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Paramount CTO says AI won’t direct movies, but …
Paramount CTO Phil Wiser remains optimistic about the future of AI, but he said he doesn’t think it can replace the role of a director or create a full-length movie.
“No one’s creating a movie out of a single prompt going into a text-to-video tool. That’s not happening anytime soon,” Wiser said Tuesday on the SXSW stage. “[AI isn’t] sitting in a director’s chair, which is probably never going to happen.”
Wiser acknowledges the strengths of AI video generation models, particularly in producing short animated clips. However, he pointed out that these models still struggle with aspects like story arcs and maintaining character consistency from scene to scene.
Rather than replacing a director, Wiser thinks AI will continue to be used in various other aspects of filmmaking, such as voice tools, dubbing, color correction, and de-aging.
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will.i.am reinvents the radio with AI
Musician and technologist will.i.am took the stage at Qualcomm’s SXSW keynote on Tuesday to demo RAiDiO, the conversational AI platform he’s been developing for over a year. Unlike many assistants, RAiDiO can “reflect” on what’s being said, will.i.am claimed, and uses colloquial language in one of several realistic synthetic voices.
“It’s not just, like, an LLM chatbot,” will.i.am said on stage. “There’s some magic that’s happening there.”
RAiDiO, which will.i.am has spoken about before, has access to real-time info from the web, can understand conversations in multiple languages, and offers several streaming “radio stations” to choose from. will.i.am teased a collaboration with an unnamed automaker – to be announced later this week – that’ll bring the RAiDiO experience to cars. -
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Mark Cuban talks AI, says it’s ‘never the answer,’ it’s a tool
Tech investor and entrepreneur Mark Cuban is bullish on AI, saying that entrepreneurs today should be learning everything they can about the new technology. However, he cautioned that although AI could take the place of mentor, in terms of answering questions, it shouldn’t be relied on as a solution.
“AI is never the answer. AI is the tool. Whatever skills you have, you can use AI to amplify them,” he said.
“A lot of creative people think, well, AI is gonna write all the scripts,” said. “AI doesn’t know a good story from a bad story. You need to be creative. AI can do the video — trust me, I can create AI-generated videos. They’re still gonna suck.”
“Whatever skills you have, AI can amplify them. But not using it means somebody else is going to be amplifying their skills — and that could be the difference between getting ahead of you or not,” he said.
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Waymo v. Uber: Let’s all take a trip down memory lane
Image Credits:Kirsten Korosec When I entered the Waymo-Uber party Monday evening, I stopped and reflected on what a wild moment this was. The scene, which included a performance by singer Megan Moroney, Terry Black’s BBQ, and a Waymo robotaxi parked on a platform above a pool, wasn’t particularly grandiose — at least on the scale of SXSW parties. But seeing Uber and Waymo employees toasting with mugs of prickly pear margaritas was, especially for this reporter.
Seven years ago, Waymo and Uber were in the middle of a trade secrets theft trial —a shaky foundation for a future partnership. The two companies abruptly settled just five days in the trial, in which Waymo had alleged Uber had stolen self-driving technology. Insiders told me that Waymo and Uber started talking about partnering in 2022, eventually leading to a launch in Phoenix about 18 months later.
Now, with Uber and Waymo pairing up on a robotaxi service in Austin, and soon Atlanta, this relationship appears (at least publicly) to be on solid ground.
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Mod Bikes launched its new Groove e-bike
Image Credits:Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch We took a quick spin around the demo pavilion at SXSW and stopped by Mod Bikes, an Austin-based e-bike company that just launched its new Groove model. The $2,000 bike has a vintage feel and a step-through frame, with thick enough tires to make any rider feel safe and sturdy. Or so they tell us; we’ll be testing it out Tuesday to confirm and will report back!
But before we do, one interesting tidbit the guys at Mod shared with us: The company assembles its bikes in the U.S., but many of its parts come (as expected) from China. That means the startup is already starting to feel the sting of Trump’s tariffs and has had to get creative to avoid offloading higher costs onto the consumer.
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Rivian is literally everywhere
Image Credits:Kirsten Korosec / TechCrunch It’s typical for the headliner sponsor of SXSW to have a presence. But sheesh, Rivian — the title sponsor — really is everywhere. The EV maker is clearly trying to make a big splash and connect with attendees: It has at least four installations, including in the exhibition area inside the Austin Convention Center and an outdoor obstacle course, which I tried out.
