Futurology The Human Right to Tell Our Own Stories (with Daniel Kwan and Dawn Nakagawa)
Daniel Kwan – the Oscar-winning co-director of Everything Everywhere All at Once – is a 21st-century filmmaker in the purest sense. He came up in the internet’s attention economy, making over-the-top viral videos that harnessed absurdity to cut through the noise. But as AI starts to generate its own strange media at scale, the surreal risks losing its charge in a world that already feels unreal.
In this episode, Kwan argues that Hollywood is on the verge of industrializing imagination in the way we mass-produce food. If machines become the default authors of culture, we may end up awash in highly processed creativity – empty calories with an aftertaste of authenticity. To safeguard creativity in the age of AI, he co-founded the Creators Coalition on AI: a push for a new creative contract where the tools can change, but authorship stays human.
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Mentioned in this Episode:
Chromeo - When The Night Falls (feat. Solange Knowles) (Music Video, 2011)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkyYxAv6kB4
Turn Down for What — DJ Snake & Lil Jon / Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (Music Video, 2014)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turn_Down_for_What
So Sorry Man — The Lonely Island / Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (Music Video, 2009)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lonely_Island#Digital_shorts_and_music_videos
The Power of Myth — Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (Book, 1988)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Myth
The Selfish Gene — Richard Dawkins (Book, 1976)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
Where to find Dan Kwan:
Website, The Daniels: https://www.danieldaniel.us/
X, Dan Kwan: https://x.com/dunkwun
X, The Daniels: https://x.com/Daniels
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dunkwun
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Credits
Executive Producers: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Nils Gilman, Dawn Nakagawa, & Jason Hoch
Producers: Grant Slater, Alex Gardels, & Nathalia Ramos
Associate Producer: Elissa Mardiney
Theme Music: Marcus Bagala
Audio Engineer: Aaron Bastinelli & Kyle Scott Wilson
Futurology is a production of Studio B and Wavland for the Berggruen Institute in Los Angeles, California.