Technology

Lion King director says AI is a ‘Wild West,’ but has the potential to democratize filmmaking

Published

10 months ago

September 6, 2024

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Lion King directors Roger Allers (L) and Rob Minkoff.

Kevin Winter | Getty Images

Artificial intelligence is a “Wild West” with “very few rules” — but it has the potential to democratize the film industry in the long term, according to the director of “The Lion King.”

Rob Minkoff, who co-directed the classic 1994 animated Disney film with Roger Allers, told CNBC in an interview that AI has the potential to “democratize” filmmaking in such a way that it’ll become less costly to produce and direct motion pictures by slashing the amount of expensive equipment involved.

“I think what AI will do is potentially democratize the process of making content, because if literally anyone is given these incredibly powerful tools, then what we should see is truly an explosion of content, an explosion of new voices,” Minkoff, 62, told CNBC.

Minkoff was speaking with CNBC ahead of the Reply AI Film Festival. The event, held by Italian tech firm Reply during the Venice International Film Festival, is a competition that awards filmmakers using AI to develop short films. Minkoff is a judge on the panel that decides the winners.

‘Hyperbole’ versus ‘legitimate concerns’

The arrival of new technology has for decades been a fear among people working in the film industry, Minkoff noted. For example, when computer animation arrived in the 1990s, there were similar fears about the impact it would have on jobs.

“When computer animation came along, there were a lot of people that were very afraid about it — what it would mean, how it would impact people’s jobs,” Minkoff, who also directed 1999’s “Stuart Little” and 2003’s “The Haunted Mansion,” told CNBC.

“What became very apparent early on was that, if people wanted to maintain their own personal relevancy in the industry, it became very important for them to really learn and adapt to changes in technology,” he added. “We’re experiencing something quite similar now with AI.”

Minkoff recalls the use of computers to create the famous stampede scene in “The Lion King.” In the scene, dozens of wildebeests are seen rushing after Simba, the movie’s protagonist.

In that scene, Minkoff recalls, “we could have 1000s of wildebeests rendered, but the technique that we used made it look very seamless with the rest of the drawn animation.”

“People are naturally and understandably worried when they look at what AI can do,” Minkoff said. However, he added, he doesn’t think the technology can replace all filmmakers, and that there’s a lot of “hyperbole” at the moment surrounding AI’s capabilities.

Still, Minkoff said, there are concerns about the application of AI in film that are warranted, such as those relating to copyright and the use of intellectual property in entertainment for training AI models.

“I hope that technology ultimately will save us, in some regards, or make life better, easier or more more prosperous,” Minkoff told CNBC. “But it’s the Wild West, where it seems like anything is possible and anything can be done.”

Minkoff added that there are “legitimate concerns” with AI when it comes to issues like the protection of media IP and tackling copyright theft. “I understand why people might want to slow it down or put guardrails on it to be careful, to be safe,” he said.

But ultimately, he doesn’t think the AI positive momentum will slow. “My impression is that it probably won’t be slowed down, because these decisions are left to judges and courtrooms to decide what’s right and wrong,” Minkoff said.

On the copyright question, he suggested the creation of a dedicated body designed to protect filmmakers’ intellectual property and remunerate them, like what the American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music, Inc. do for the music industry.

‘Always the human behind the technology’

The Reply AI Film Festival, which awarded three winners this week, started out as an internal competition among employees, with staff using AI tools to produce movie-quality videos, Filippo Rizzante, chief technology officer of Reply, told CNBC.

“There has been a lot of progress with technology for producing creative work,” Rizzante said in an interview last week. “This is impacting a lot the quantity and quality of what we are producing as humanity.”

Rizzante pushed back on fears that AI will displace people working in entertainment. The technology, he said, “will completely change how the industry is delivering content today, but not necessarily change the number of people employed in the movie industry.”

In this year’s edition of the festival, one of the runners-up, “Gia Pham,” depicts a woman looking at a takeout menu before being transported to a colorful picturesque 2D world. The narrator of the video, who begins by speaking in English, starts talking in Japanese after the shift from 3D to 2D.

Alexander de Lukowicz, co-director of “Gia Pham,” told CNBC that humans are essential to how he and his team work to generate short films. AI tools such as DALL-E and Midjourney, he said, helped the directors of his short film “enhance worlds we weren’t able to generate before.”

“It’s always the human behind the technology that has to guide the technology to gain the proper result out of it. We wanted to produce something like a film to really check the boundaries of what’s possible,” de Lukowicz told CNBC.

Technology

Google hires Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, others in latest AI talent deal

Published

17 hours ago

July 11, 2025

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Google hires Windsurf CEO Varun Mohan, others in latest AI talent deal

Chief executive officer of Google Sundar Pichai.

Marek Antoni Iwanczuk | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

Google on Friday made the latest a splash in the AI talent wars, announcing an agreement to bring in Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence coding startup Windsurf.