Sadly, they didn’t let me drive the course, which included two large hills and one section that took the second-gen R1T pickup truck off camber. The driver put the vehicle in all-terrain high to tackle the course, which took about three minutes to complete.
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Bluesky is thinking about how to block AI scrapers
Bluesky CEO Jay Graber said during her SXSW panel that the social network has been working on a framework for user consent over how they want their data to be used for generative AI. The proposal involves a system similar to robots.txt, but would instead ask companies to respect users’ settings on data reuse.
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Two open web initiatives may be teaming up
Entrepreneur Frank McCourt, whose Project Liberty is developing open internet infrastructure, announced at SXSW that his organization has been in discussions with internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee about an integration with Solid, his open source project aimed at giving people control over their own data.
“We’re debating, or talking, right now about how to incorporate that — him and Solid, his Solid Pods — into the project,” McCourt teased.
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Bluesky CEO Jay Graber takes a swipe at Mark Zuckerberg
Jay Graber’s got jokes. As the Bluesky CEO took the stage for her SXSW keynote on Monday, she wore a black T-shirt with black lettering across the chest, which declared, Mundus sine caesaribus. Or, “a world without Caesars.”
Her shirt is nearly identical to one that Mark Zuckerberg wore (and designed) at Meta Connect last year. But Zuckerberg’s shirt had a bit more of a dictatorial vibe: aut Zuck aut nihil. It means “either Zuck or nothing,” playing on the Latin phrase aut Caesar aut nihil, comparing himself to Julius Caesar.
This isn’t just an empty jab; Bluesky’s entire architecture is built around never giving too much power to one person, whereas Zuckerberg owns so much of Meta that he couldn’t be ousted, even if his board wanted him to be.
Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Caesar.
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First Waymo robotaxi spotted
You might have heard — or read here at TechCrunch — about the “Waymo on Uber” robotaxi service that launched in Austin last week. I didn’t expect to see many of these robotaxis this week because of the road closures around the Austin Convention Center and side blocks. But nope! These suckers are out and about. I spotted one driving around within a few minutes of downtown. I’ll be trying to hail one this week to compare it to how the rides stack up with the ones I’ve taken in Phoenix and San Francisco.
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First SXSW task complete: founders and Franklin Barbecue
I was in Austin for all of five hours and managed to have some famous Franklin Barbecue and meet up with some founders at an event hosted by Justworks. I guess I can go home now.
Justworks, founded in 2012, is a company that provides HR and payroll management software and services to thousands of small businesses. If anyone knows what might be on the minds of entrepreneurs and founders, it’s CEO Micheal Seckler, who I caught up with briefly during the event. I wanted his take on startup founder sentiment here in Austin — and elsewhere.
While he noted there does appear to be some uncertainty — especially around whether or not to jump into an IPO — the founders he’s encountered have a steely resolve around them. They’ve survived a lot in the past couple of years and they’re like “ok, we’ve got this,” Seckler told TechCrunch during the event. Confidence was a word he used more than twice to describe the general vibe from founders.
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Death Stranding 2’s new trailer drops at SXSW 2025
It’s hard to predict just what will come out of any event led by Hideo Kojima, game designer and creator of the Metal Gear Solid franchise. His SXSW 2025 panel was ostensibly about his upcoming game Death Stranding 2, turning into what was effectively a release date reveal for the title, which will debut June 26. But for anyone versed in Kojima’s prior work, his attachment to Hollywood celebrity, and prior critiques of the original Death Stranding’s traversal-focused gameplay, there is much, much more to unpack from the 10-minute trailer.
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AI
SXSW 2025 live coverage: Mark Cuban is bullish on AI, will.i.am demos RAiDiO, and Rivian is ‘literally everywhere’
TechCrunch will be on the ground at SXSW 2025 — the annual tech, music, comedy, and film conference that kicked off Friday in Austin — in search of the zeitgeist of this AI-centric era.
The tech portion of the annual event kicked off Friday and will run through March 13.
The conference begins with several tracks that fall squarely in TechCrunch’s area of interest, including the creator economy, culture, startups, health and medtech, and energy.
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