Our interview with Deepfake Tom Cruise

26:21And what would Tom Cruise do? And this was early in the pandemic, very early. And so one of the only things I could do was one of the, one of the only things you could do outside was actually play golf because it was open and spread out. You could legally play golf. This was early on when like you couldn't legally go to a grocery store, right? And so there was a driving range nearby and I just set up the little thing and I thought, okay, well, what would Tom Cruise? And so I set it down and I was like, what's up, internet? Who loves sports? You guys cool if I play some sports?

26:57If you like what you're seeing, just wait till what's coming next. and that thing went berserk. I remember seeing that. So exciting. I believed it though. So did the rest of the world. The rest of the world, yeah. And then it became very scary, very fast. Right. It became a global phenomenon. It was the most famous deep fake. I mean, very quickly in the first year, hundreds of millions of people spent over a billion minutes absorbing it. And since then it's only grown. Yeah. And the story, the initial story was not, hey, meet this enterprising guy in California and Thailand, the story was deepfakes are here and you and your family need to be afraid.

27:35Yes. There's so much fear tied up to that. Yeah, for sure. It's like deepfakes start with amazement and then incredible fear. What else would I believe? Yeah. What's real? What does this mean for my job? Like everything, there's so much fear attached to it. And it is understandable. listen the the the ultimate uh gauge for all of time up to now was okay well i'll believe it when i see it yeah and now maybe no longer what what like what was the experience of deep tom cruise like the rise of it because like from the first video you you said some of that motion was like a little bit of fear of like oh my god this is so big this is bigger than when did it shift from like that to this is exciting and fun and like well it was always exciting it was always exciting fun because again it was a way for me to just to really share share joy with people it was a creative outlet during the pandemic and i gotta say also like i grew up loving tom cruise yeah of course those posters on my wall like i i i wanted to do it in a way that if i ever you know met him in real life he'd be like hey like you're a good kid like i really you know there's no cheap shots on him in any way.

28:52I grew up loving the guy. I want to ask about how you internalize the ethics and the relationship of you and the actual Tom Cruise. I take pride that I feel you know I've never exploited or had any cheap gags towards him. We've never monetized this at all. Boy it would be nice with the amount of followers I had. I was going to say you'd have to assume that brands have reached out right? A bunch of brands have reached out. And I think that's kind of the cheap yes over the correct no in the long term. And so we've never done that. Now, we've been able to use that to build an actual meaningful company.

29:34And we consider ourselves, and we are, the world leaders in hyper real synthetic generated content that is cinematic quality. I think, again, we've increased his relevancy, actually measurable by billions of views. Yeah. And I am now at this point, I don't know what else I have to prove. I just, I would, I would, I would, it's not that I'm performing for an audience of one, but, you know, I just hope that he appreciates that this has all been done with great, great reverence. His team's aware, right? Like you guys have had some level of correspondence. His team is aware. You can't, everybody's aware.

30:14There's no world where he hasn't seen it. Right. Yeah. If he really wanted it taken down and erased, how would you perceive that? Well, if that's something he wants, I think that's absolutely worth listening to. I offered him the passcode, offered to take down the TikTok when it had 100, you know, very early, early days. And they didn't want to validate it or anything. again to the younger generation of consumers next thing he has Mission Impossible coming out well the whole DNA of Mission Impossible is the phenomenon of yeah so we could do that yeah I remember when I was young watching MTV Music Video Awards and it would be like Ben Stiller oh that was so good it's like why is it okay for Ben Stiller but like the oh no the guy who's kind of I don't know I've always felt a little guilty until proven innocent which is why it's like yeah but I want to do this and I want to do that yeah Yeah, yeah.

