Hi Reader,
Google Wants Hollywood to Stop Being So Afraid of Technology
That’s the headline of a New York Times article that jumped out at me this week. The gist of it is, Google is pouring millions of dollars into a production company in Hollywood. They’re funding projects, making short films and experimenting with microdramas.
Google has a few reasons for the venture, but this one stood out to me:
Shape how technology — particularly Google technology — appears onscreen.
I don’t know about you, but that line didn’t give me warm fuzzy feelings.
Of course, as the article acknowledged, this is hardly the first time a tech company has forayed into Hollywood.
100 Zeros [Google’s partnership with Range Media Partners] is microscopic compared with Apple and Amazon’s Hollywood operations. But it is another example of technology giants extending their enormous reach into Hollywood — and, increasingly, into the stories that popular culture tells about technology itself. This sort of soft power can show up in different ways, like Amazon MGM Studios’s recent decision not to release “Artificial,” a barbed dramatization of OpenAI, a company in which Amazon has invested $50 billion.
This, too, didn’t make me feel great. It’s not heartwarming to think about how much control big tech companies have over . . . well, over just about everything, it feels like.
So often lately, I’ve felt rage about forces beyond my control. I feel rage at Flock cameras surveilling our movement. Rage at data centers disrupting the environment. Rage at social media companies for destroying our mental health and harvesting our data for profit. The list of forces I rage at goes on and on and on.
And one of the things that makes my rage feel so awful is the sense of powerlessness that accompanies it. Compared to the people in charge of these forces, I am so small. The tech companies move fast and break things with no guardrails, and I can do so little to change anything.
So I go back to work. I open my computer, where all my work with writers lives. And I read that headline again:
Google Wants Hollywood to Stop Being So Afraid of Technology
And I feel a curious, satisfying thrill.
Google knows our power, friends.
Google knows stories matter.
Stories are how humans communicate. Stories are how we share ideas and beliefs and experiences and feelings.
The stories we tell each other influence the stories we tell ourselves. And the stories we tell ourselves shape how we think and how we act.
Stories are powerful. And Google knows it. So do Amazon and Apple.
That’s why Google is investing in Hollywood. Because the stories we tell matter to how we respond to AI, to tech bros, to data centers, to adoption and advancement of technology.
It matters to Google whether the stories we tell about AI are positive or negative.
It impacts public perception and therefore public response—adoption or resistance, invitation or regulation.
And therefore, it impacts Google’s bottom line. It impacts what it’s possible for Google to do, and where society draws boundaries.
My favorite line came not from the NYT article, but from a study the article linked to.
Drawing on 78 interviews and 12 focus groups, this study shows that science-fiction shapes the US public's understandings about economic consequences from AI, informing widespread concerns that sentient machines might fully replace human workers.
Whereas prior work has focused on deliberate efforts by political actors to influence popular judgments about the economy, these findings show that the public itself can creatively contribute to change in the moral economy through its unexpected, wide-ranging, and even science-fictional interpretations of social conditions like AI automation.
Did you catch that?
The public itself can creatively contribute to change in the moral economy through its unexpected, wide-ranging, and even science-fictional interpretations of social conditions like AI automation.
There’s a whole long history of sci-fi stories imagining the impact AI might have. Now, big tech faces a steep uphill climb if they want to change the narrative.
Google already knows stories are powerful. The data, and Google’s spending habits, show that.
YOU need to know this, too.
I bet there are a hundred reasons in your own life why you might feel rage, or despair, or powerlessness. And when you are alone with your story, it can be easy to lose faith that it matters.
After all, storytelling requires endurance. You might spend months, years, or even decades with your story living only in your own mind and your own computer. For a long time, much longer than you hoped, you might be your story’s only reader.
But the truth is, your stories are one of the most powerful things you have.
Storytelling is our greatest technology.
We need your stories. Not just want, but need.
Don’t stop writing them.
Happy editing,
Alice
P.S. If you want to write a story that matters, and you’d like support, let’s talk. Hit reply with the word “technology” and I’ll share the details on how we can work together.