Tag: future of work

In episode two, we explored how the technology for a democratised media production tool was emerging, early-stage, fragile, but promising. It seemed that, in the not-too-distant future, with the right funding and research, this dream could become commercially viable.

But a question lingers. Why build it at all?

What would a democratised storytelling tool really accomplish?

My name is Michael Topic.

This episode is about who would want such tools, why they’d want them, and what work would need to be done. Because even with the dream of possibility, there was still a massive gap to cross… between concept and reality.

At the turn of the century, the people funding content and those making it had what could, politely, be called… “artistic differences.”

On one side: investors, hedge funds, and corporations, demanding low-risk, guaranteed returns. Sequels. Superhero franchises. Predictable. Profitable.

On the other side: audiences and creators, hungry for novelty, surprise, and risk.

Formulaic storytelling was wearing thin. The same plots. The same explosions. The same heroes, recycled endlessly.

Audiences were restless. Creators were stifled. The industry, unwilling to take risks, shut down experiments before they could breathe.

In the universe, entropy spreads. Systems repeat, settle, stagnate.

But life, life resists.

It seeks novelty. New configurations. Stars form. Planets coalesce. Evolution unfolds.

So too with storytelling.

When narratives calcify, when only one pattern is allowed, the culture begins to wither. Democracy in storytelling is not just an aesthetic choice. It is survival.

Back then, content creation was a closed shop. If you weren’t known, you weren’t getting in. Gatekeepers controlled access to tools, distribution, and, ultimately, the stories the world was allowed to hear.

But storytelling is inherently political. When control is restricted, only one narrative survives. When storytelling is democratised… dissent emerges. And dissent is how societies evolve.

Humans are born storytellers. We need creative freedom, not just to entertain, but to express truths, to craft our own narratives without corporate or political interference.

That’s why these tools mattered. Not only for the storytellers, but for the liberation of creative expression itself.

But the media industry was changing, and not for the better.

Big money was flooding in. Hedge funds, private equity, investors without love for story, only love for numbers.

They bought up companies. Consolidated power. And with them came a singular obsession: profits over creativity.

Risk-taking evaporated. Ideas shrank. The space for originality grew smaller, year by year.

For creatives, this was devastating. Films scrapped before reaching audiences. Series cancelled mid-arc, their characters erased overnight. Storylines butchered by quarterly reports.

It was cultural vandalism.

Even unions couldn’t fix this. What was needed wasn’t just collective bargaining, but a way for creators to self-organise. To federate. To build their own content on their own terms.

Every star is born in collapse. A cloud of gas, compressed, pressured, strained, until at last, ignition.

So too with innovation. Old structures collapse. Pressure mounts. And out of that crucible… new light is born.

Democratised tools were that potential star. A way to reignite the fading light of originality.

Picture this: A platform connecting creators worldwide. Geography irrelevant. Collaboration boundless. Works built not on executive mandates but on passion, imagination, and audience insight.

No gatekeepers. Just art.

But inefficiencies still plagued production. Film editing and CGI were walled off from each other. Want to see how digital effects looked in your edit? Not easy. Not fast.

The dream was to merge these workflows. Faster. Smoother. More intuitive.

The horizon widened: impossible camera angles, digital simulations, collaborative asset pools spanning marketing, games, and film. Remote work as default, not compromise. Not cramped in Hollywood rooms, but free to create globally.

We didn’t yet know how streaming would rewrite everything. But we sensed the fracture coming. And it came.

Today, computing power is greater than we ever imagined. Idle resources across the globe can be joined into federated systems. What was once prohibitively expensive can now be made accessible.

Creators, long exploited, are still waiting for justice. Poor pay. Invisible royalties. Hollywood accounting that erased profits on billion-dollar films. The system was rigged.

But blockchain offered a ledger of provenance. Not exploitation, but attribution.

Immutable contracts. Fair tracking of work. Royalties that follow contribution, not corporate whim.

For the first time, creators could receive both credit due and fair compensation.

The universe records everything. Light travels, imprinted with history. From the whisper of the cosmic microwave background, to the fossil glow of galaxies billions of years away.

So too with culture. Every story is an imprint. An echo across time.

When storytelling is controlled, the archive is impoverished. But when voices multiply, when freedom expands, the archive grows richer, a true record of what it means to be human.

By empowering creators with the right tools, we can unlock new forms of storytelling. Authentic. Diverse. Free from corporate shackles.