31:09And granted, hard to like feel sympathetic for the Tom Cruise looking guy. Yeah, yeah. But I, again, it's trying to, in a positive way, yeah. Dude, selfishly coming off the heels of Top Gun Maverick, which was an incredible movie, I would love to see a Top Gun movie with a young Tom Cruise. Yeah. And I guess that would perhaps be your re-entrance to acting in a major motion picture. Well, we could also just have Tom Cruise play himself at the age of 20. We can de-age and age people up. Interesting. I think his first movie was a movie called Losing It that he starred in at the age of 17. So we have the data.

31:56And with his consent, if he so chooses, we can do every single age that he could desire. And it could be him and it could be his performance and it could be real and meaningful. And you will see something like that with the new Tom Hanks movie that we just wrapped shooting that Bob Zemeckis is directing. And you'll have never seen anything like this. And the creative concept would not have been possible, you know, without our visual capabilities. So because like Tom Hanks, you have him in big. We only work with people named Tom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Only Tom's. Yeah, so you can like, you can make him look like he looked in big or, and then all the way up to you've got mail.

32:35and you have all this data. That's right. But it's Tom Hanks today. That's right. And he's acting and then he looks young. He is playing 20. Up till this moment of time, you would have had to have cast a 20-year-old version. Wow. You know, you can do certain stuff. Sure. And again, this is, you know, one of the more recent examples was a big, very expensive Netflix production called The Irishman. Yeah. It was very cool. And there was a bit with like Al Pacino. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, trying to de-age him and it was okay. It wasn't great. This is extraordinary. and what that unlocks for creativity.

33:07Like this is, right now, this is cutting edge visual effects work. But what it could mean is extraordinary. And I always, in talking to Chris Ume, said, you know, what is the dream? What is the dream? And his dream was, I want to be able to have a real conversation with my great grandparents. I want it to be lifelike. Now it's just like a memory of what I was told. They were never alive when I was alive. And I just thought that was such a beautiful vision. And knowing that he had an artist's kind of like soul, you know, we started making, making more videos and then building this team and this operation.

33:52And it has been, it's been terribly exciting. I think it's changing so fast. You have to remember, you know, when this company started, which was only two years ago, The biggest things going were NFTs and the metaverse. Yeah, yeah. Gary V, this is the most important thing that's ever happened in civilization. Is it though? And so things change. Yeah. We are right now, we're smack dab in the middle of a huge hype cycle, but it's real. Generative AI is real. and it's only kind of 1.0. And so the future of the internet, who knows if it's the metaverse or whatnot, it is going to be increasingly visual.

34:40I think one of the great promises of this new technology is empathy. That's really what makes us human. It's hard to do business. It's hard to have a real conversation with sexy unicorn 324. right? Yeah. You know, what you want to wear in the metaverse is your real face. The future of the internet where we work and education and gaming and commerce, shopping, therapy will be populated with hyper real lifelike figures that are deeply personal and relevant to you. So it is really important how that content is made and the rights of the individuals. Yeah. The consent of the individuals for any model that is built off of biometric data.

35:39So you guys went on America's Got Talent and use the technology to in real time, bring back Elvis. It's bananas. It's crazy. It's crazy. Cause also the guy kind of looks somewhat like Elvis, but not really. Right. Not really. right did that like what what is the process of that did you have to get that the rights for elvis's face is that it was a lot that doesn't exist right now right like we don't put into a trust saying like when i die miles can have the rights to my face which sure you can use this legally as you just got the rights to my face uh but yeah but uh like that's not a current thing where it's like my name image likeness voice you know like where did you go to get elvis's likeness rights.

36:24So the first part of that, which is important was, listen, it's always easier to show people what works than tell them what can work. We need to be entertainment adjacent, just like deep Tom Cruise to showcase creative joy. People in the audience and, you know, I saw it just leapt to life. They've never seen anything like it before. You would think, wait a minute, but this is synthetic and I'm going to, it was, it was just Just incredible. I'd like to thank Tom, Chris, and Metaphysic for having here tonight. The thing about hyper real is when it is really good, which Tom Cruise, Deep Tom was the first example, it just leaps over the uncanny valley.