As part of the deal, Google will also hire other senior Windsurf research and development employees. Google is not investing in Windsurf, but the search giant will take a nonexclusive license to certain Windsurf technology, according to a person familiar with the matter. Windsurf remains free to license its technology to others.

“We’re excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding,” a Google spokesperson wrote in an email. “We’re excited to continue bringing the benefits of Gemini to software developers everywhere.”

The deal between Google and Windsurf comes after the AI coding startup had been in talks with OpenAI for a $3 billion acquisition deal, CNBC reported in April. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The move ratchets up the talent war in AI particularly among prominent companies. Meta has made lucrative job offers to several employees at OpenAI in recent weeks. Most notably, the Facebook parent added Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang to lead its AI strategy as part of a $14.3 billion investment into his startup.

Douglas Chen, another Windsurf co-founder, will be among those joining Google in the deal, Jeff Wang, the startup’s new interim CEO and its head of business for the past two years, wrote in a post on X.

“Most of Windsurf’s world-class team will continue to build the Windsurf product with the goal of maximizing its impact in the enterprise,” Wang wrote.

Windsurf has become more popular this year as an option for so-called vibe coding, which is the process of using new age AI tools to write code. Developers and non-developers have embraced the concept, leading to more revenue for Windsurf and competitors, such as Cursor, which OpenAI also looked at buying. All the interest has led investors to assign higher valuations to the startups.

This isn’t the first time Google has hired select people out of a startup. It did the same with Character.AI last summer. Amazon and Microsoft have also absorbed AI talent in this fashion, with the Adept and Inflection deals, respectively.

Microsoft is pushing an agent mode in its Visual Studio Code editor for vibe coding. In April, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said AI is composing as much of 30% of his company’s code.

The Verge reported the Google-Windsurf deal earlier on Friday.

WATCH: Google pushes “AI Mode” on homepage

Technology

Nvidia’s Jensen Huang sells more than $36 million in stock, catches Warren Buffett in net worth

Published

1 day ago

July 11, 2025

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Nvidia's Jensen Huang sells more than million in stock, catches Warren Buffett in net worth

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, holds a motherboard as he speaks during the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 11, 2025.

Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unloaded roughly $36.4 million worth of stock in the leading artificial intelligence chipmaker, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

The sale, which totals 225,000 shares, comes as part of Huang’s previously adopted plan in March to unload up to 6 million shares of Nvidia through the end of the year. He sold his first batch of stock from the agreement in June, equaling about $15 million.

Last year, the tech executive sold about $700 million worth of shares as part of a prearranged plan. Nvidia stock climbed about 1% Friday.

Huang’s net worth has skyrocketed as investors bet on Nvidia’s AI dominance and graphics processing units powering large language models.

The 62-year-old’s wealth has grown by more than a quarter, or about $29 billion, since the start of 2025 alone, based on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. His net worth last stood at $143 billion in the index, putting him neck-and-neck with Berkshire Hathaway‘s Warren Buffett at $144 billion.

Shortly after the market opened Friday, Fortune‘s analysis of net worth had Huang ahead of Buffett, with the Nvidia CEO at $143.7 billion and the Oracle of Omaha at $142.1 billion.

Tesla to officially launch in India with planned showroom opening

Published

1 day ago

July 11, 2025

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Tesla to officially launch in India with planned showroom opening

Elon Musk meets with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Blair House in Washington DC, USA on February 13, 2025.

Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images

Tesla will open a showroom in Mumbai, India next week, marking the U.S. electric carmakers first official foray into the country.

The one and a half hour launch event for the Tesla “Experience Center” will take place on July 15 at the Maker Maxity Mall in Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai, according to an event invitation seen by CNBC.

Along with the showroom display, which will feature the company’s cars, Tesla is also likely to officially launch direct sales to Indian customers.

The automaker has had its eye on India for a while and now appears to have stepped up efforts to launch locally.

In April, Tesla boss Elon Musk spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss collaboration in areas including technology and innovation. That same month, the EV-maker’s finance chief said the company has been “very careful” in trying to figure out when to enter the market.

Tesla has no manufacturing operations in India, even though the country’s government is likely keen for the company to establish a factory. Instead the cars sold in India will need to be imported from Tesla’s other manufacturing locations in places like Shanghai, China, and Berlin, Germany.

As Tesla begins sales in India, it will come up against challenges from long-time Chinese rival BYD, as well as local player Tata Motors.

One potential challenge for Tesla comes by way of India’s import duties on electric vehicles, which stand at around 70%. India has tried to entice investment in the country by offering companies a reduced duty of 15% if they commit to invest $500 million and set up manufacturing locally.

HD Kumaraswamy, India’s minister for heavy industries, told reporters in June that Tesla is “not interested” in manufacturing in the country, according to a Reuters report.

Tesla is looking to recruit roles in Mumbai, job listings posted on LinkedIn . These include advisors working in showrooms, security, vehicle operators to collect data for its Autopilot feature and service technicians.

There are also roles being advertised in the Indian capital of New Delhi, including for store managers. It’s unclear if Tesla is planning to launch a showroom in the city.