A world where anyone can make films, tell stories, and create cultural artefacts. Not just for the few, but for everyone.

This was the fever dream. A dream of democratised storytelling. A dream not yet fully realised… but closer every day.

The universe tells its story through starlight. We tell ours… through imagination, through technology, and through courage.

In every age, humanity has searched for ways to share its stories. Once, it was firelight and painted walls. Later, the printed page. Today, pixels and photons, stitched into moving images.

Each new medium is a mirror, reflecting not only who we are, but who we aspire to become. Through stories, we change the world.

This is a story of tools, of struggles, of visions… and of the cosmos of creativity itself.

My name is Michael Topic and I am going to be your guide, as we explore ideas that you might not have encountered.

Observation matters.

When we take the time to watch people at their craft, especially in specialized fields, where repetition and detail form the rhythm of work, we begin to notice the obstacles. Small, invisible frictions. Inefficiencies. Misalignments. The things that make work harder than it needs to be.

And there, in that noticing… empathy takes root.

Empathy is not sentimental. It is a tool. It is the searchlight that reveals those pain points, hidden in every process, in every workflow, waiting for someone to pay attention.

Resolving them, removing even a tiny grain of sand from the gears, is what drives true innovation. And this small act, removing a grain of sand, scales, until whole systems move more freely.

Let’s step back, for a moment, to a larger canvas.

Interlude 1 – A Cosmic Lens

But how can empathy change storytelling?

Consider the universe, for a moment. Galaxies are sculpted not only by stars, but by the invisible gravity of dark matter. We cannot see it directly… yet its presence shapes everything.

So it is with creativity. The obstacles, the invisible forces, quietly bend the path of every story. Shaping, twisting, deforming, distorting, corrupting, compromising.

And empathy… is our telescope. It allows us to glimpse the unseen, and then… to fix it. To act.

The Turning of the Millennium

In the early two-thousands, forces were aligning. The potential for new tools, for richer, more democratic storytelling, was becoming unmistakable.

Computing power was rising. Storage was expanding. Moore’s Law, that famous doubling of capacity, was in full swing. And suddenly, what had once required a corporation’s vast resources could be purchased with something as mundane as a personal credit card.

But the real shift was not just silicon, not just spinning disks. It was cultural. The media landscape was transforming rapidly, yet the tools of visual storytelling had lagged behind. Creatives still struggled to bring visions to life, even as media empires grew rich beyond imagination.

The Human Cost

Editors, in particular, lived with uncertainty. Work came in temporary clusters: freelance, fleeting, fragile. The scramble for the next job was constant; an invisible weight carried from project to project.

Meanwhile, the profits flowed… upward.

Those who told the stories, the very heart of the enterprise, were undervalued.

In Hollywood, there was even a bitter joke. “Hollywood Accounting.” Films which earned millions could still be declared “unprofitable.” Such was the strange gravity pulling wealth away from its makers.

Owning the channels of distribution, keeping creators at arm’s length from their audiences, was power. Immense power.

And yet… while power consolidated above, something quieter was unfolding below.

Technology Awakens

Meanwhile… technology was stirring.

Digital cameras unlocked effects once thought impossible. Cinema-quality images. Bullet time. Frozen moments. A shifting… of perspective itself. Computer imagery blended with live action, creating the illusion of worlds that never existed.

But it was, in many ways, a trick of the eye. A gimmick.

Actors mimed against empty space, their partners nothing but green screens. Studios built sets of pure absence. And behind it all, massive render farms. Costs immense. Delays excruciating. There was no instant undo.

Interlude 2 – The Star Forge

How can we visualise why innovation is slow to come, in some industries? Then, suddenly, it mysteriously accelerates. Why?

Every star is born in collapse. A cloud of dust, drawn inexorably inward by gravity, ignites under pressure, and a new light emerges.

Innovation follows a similar path. Old ideas collapse inward, pulled by necessity, compressed by limitation. And when the heat and pressure is sufficient, when the tools catch up, it’s as if a star is born. A new way of telling stories… ignites.

From that ignition, the slow work of building began. Circuits, processors, engines of calculation, all lighting up in their own way.

The Horizon Expands

Gradually, the horizon was changing.

GPUs grew more powerful. CPUs faster, cheaper. Render farms, once titanic, were inching toward accessibility. The pieces were falling into place. We could glimpse… the future.

One breakthrough was stereophotogrammetry. With ordinary cameras, three-dimensional models of the world could be captured. Curiously, it was not cinema but the quest for self-driving cars that pushed computer vision forward.

