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Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here. In filmmaking circles, AI is an everpresent topic of conversation. While AI will change filmmaking economics and could greenlight more experimental projects by reducing production costs, it also threatens jobs, intellectual property, and creative integritypotentially cheapening the art form. Google, having developed cutting-edge AI tools spanning script development to text-to-video generation, is positioned as a key player in AI-assisted filmmaking. At the center of Googles cinema ambitions is Mira Lane, the companys vice president of tech and society and its point person on Hollywood studio partnerships. I spoke with Lane about Googles role as a creative partner to the film industry, current Hollywood collaborations, and how artists are embracing tools like Googles generative video editing suite Flow for preproduction, previsualization, and prototyping. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Can you tell me about the team youre running and your approach to AI in film? I run a team called the Envisioning Studio. It sits within this group called Technology and Society. The whole ambition around the team is to showcase possibilities. . . . We take the latest technologies, latest models, latest products and we co-create with society because theres an ethos here that if youre going to disrupt society, you need to co-create with them, collaborate with them, and have them have a real say in the shape of the way that technology unfolds. I think too often a lot of technology companies will make something in isolation and then toss it over the fence, and then various parts of society are the recipients of it and theyre reacting to it. I think we saw that with language models that came out three years ago or so where things just kind of went into the industry and into society and people struggled with engaging with them in a meaningful way. My team is very multidisciplinary. There are philosophers on the team, researchers, developers, product thinkers, designers, and strategists. What weve been doing with the creative industry, mostly film this yearlast year we worked on music as wellis weve been doing fairly large collaborations. We bring filmmakers in, we show them whats possible, we make things with them, we embed with them sometimes, we hear their feedback. Then they get to shape things like Flow and Veo that have been launched. I think that were learning a tremendous amount in that space because anything in the creative and art space right now has a lot of tension, and we want to be active collaborators there. Have you been able to engage directly with the writers and actors unions? We kind of work through the filmmakers on some of those. Darren Aronofsky, when we brought him in, actually engaged with the writers unions and the actors unions to talk about how he was going to approach filmmaking with Googlethe number of staff and actors and the way they were going to have those folks embedded in the teams, the types of projects that the AI tools would be focused on. We do that through the filmmakers, and we think its important to do it actually in partnership with the filmmakers because its in context of what were doing versus in some abstract way. Thats a very important relationship to nurture. Tell me about one of the films youve helped create. Four weeks ago at Tribeca we launched a short film called Ancestra, created in partnership with Darrens production company, Primordial Soup. Its a hybrid type of model where there were live-action shots and AI shots. Its a story about a mother and a baby whos about to be born and the baby has a hole in its heart. Its a short about the universe coming together to help birth that baby and to make sure that it survives. It was based on a true story of the director being born with a hole in her heart. There are some scenes that are just really hard to shoot, and babiesyou cant have infants younger than 6 months on set. So how do you show an accurate depiction of a baby? We took photos from when she was born and constructed an AI version of that baby, and then generated it being held within the arms of a live actress as well. When you watch that film, youll see these things where its an AI-generated baby. You cant tell that its AI-generated, but the scene is actually composed of half of it being live action, the other half being AI-generated. We had 150 people, maybe close to 200 working on that short filmthe same number of people you would typically have working on a [feature-length] film. We saw some shifts in roles and new types of roles being created. There may even be an AI unit thats part of these films. Theres usually a CGI unit, and we think theres probably going to be an AI unit thats created as well. It sounds like youre trying to play a responsible role in how this impacts creators. What are the fruits of that approach? We want to listen and learn. Its very rare for a technology company to develop the right thing from the very beginning. We want to co-create these tools. because if theyre co-created theyre useful and theyre additive and theyre an extension and augmentation, especially in the creative space. We dont want people to have to contort around the technology. We want the technology to be situated relative to what they need and what people are trying to do. Theres a huge aspect of advancing the science, advancing the latest and greatest model development, advancing tooling. We learn a lot from engaging with . . . filmmakers. For example, we launched Flow [a generative video editing suite] and as we were launching it and developing it, a lot of