And The Oscar Goes To... Me?

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Happy Monday, folks.

All of you I, Robot believers out there got all of the ammunition you could've possibly wanted for your "AI is going to destroy the world" narrative this week.

The internet's latest attraction was the GPT-3 tool, or Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3... no relation to Optimus Prime, an AI language model from the Open AI Project capable of providing more engaging conversations than 99% of Tinder matches. Its powers transcend just summarizing the book that you promised your friend that you'd read or informing you that the picture of you holding the fish you caught last summer almost made them swipe left, though.

Many believe that the tool could soon overthrow search engines such as Google by providing much more accurate results than what the impersonal engines return. This could mean providing you step-by-step instructions for some oddly specific task or even turning ideas into executable code snippets. The potential of such a technology is huge and could eliminate the few final knowledge barrier for many users.

However, not all is rosy in the digital garden. As we tend to do, some of the first things that people did included finding ways to make the AI tool return dangerous results like how to build a molotov cocktail or hotwire a car, easily bypassing the rather weak security measures in place to prevent such instructions.

The tool's rollout is just a public beta test in preparation for GPT-4 in the coming months, but it has perfect encapsulated many of the benefits and risks of a technology which could end up being one of the biggest technical achievements since Google itself.

Side note, I've read some of the "what is the meaning of life?" and "what is our purpose?" questions, and the AI responses are sorta kinda terrifying af.

Tired of having to exert copious amounts of effort to type and look things up on your phone? Boy, does Elon have the news for you!

Many were simultaneously amazed and horrified by the videos of a monkey playing Pong with its mind last year, an experiment being tested by one of Musk's 5 (and counting) companies, Neuralink.

The company's product? A microchip which is surgically installed in patient's brains to allow them to control technology using only their minds. Rather than trying to create an entire population of Prof. Xs, though, the technology actually does have a pure purpose in allowing disabled and paralyzed individuals to better interact with the world around them.

After the successful monkey tests, the company is now aiming for its first human trials by early next year. Gonna pass on this one.

Finally, don't you just hate when your 3.5 minute noodles take 3 minutes and 38 seconds to cook?

One woman absolutely does, and she has decided to put on her mask and cape and take justice into her own hands by suing Kraft for misleading claims on its mac & cheese boxes. The Florida native claims that the preparation time does not take into account the arduous and time-consuming tasks of removing the lid and pouring in water, a lie apparently worth $5 million in court.

The lawsuit has turned into a class action one, meaning that anyone else who feels they've been wronged by the food company have the ability to join in the cause. Finally, the joint rebellion this nation has so long been missing.

Frankly, I think the real crime is allowing people to eat whatever it in that artificial "cheese."

I admit that I ran into a bout of writer's block when trying to find a company to talk about for this week. I wanted to look into one that is working to disrupt the film and television industry, but I was running into too many startups that were either too big (as in Hulu sized) or one film student that created a website for their Film Studies 101 YouTube channel a few years ago and hasn't checked back in since.

The remedy? I actually asked GPT-3 to suggest a startup that was working to provide more immersive experiences in the film and television industry. The recommendation: Dreamscape Immersive.

An interesting coevolutionary relationship has always existed between technology and the creative space, whereby storytellers have often been some of the first to adopt the innovations in the former to provide new experiences and avenues to communicate with audiences.

From the introduction of color and then audio to video in the early 20th century to the splattering of CGI that James Cameron calls Avatar and Netflix's creative choose-your-own-adventure projects like Black Mirror, the industry has consistently used every technological tool at its disposal. It should come as no surprise, then, that the most recent technical developments, namely in virtual and augmented reality, are being wielded in new ways to provide viewers with more immersive experiences than they've ever encountered.

Rather than watching Harrison Ford whipping here and swinging there, imagine being able to sprint alongside him as you attempt to avoid a multi-ton boulder rolling towards you. While this specific example was inspired by the Indiana Jones 5 trailer and isn't in line for the VR experience treatment (as far as I know of 👀), the general idea sticks.

One of the biggest challenges for startups in the VR space has been equipment limitations. The hardware side of the industry is hella expensive, so it's mostly restricted to capital-privileged companies like Meta who can waste invest billions into development. This means that startups on the software side of the space have to build within the limitations of this equipment, equipment which is expensive to purchase, bulky and nauseating when used for extended time, and quite honestly, pretty terrible in terms of realistic immersion.

Dreamscape has opted to retain full control over the experience of its users by developing its own technological solution to prevent having to downgrade the creative product's effect. Rather than offering its product as an app on the Quest or Playstation stores, customers can only have this experience by going to one of the company's physical locations and using their proprietary equipment consisting of the headset, a backpack, and hand and foot trackers. Unlike Horizons, you'll have legs!