Today, with only a smartphone, one can scan a room in three dimensions. Lidar. Wi-Fi. Artificial intelligence. Tools that let us see, even through walls.

The promise? To blend the tangible with the digital so seamlessly that the boundary itself dissolves.

A Vast New Canvas

And so, a vast new canvas opened. Digital characters placed within real landscapes. Impossible locations made possible.

What was once montage, a careful arrangement of celluloid strips, was now full-scale simulation. From Eisenstein’s experiments a century ago, to today’s volumetric capture and Gaussian splatting, the leap is almost beyond comprehension.

We are approaching free-viewpoint television. Moments where the viewer may shift camera angles, alter lighting, explore scenes as if stepping inside them. What was once science fiction… is now product.

And so we arrive at a moment of wonder, yet one among countless others. For the universe itself has always been recording…

Interlude 3 – The Cosmic Archive

For billions of years, the universe has been recording itself. The fossil light of distant galaxies, the cosmic microwave background, the echoes of creation still whispering to us.

In the same way, every advancement in media is an enduring archive of human imagination. A record, not just of what happened, but of what we dreamed was possible.

This podcast is just one more faint point of light in the cosmos of ideas and stories. And like starlight traveling across time, these dreams arrive in the present, illuminating our path forward.

Democratisation of Creativity

Barriers to expression have fallen away. From studios to bedrooms, anyone can tell their story. Instagram. YouTube. TikTok. Platforms that democratise creativity and amplify it to billions.

But the matter of distribution persists. Streaming, though powerful, remains tightly held by corporations. The promise of a more open system lingers: federated computing, shared resources, global collaboration.

The dream is clear: creatives, untethered by geography, contributing from anywhere. Audiences, no longer passive, but active participants in the story. A convergence of making, sharing, and shaping.

But every light casts a shadow.

The Catch

And so… there is, and always has been, a catch.

Real-time creation has always been just out of reach. The vision was there, but the speed of the tools… not yet.

But now, powerful processors. Oceanic storage. Blazing networks. The scaffolding is here. The dream of empowering storytellers everywhere is no longer an if… but a when.

If you recall from our first episode I spoke about software you install on your device, which joins with millions of other devices, to create a shared pool of processing power and storage. That is the fabric that can solve the real-time problem. Millions of devices, instantly at your disposal, working in concert, when you need them most. Your device, serving the needs of others, when it would otherwise lie idle.

A planetary-scale computation resource. A collaborative creator-direct-to-audience distribution system. Owned by everybody.

Today… we stand closer than ever to that realisation.

“When” could be “soon.”

The universe tells its story through starlight. We tell ours through technology, imagination… and courage.

And as new tools unfold before us, tools that bend time, space, and even perspective, we stand on the edge of a vast horizon.

The next chapter of storytelling is not just about what we see on the screen… but about how we, together, choose to dream, collaborate and act.

A Fever Dream of Tools for Storytellers (00:47)

A generation ago… I experienced what felt like a prolonged fever dream.

A vision — shimmering, elusive — of something that, at the time, seemed quite impossible.

It was not merely a dream of technology… or of innovation for its own sake.

It was a dream of tools.

Tools for storytellers… designed not to constrain, but to liberate. Tools that could empower creators to share their narratives freely… unencumbered by the gatekeepers who, for so long, have stood at the threshold of public expression.

At its core… it was a vision of equality. Of democracy. A new kind of digital commons… where the barriers fell away — and something brighter, more human, emerged.

Some might call that idea dangerous.

I do not.

I see it as… emancipation.

A Glimpse of a Different Future (01:55)

But sometimes… you catch only a glimpse of a different possible future.

It’s there — clear enough to feel — but impossible to hold.

You don’t know how to tell the story in a way that brings it forth. You don’t know how to make it real.

Because this story… it’s complex. Its implications are profound. It changes nearly everything. It tears at the fabric of long-held assumptions.

It demands… a different way of seeing.

There are details. Necessary details. Things about today’s technology… hidden from most. Things that must be explained, before anyone can understand why this fever dream of mine is different.

It is easy to dismiss. To conclude, prematurely, that it could not possibly work.

But that… is only bias, speaking.

An Unexpected Blueprint (03:04)

When the revelation came into focus for me… I learned something unexpected.

You set out to solve one problem. But in the solving, you sometimes solve another. A larger, more general problem.

That’s what happened to me. For twenty-five years, I’ve wrestled with this story. How best to tell it.