the feedback from our filmmakers was, Hey, this tool is really helpful, but we work in teams. So how can you extend this to be a team-based tool instead of a tool thats for a single individual? We get a lot of really great feedback in terms of just core research and development, and then it becomes something thats actually useful. Thats what we want to do. We want something that is helpful and useful and additive. Were having the conversations around roles and jobs at the same time. How is this technology empowering filmmakers to tell stories they couldnt before? In the film industry, theyre struggling right now to get really innovative films out because a lot of the production studios want things that are guaranteed hits, and so youre starting to see certain patterns of movies coming out. But filmmakers want to tell richer stories. With the one that we launched at Tribeca, the director was like, I would never have been able to tell this story. No one would have funded it and it would have been incredibl hard to do. But now with these tools I can get that story out there. Were seeing a lot of thatpeople generating and developing things that they would not have been funded for in the past, but now that gets great storytelling out the door as well. Its incredibly empowering. These tools are incredibly powerful because they reduce the costs of some of the things that are really hard to do. Certain scenes are very expensive. You want to do a car chase, for examplethats a really expensive scene. Weve seen some people take these tools and create pitches that they can then take to a studio and say, Hey, would you fund this? Heres my concept. Theyre really good at the previsualization stage, and they can kind of get you in the door. Whereas in the past, maybe you brought storyboards in or it was more expensive to create that pitch, now you can do that pretty quickly. Are we at the point where you can write a prompt and generate an entire film? I dont think the technology is there where you can write a prompt and generate an entire film and have it land in the right way. There is so much involved in filmmaking that is beyond writing a prompt. Theres character development and the right cinematography. . . . Theres a lot of nuance in filmmaking. Were pretty far from that. If somebodys selling that I think I would be really skeptical. What I would say is you can generate segments of that film that are really helpful and [AI] is great for certain things. For short films its really good. For feature films, theres still a lot of work in the process. I dont think were in the stage where youre going to automate out the artist in any way. Nobody wants that necessarily. Filmmaking and storytelling is actually pretty complex. You need good taste as well; theres an art to storytelling that you cant really automate. Is there a disconnect between what Silicon Valley thinks is possible and what Hollywood actually wants? I think everybody thinks the technology is further along than it is. Theres a perception that the technology is much more capable. I think thats where some of the fear is actually, because theyre imagining what this can do because of the stories that have been told about these technologies. We just put it in the hands of people and they see the contours of it and the edges and what its good and bad at, and then theyre a little less worried. Theyre like, Oh, I understand this now. That said, I look at where the technology was two years ago for film and where it is now. The improvements have been remarkable. Two years ago every [generated] film had six fingers and everything was morphed and really not therethere was no photorealism. You couldnt do live-action shots. And in two years weve made incredible progress. I think in another two years, were going to have another big step change. We have to recognize were not as advanced as we think we are, but also that the technology is moving really fast. These partnerships are important because if were going to have this sort of accelerated technology development, we need these parts of our society that are affected to be deeply involved and actively shaping it so that the thing we have in two years is what is actually useful and valuable in that industry. What kinds of scenes or elements are becoming easier to create with AI? Anything that is complex that you tend to see a lot of, those types of things start to get easier because we have a lot of training data around that. If youve seen lots of movies with car chases in them. There are scenes of the universeweve got amazing photography from the Hubble telescope. Weve got great microscopic photography. All of those types of things that are complicated and hard to do in real life, those you can generate a lot easier because we have lots of examples of those and its been done in the past. The ones that are hard are ones where you want really strong eye contact between characters, and where the characters are showing a more complex range of emotions. How would you describe where were at with the uptake of these tools in the industry? I think that were in a state where theres a lot of experimentation. Its kind of that stage where theres something new thats been developed and what you tend to do when there’s something new is you tend to try to re-create the pastwhat you used to do with [older] tools. Were in that stage where I think people are trying to use these new tools to re-create the same kinds of stories that they used to tell, but the real gem is when you jump past that and you do new types of things and new types of stories. Ill give you one example. Brian Eno did a set of generative films; every time you went to the theater