Not only that, but unlike most VR experiences available, the virtual environment can actually accommodate up to 6 users at a time, meaning that an entire starting basketball team (plus coach) can hop in to check out an alien zoo together.

The company's current "adventure" offerings are limited, and lasting just ~15 minutes, they're far from being the full-fledged cinematic achievements that many directors and producers are hoping to use this technology for. Compared to everything else on the market, though, Dreamscape's experiences are unmatched in quality and sophistication. At around $20 per individual per adventure, the experience is also affordable enough for customers of many demographics and for repeat visits, particularly true with the company's ever-changing lineup of adventures.

They currently have just 7 physical locations, 3 of which are not in the US, but having just been founded in 2016 and launching the first experience in 2018 and given the early stage of this technology, it can be expected that this number will only continue to grow as demand for VR rises.

Even despite operating just a few locations, estimated annual revenue is still nearly $22 million. The decent traction, combined with the power of the technology and vision, has attracted sizable checks from investors, including entertainment legends such as IMAX, Nickelodeon, AMC, and even Steven Spielberg. In total, the company has raised $67.3 M. Maybe the Indie fantasy isn't so far-fetched afterall?

Dreamscape sits at the intersection of a few massive industries. VR gaming is expected to grow 30.2% annually to $92.31 billion globally by 2027. Location-based VR makes up a small percentage of that right now with last year's market estimated to be worth just $825 million, but as more movie and stage theaters recognize the potential experience provided through the medium, it's expected that these companies will help to propel this subcategory to new heights (and a bigger share of the market).

It's tough to predict how the market will shape up competitively because so many potential entrants are prohibited by the current hardware limitations of existing headsets. However, entertainment companies such as IMAX (again, an investor) and even movie studios themselves are likely to begin to increase the allocation of investments into projects in this space. Rather than being competitors, though, the existent backing of so many leaders on the creative side makes it seem that these organizations will serve more as collaborators than competitors as they'd rather produce just the content and leave the technological aspects to a company like Dreamscape.

The same rationale holds for game studios looking to build immersive games for their customers. Few are building the actual hardware, instead designing just the content for players to experience on other platforms. The superior hardware product provided by Dreamscape creates more possibilities for realistic, boundary-breaking gameplay than that provided by typical consumer VR gear, something that all studios are looking to provide to stand out in a very competitive video game industry.

Even when compared to most big name VR producers, Dreamscape isn't a very direct competitor. Individual consumer use VR companies have taken the complete opposite approach to the VR tradeoff between scale and immersion. Other companies have chosen the former, choosing to target the "headset in every household" goal which isn't as advanced but is affordable. Dreamscape has focused on the latter with its novel experiential opportunities which are prohibitively expensive to own but worth visiting for the advanced experience. The company is the movie theater to Sony's Netflix.

True competitors are location-based experience providers in general, such as Top Golf or Dave and Buster's. In its current limited rollout, Dreamscape is more comparable to an arcade than to Meta. Users don't choose between using an Oculus at home versus going out to a Dreamscape location. Rather, they'd choose between going to Dreamscape or going to an escape room.

The names of the company's investors and advisors should tell you all that you need to know about the qualifications of the team. The company was started in Switzerland when the cofounders of Artanim, a motion capture technology research center, Caecilia Charbonnier and Sylvain Chagué managed to combine Hollywood-style motion capture with their programming expertise. Then, they found their business guy in serial entrepreneur Ronald Menzel and began to build.  

Eventually, they caught the eyes of Emmy-winning producer and media entrepreneur Kevin Wall and seasoned media exec Aaron Grosky (now COO), and then they brought on Disney Imagineering's Chief Creative Officer in Bruce Vaughn. They have an all-star roster of seasoned technical experts and media and entertainment pros.

TLDR, Dreamscape Immersive is building the future of immersive entertainment by combining world-class technical achievement in its far superior VR hardware with creative experts from traditional movies and entertainment to provide audiences with more unique and memorable experiences than ever before. The industry is an emerging one with no clear competitive leader, meaning much of this growing market is up for grabs for Dreamscape. Finally, possible even more so than its amazing technology, the strong team of executives and investors positions the company to take over as the leading quasi-movie theater chain of immersive VR entertainment.

Unfortunately, there isn't a location within 500 miles of me. However, if Spielberg gives Jaws or Ready Player One (that would be pretty meta tbh) the Dreamscape experience, I might have to make the trip.

What are your thoughts? Have you been to a Dreamscape Immersive location? Would you? Shoot me a reply and let me know.

Also, I'm always looking for feedback. If you have any thoughts, suggestions, or ideas, I'd love to hear them :)

P.S. Football season might be wrapping up on the field, but silly season is just getting started behind the scenes. Make sure to check out Pigskin Economics, a once-per-week breakdown of the biggest topics going from the sideline to the executive suite.

Cheers to another day,

Trey