I began with something small: a way to reward freelance creatives more fairly for their work.

But what emerged… was a blueprint for something larger.

A parallel economy. One in which value was rewarded… only when lasting value was created.

This strange economy discouraged speculation. It diminished exploitation.

And instead, it fostered innovation. It nurtured creativity.

It gave a voice… to the voiceless.

It became a sketch… for billionaire-proofing the Internet. For levelling the ground beneath all value creators.

But… I’m getting ahead of myself.

A Product Manager’s Promise (04:21)

I am a product manager. With decades of experience making things that people buy. Things people love to use. Things that solve real problems.

I come from engineering. I know about building things that work.

Not all product managers are like this.

Some — the extractive kind, the predatory kind — only want to hoodwink. To trick people into giving away their time, their money, their attention.

I was never one of those.

I care… about the people who must live with what I build.

Scratching a Name into the Rocks (05:02)

If you’ve read Jules Verne’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth, you know the tale. A quest, sparked by a secret text. A vision carried by Professor Otto Lidenbrock, who finds the name of an earlier explorer — Saknussemm — scratched into stone, a message across time.

Each carving, each sign, a reassurance: you are on the right path.

I think of that story often. Because this podcast… is my way of scratching my name into the rocks.

I never reached the centre of the Earth. I never reached that brighter imagined future.

But perhaps… someone else will.

Patrick and the Fever Dream (05:46)

This is why I return to that fever dream. A dream of tools for storytellers. A dream that consumed me and my collaborator, Patrick Gregston.

Together, we felt it. The need. The urgency. A psychological fugue, stretching across months, even years.

We worked hard on it. And though it began in video production — the industry we shared — we knew it was something more. Something unheard of.

Our conversations stretched across oceans. Santa Barbara. The old forests of Hampshire. Quiet moments, where reflection gave shape to the vision.

Slowly, it crystallised. Each new idea spawning another. And another. Like matter tumbling down a slope, gathering speed, gathering weight.

The dream became more vivid. More detailed. Unstoppable.

Strange… to live in two worlds at once. The real world — messy, unfair, imperfect. And the dream world — a place we longed to inhabit.

If only we could.

Hollywood and the Editing Revolution (07:04)

Patrick and I met in Hollywood. He was always there. I flew in from England, from time to time. We spoke with editors, learned their needs, helped stories find their way to the screen.

Computers were replacing film. We were products of that wave. And we clicked. Two minds, alike in passion… for visual storytelling.

Back then — in the 90s — films were edited on flatbeds. Physical film. Cut with razor blades. Joined with sticky tape.

Editing was slow. Painful. Sometimes bloody. It was destructive. Linear. Every mistake, costly.

Television was no better. Endless decks. Manual syncing. Prone to error. Always rushed to meet the broadcast clock.

Then… computers. We worked on some of the first. Non-linear. Non-destructive. Undo became possible.

Suddenly, editors could change their minds. Reconsider. Experiment. Storytelling advanced. A small step toward democratisation. And with it, new storytellers emerged.

YouTube. TikTok. A flood of voices.

The means of production, in the hands of the many.

But not distribution.

That remained controlled. Restricted. Curated by the few.

We were not there yet.

NeoPixSys: Inventing the Universe (08:51)

That was the dream behind NeoPixSys. A company born of fever. Born of possibility.

Carl Sagan once said, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

That’s what it felt like.

Because cameras in phones… and YouTube channels… are not enough. You must address power itself.

Relations. Hierarchies. Ownership. Governance.

You must think of exploitation. Of equality. Of carbon emissions. Of the ancestors we are becoming.

None of this… has been done. Not fully. The old status quo remains.

The story of NeoPixSys is long. Full of surprises. Failures that were not failures.

Lessons written in ashes. And sparks worth sharing. Because in this historical moment… globally… we may need that spark again.

At its heart, this is not only about technology. It is about stories. And about who gets to tell them.

It is about power. And about how we share it.

It is about emancipation.

The Product: A Federated Fabric (10:20)

And so… what is this product I speak of?

It is software. Installed on your device. And once installed… it begins to weave.

A fabric. A federated, distributed, collaborative fabric of computation.

Your device… becomes a node. One among millions. Together… they form a virtual machine. Not in the corporate cloud. Not in centralised data centres.

But everywhere. The machine is the cloud. The people are the power.

And with it… new capabilities emerge. Unthinkable before. For everyone.

But that… is for next time.