you saw a different version of that film. It was generated, it was different, it was unique. It still had the same backbone but it was a different story every time you saw it. Thats a new type of storytelling. I think were going to see more types of things like that. But first we have to get through this phase of experimentation and understanding the tools, and then well get to all the new things we can do with it. More AI coverage from Fast Company: Google is indexing ChatGPT conversations, potentially exposing sensitive user data How Cloudflare declared war on AI scrapers The Vogue AI model backlash isnt dying down anytime soon This AI startup lets you ask data questions in plain Englishand gets you answers in seconds Want exclusive reporting and trend analysis on technology, business innovation, future of work, and design? Sign up for Fast Company Premium.
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The United States and Pakistan reached a trade agreement expected to allow Washington to help develop Pakistan’s largely untapped oil reserves and lower tariffs for the South Asian country, officials from both nations said Thursday.Officials did not specify where the exploration would take place, but most of Pakistan’s reserves are believed to be in the insurgency-hit southwestern province of Balochistan, where separatists say the province’s natural resources are being exploited by the central government in Islamabad.“We have just concluded a deal with the country of Pakistan, whereby Pakistan and the United States will work together on developing their massive oil reserves,” U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.“We are in the process of choosing the oil company that will lead this partnership,” Trump added. “Who knows, maybe they’ll be selling oil to India someday!”Total U.S. trade with Pakistan was an estimated $7.3 billion in 2024, according to the Office of the United States Representative, which said on its website that U.S. exports to Pakistan in 2024 were $2.1 billion, up 4.4% ($90.9 million) from 2023. U.S. imports from Pakistan totaled $5.1 billion in 2024, up 4.9% ($238.7 million) from 2023, it said.There was no immediate comment from the Baloch nationalists and separatist groups. Balochistan has long been the center of violence mostly blamed on groups including the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army, or BLA, which the U.S. designated a terrorist organization in 2019.Separatists in Balochistan have opposed the extraction of resources by Pakistani and foreign firms and have targeted Pakistani security forces and Chinese nationals working on multibillion-dollar projects related to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.Oil reserves are also thought to exist in the southern Sindh, eastern Punjab and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif welcomed the “long-awaited” deal and thanked Trump for playing a key role in finalizing it.Pakistan had been pursuing a trade agreement since May, when Trump mediated a ceasefire between Pakistan and India following an escalation triggered by Indian airstrikes on Pakistani territory in response to the killing of 26 tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir.Pakistan’s Finance Ministry said in a statement early Thursday the agreement aims to boost bilateral trade, expand market access, attract investment and foster cooperation in areas of mutual interest.The breakthrough came during a meeting in Washington between Pakistani Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb and senior U.S. officials, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer.The deal includes a reduction in reciprocal tariffs, particularly on Pakistani exports to the U.S., the statement from the ministry said.“The agreement enhances Pakistan’s access to the U.S. market and vice versa,” it said. The agreement is also expected to spur increased U.S. investment in Pakistan’s infrastructure and development projects, it added. The ministry said the deal reflects both nations’ commitment to deepening bilateral ties and strengthening trade and investment cooperation. Munir Ahmed, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was created in 1914 to protect consumers from corporate overreach. Under Donald Trump, the 110-year-old bipartisan agency is now being converted into a weapon of censorship and repression for the administration to wield against its political enemies. Last week, the FTC hosted a workshop with the unambiguous goal of spreading disinformation about one of the administrations favorite targets: trans people. The event, which was titled The Dangers of “Gender-Affirming Care” for Minors, brought in a group of professional anti-LGBTQ+ bigots to air conspiracy theories and medical disinformation about trans people, with the stated mission of eliminating gender-affirming care for trans youth. Instead of doing the FTCs actual jobprotecting Americans from the excess of Big Tech companiesthe workshop participants instead spent hours discussing disproven anti-trans talking points that the right continues to present as fact. Participants called for the FTC to investigate medical providers who offer gender-affirming care to minors, under the claim that these doctors are engaged in unfair or deceptive business practices. Not only would this intrusion clearly overstep the FTCs authority, it also illustrates how Trumps FTC would weaponize proposed internet censorship laws like the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) to target queer and trans people and their medical providers. Activists have repeatedly pointed out how anti-LGBTQ+ censorship would be supercharged under laws like KOSA, the