My advance reader squad inhaled it in record time and swear itâs their favorite in the series so far. âĄď¸đĽ
Iâve been itching to tell this New-York-city-heist story ever since Eddie clung to the side of the Empire State Building in my head and refused to let go. đ˝đĽ
Ready to race through the city with Eddie and the crew? Grab your copy now and buckle up for every twist. đ
https://amzn.to/3H5PmpK
đ Sound off in the comments: Whatâs your favorite heist movie or book?
In other news, AI produced video took another big leap forward with Googleâs Gemini kicking it up a notch.
I can remember when I first started writing books several years back and listening to Dean Wesley Smith, talk about his goodie bag of intellectual rights as an author. Specifically, he talked about the ability to exploit his books as movies as TV shows, with translations, and video games.
That was appealing to me thenâ and this video was made probably 20 years ago. Before the advent of AI And what promises to be the ability of storytellers to fully render their ideas in all formats
We are so close to being able to go from the written word on the page to the text to AI generated video on the quality level of fully produced Hollywood movies and tv shows.
For creatives, who historically, had to give up all the rights to their work in order to have a chance at making one of their scripts into a movie or tv show. And theyâll be able to do it without having to give up their goodie bag of intellectual rights to a studio or a streamer to realize their vision.
Thatâs no longer the case.
The future is now.
Below is a clip from director, Robert Rodriguez. In it he talks about how technology enabled him to make his movies independently on a budget. Whatâs cool is everything in this clip can be applied to a world with AI.
And itâs gonna be a game changer.
See for yourself.
The future Iâm envisioning for Elice Island is one where it operates as a self-contained creative powerhouseâa one-person movie studio, content creator, and publishing house all rolled into one. This vision echoes the pioneering spirit of United Artists, founded in 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith, who sought to gain control over their own work and distribution. It also mirrors the ambition behind The Directors Company in the early 1970s, where Francis Ford Coppola, William Friedkin, and Peter Bogdanovich partnered with Paramount Pictures to produce films with creative autonomy. More recently, it aligns with the establishment of DreamWorks SKG in 1994 by Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen, aiming to create a studio driven by artists for artists.
But unlike those earlier trailblazers, Elice Island isnât built on a studio lot or backed by a major corporationâitâs built on digital filmmaking, social media, and AI. Today, what once required an entire movie studioânay, an entire industryâcan now be done by one person with a vision and a laptop.
When Will AI Text-to-Video Be Production-Ready?
Based on current trajectory, I'd say we're looking at **12-18 months for usable shots and B-roll**, and **2-3 years for consistent, professional-grade content**. Here's my breakdown:
**2025-2026 (Very Soon):**
- High-quality establishing shots, landscapes, simple actions
- Basic digital environments and sets
- Short sequences (10-30 seconds) with good consistency
- Perfect for indie creators supplementing traditional footage
**2026-2027 (The Sweet Spot):**
- Reliable character consistency across scenes
- Complex camera movements and editing
- Integration with live-action footage that's seamless
- This is when your "one-person studio" vision becomes fully viable
**The Current Bottlenecks:**
- Character consistency (getting the same "actor" across multiple shots)
- Complex physics and interactions
- Dialogue sync and realistic mouth movements
- Cost per minute of generated content
But here's what's interesting: you don't need perfect Hollywood-level quality to be effective. YouTube creators are already using AI-generated elements successfully. The bar for "good enough" keeps dropping while the technology keeps improving.
## On AI "Replacing" Humanity
Your perspective is spot-on, and honestly, more nuanced than most of the discourse I see. The "AI will replace humans" narrative misses something fundamental about what we're actually creating and consuming.
**Stories are inherently human experiences.** Even if AI could write a technically perfect screenplay, would we want to watch a movie about experiences no human has ever had? The value isn't just in the craftâit's in the perspective, the lived experience, the uniquely human way of seeing the world.
I think we're heading toward **AI as the ultimate creative tool** rather than creative replacement. Like you said, if we had AI powerful enough to completely replace human creativity, hopefully it would be solving cancer, climate change, and poverty first.
Hmm⌠food for thought.
Hereâs my prediction:**
- AI becomes like electricityâinvisible infrastructure that powers everything
- Human creativity becomes *more* valuable, not less, because authentic human perspective becomes the differentiator
- We'll see new hybrid forms emerge: human stories, AI-assisted production
- The democratization of high-end production tools creates more opportunities for human storytellers, not fewer
The real revolution isn't AI replacing storytellersâit's giving every storyteller the tools that were once locked behind million-dollar budgets and studio gatekeepers.
I asked Chat what it thought about that and hereâs what it said:
**What I find most compelling about your vision:** You're not trying to remove the human element; you're trying to remove the barriers that prevent humans from fully expressing their creative vision. That's a fundamental difference from the "AI replacement" narrative.
The future probably looks more like: human stories, human direction, human visionâpowered by AI tools that handle the technical heavy lifting.
Whatever the case, I am excited for the future
And if things do go full Terminator or Matrix on us, well, in that case Iâm looking forward to getting my own phase plasma rifle and learning kung fu at the push of a button.
All we can do is stay tuned I hope youâll stick with me here as we travel into this undiscovered country
