accessibility. Whereas to have a private model that no one ever sees is, you know, that's just a, it would make sense from a business standpoint.

Joanna Shilton: 00:29:21

Is there anything that is making you sort of feel cautious or you just, it sounds like you're ready to just grab it with both hands and you're doing so much, which is a risk.

Jagger Waters: 00:29:28

I mean, but, but I've thought about that and I've thought about. I know a lot of people who are on the side of let's slow down, let's do this ethically and I think that's absolutely necessary.

But I think for fiction, I think for storytelling hit the gas. And that might be, I don't know if that distinction is real or if it's just one in my head, but it's, it's what I'm choosing to educate myself on.

Joanna Shilton: 00:29:53

I think society is going to continue to influence, well, as I say, the film, not just the film industry, like everything, but everything that we touch.

Jagger Waters: 00:29:59

Part of the reason I'm really excited to go to this immersive design experience is I'm, I'm more interested in what AI can do for immersive experiences. World building, virtual reality, extended reality, then film and tv.

Sure, I think there's going to be plenty of applications for that, but I'm more interested in large scale storytelling that uses generative AI, like a whole world that you can explore and actually something interactive. So that's a process for me and I've been sort of making this turn towards, towards tech and VR in that way.

So I want to bring my narrative skills to whatever the future looks like. That sort of blends AI, virtual reality as well as like an in real life experience.

Joanna Shilton: 00:30:48

Right.

Jagger Waters: 00:30:48

Like you have to be there. It's not something you're watching on your phone, it's around you and you're with other people.

So that really interests me and that's kind of where I think I'm going to be going next. I love the AI making filmmaking competitions. That's fun. But I like the possibility of immersive experiences even more.

Joanna Shilton: 00:31:08

Cool. And is that kind of with.

So everyone will have maybe like a VR headset on or do you mean like the whole kind of like just space where you are would be.

Jagger Waters: 00:31:16

I mean, the space. Yeah, I think the headsets are a ways away. They're too heavy, they're too expensive.

We're not going to have widespread adoption until they are comfortable and affordable. So I'm not waiting for that by any means. But overall, this has been a crazy year.

And by just saying yes to this thing that many people are very scared of, a thousand doors have opened for me. I also think I've grown as a person. And this is a.

This is a abstract observation, but I hope it resonates with some people, which is prompting and learning.

Learning how to prompt and use these tools has made me a better communicator because when I get frustrated and it doesn't understand me, I have to change. Right. I have to pivot what I'm trying. I have to adjust and meet the tool at its level of communication or its capacity to understand me.

And I think emotionally that's totally applicable with human beings too. Right. To interact with someone and realize, oh, this person doesn't have the capacity to understand what I'm saying.

How can I word it in a way that is more respectful to both of us?

That might be like a bit of a reach, but it really resonates with me this year and some personal experiences that I've been having throughout my AI journey.

Joanna Shilton: 00:32:36

No, I love that you're right. I think, and especially, you know, I was using ChatGPT earlier and it asks you for feedback and I love that because you're right.

It's how you prompt it, that they're the skills that people are learning. And it almost lets you practice.

Jagger Waters: 00:32:49

Wouldn't it be great if people asked us for feedback at the end of our interaction?

Joanna Shilton: 00:32:52

Yeah, that isn't quite the answer I was looking for. Can you try again?

Jagger Waters: 00:32:56

Well, how was your experience with me?

Joanna Shilton: 00:32:58

Yeah, yeah. Can you give me some more? No, no, no. I mean, this is. I. This has been fascinating. I'm going to put links to everything that we've been talking about.

Great. Yeah. In the show notes. And so for people, you know, that have been inspired by what you're talking about today, where is the sort of best place?

Or are there any sort of books or resources that you recommend or is it just absorb as much as you can? Yeah. What are your topics?

Jagger Waters: 00:33:22

For sure, Yeah. I already said Ways of Being by James Bridle. I'd also say Parallel Minds by Laura Tripaldi.

That one's about the intelligence of materials, like the fact that gravity itself to objects coming into contact with each. Even just my phone touching my table. There is intelligence to this.

And yeah, sometimes that's called in religion, like intelligent design or whatever we don't understand. But I'm really excited. I like reading books about quantum physics, materials, the things, the sort of frontiers that we haven't discovered yet.

Because I think some of these answers, even in this question that the studios are asking, they want to use AI to find a way to produce profound emotional narratives at scale. They just want to be able to automate that process.

And I don't think we can automate that process, because wherever the secret is, whatever the big secret is of why you and I connect with a film emotionally is it's that's tucked into a corner of consciousness that we don't understand yet.

So it's going to require an advancement in, I think, like neurospans and consciousness to answer some of the questions that are trying to be solved with AI right now. And maybe it'll help us. Anyway, I ran off topic, but that's. Those are my book recommendations.

And then you can find me jaggerwaters.substack.com or LinkedIn. I actually love LinkedIn, so if you want to connect with me, find me on LinkedIn or glamorous reptile on Instagram.

Joanna Shilton: 00:34:55

Fantastic. I love that. Yeah, I'm sure our audience.

Well, I'll be putting all those links in so everyone can keep up with your exciting journey in AI and filmmaking. Jagger Waters, thank you for coming on Women with AI.

Jagger Waters: 00:35:06

Thank you so much for having me. Wonderful chatting with.