online safety bill that Democrats and Republicans have been trying to push through Congress for years. The bill would allow the government to weaponize the FTC by giving the agency the power to pressure social media companies to remove any content that is determined to be harmful or causing distress to children. This language is intentionally vague, and organizations like Fight for the Future have warned it could easily be used to censor anything the government doesnt likefrom online LGBTQ+ communities and medical resources to information about abortion. Weve been here before: The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) and the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) promised to protect people online, but all it resulted in was sweeping censorship of online communities as social media companies moved to cover their own bottom line, exactly as they would act if KOSA passed. So, who would get to decide what is harmful or stressful to kids under KOSA? Under a previous version of the bill, lawmakers proposed allowing state attorneys general to decide what kind of content constitutes harm and should be censoreda green light to any state with laws that already discriminate against queer and trans people. The bills supportersincluding Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) and the right-wing Heritage Foundationhave explicitly stated it would enable them to protect kids by censoring trans content. This is in line with the anti-LGBTQ+ agenda presented in Project 2025, whose architects describe their quest to criminalize pornography and LGBTQ+ pornography as one in the same, and propose making it a crime to promote transgender ideologyin other words, to erase trans people from public life, and punish anyone who refuses to do so. KOSAs Democratic supporters nevertheless insisted the new law wouldnt be used to censor LGBTQ+ content. But opponents of the legislation pushed back, leading to the bill being dropped twice since its first introduction in 2022. Human rights and civil rights groups have been clear: The inherent problem with KOSA is the duty of care built into the legislation that would encourage companies to censor content the government might take issue with. In a newer iteration of the bill, lawmakers tried to remove this roadblock by walking back their proposal to give enforcement powers to state attorneys general. Instead, the bill now proposes giving this power to the FTCthe very same FTC that just ran an hours-long anti-trans propaganda event. The FTCs sham workshop” made crystal clear that the agency would use these new censorship powers to carry out Trumps anti-LGBTQ+ agenda. Far from being neutral experts, the people invited to the FTC event by the Trump administration represent far-right NGOs like the Heritage Foundation, as well as groups like Moms for Liberty and Do No Harm, which have both been designated as anti-LGBTQ+ hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Many of the participants have been paid to travel around the country giving testimony about the supposed dangers of LGBTQ+ healthcare, and have been directly involved in harassment campaigns against LGBTQ+ people and their allies. The meetings participants parroted the repeatedly-debunked theory of rapid onset gender dysphoria, cited widely-discredited junk science papers, and described lifesaving medical interventions like puberty blockers, gender-affirming hormones, and surgery with sensationalist terms like sterilization and mutilation. They also repeated a deranged right-wing hoax about a secret plot by hospitals to forcibly transition children. These are the same lies that have been consistently amplified by the Trump administration, with the plainly stated goal of ending trans healthcare in the U.S.not just for minors, but adults too. In reality, gender-affirming care is supported by every major medical organization in the country, and there is wide scientific consensus that it overwhelmingly improves the lives of trans people. For years, studies have consistently shown that access to hormones and clinical support drastically reduces rates of depression and suicide, particularly for trans youth. The rates of regret for gender-affirming surgical procedures remain extremely small, with some studies recording it as low as 1.7% to 2.1% for minors. Further studies also show, consistently, that the small percentage of people who later de-transition overwhelmingly do so not because they were tricked into gender-affirming care, but because of external pressure and strucural discrimination against trans people. But like everything in Trumpworld, the purpose of the FTC workshop wasnt to discuss facts or evidence. The administration purposely excluded trans patients, healthcare providers, parents, allies, and anyone else that would challenge its bigotry. At a time when the agency should be pushing back against the countless abuses of monopolistic Big Tech companies companies, the event had nothing to do with the agencys mandate of protecting consumer rightsjust like its use of laws like KOSA will have nothing to do with protecting children. Instead, it shows how Trump has transformed the agency into yet another tool of repression and propaganda to destroy the rights of queer and trans people in the U.S. Online communities are a lifeline for many LGBTQ+ people, especially for queer and trans youth who are often in desperate search of affirming spaces. Giving the FTC censorship powers with KOSA would allow Trump to destroy these communitiesas well as others used by abortion-seekers, activists, and anyone else the administration has deemed an enemy.
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