37:04And then it is just real to you. So it is definitely a new paradigm in the visual grammar of storytelling. Not only with Deep Tom Cruise, I can do the voice. It's my voice. It's my acting and ideas and, you know, wrote it and predict and also the mannerisms. And then it's laid on top of me. We can now also create, you know, audio of someone. And so imagine being able to speak any language in the world with perfect fluency to anybody else. And that's happening like in concert with all of this. Like obviously, you know, Mr. Beast on YouTube is translating everything into multiple languages, but hiring voice actors to do it.

37:45And they're dubbing it. That's an expensive endeavor. Right. To do that. Right. in every language. I went to one of his videos recently and I couldn't believe the languages that are featured. You know, like it's not the, it's not, okay, we'll do Spanish, Hindi and, you know, French. Think about what that would do for our show. Yeah, of course. Instantaneously, you could listen to us speak in any language. Yeah. That's what I wonder is like, how available is all of this going to be for people like us, you know? Well, right now it starts, what, with all AI and right now, you know, chat GPT and all of that is kind of at the center of our consciousness.

38:22It's all about the data. It's all about the data that you put into the model. So if we begin to, and again, anything that's built off of your biometric data, your visage, part of your appearance that makes you human, you need to own all that content and how it is applied. I don't know if right now I'll be able to talk to my deceased great grandparents. Sure. But I got a good feeling that my grandchildren are going to be able to interact with me in a hyper real, very realistic way. And what you're saying is that like, because there will be enough data on how you interact, how you would speak. How many emails have you written right now?

39:05Yeah, a lot. Maybe 30 ,000. Maybe more. How much video? Yeah. I guess there's so much video. Speaking in long. High definition. All of it. all of it all of it um but it is really important on again who who makes this and who kind of has you know hands out even the library cards um right now you try to get your cookie data from meta and google good luck to you oh my god the future promise of web 3 is real yeah um and the blockchain is real but we need to get a lot smarter there needs to be a verified way where you own all of those assets and you can do with them what you please. That also brings along new ethical ramifications.

39:51Yeah. For example, so we could now have a show where it is Barack Obama interviewing Martin Luther King Jr. We can have Serena Williams interviewing Muhammad Ali. Okay. Very cool. Who writes the dialogue for Martin Luther King Jr.? Even if it's like a Pulitzer prize winning like historian once it's out there it works in your memory hyper real just becomes real and so it's like oh but he said this thing and he said you see even to this day like the british royal family is furious about the show the crown right because it's a manifested approach it's like but that's a but it's a tv show this isn't real not netflix it's like well but it is real to people.

40:38And, you know, history is perpetuated by those that continue to tell its story. That's interesting. I felt that way about the narrative show on HBO about Magic Johnson and the Lakers. Sure. Because he was unhappy from what I understand with how he was portrayed. Right. And I don't have that much of an understanding of the actual story of the Lakers. That was sort of my first entry point. And I kind of just take it as maybe it's not totally exactly how it happened, but that was the feeling I'm sure everyone had. That was kind of the sentiment of what happened. And I take that with a grain of salt, but also that's the closest thing to truth that I have, because that's what I'm exposed to.

41:12If deep Tom Cruise has done anything, it's really just way raise awareness. You know, there was no like, no, this is really like Tom. It's like, you're right. This is it. And let's kind of show you a little bit behind the curtain and let's talk about this because this is a real thing. And we all need to take agency because the future, the future is here. It's interesting that we, as you know, human beings, uh, first of all, like enjoy playing pretend or like impersonating things, right? Like reliving stories. And even the fact that you keep bringing up like the desire to bring back your great grandparents, like, why do you think we have this obsession with, um, like seeing each other or like seeing a hyper real version of life.

41:59It's hardwired into the human experience. We are just hardwired looking in someone's face to know, I mean, our survival depended on it and split second decisions back, you know, in hunter gatherer times. I can trust this person. This person is with me. We have locked in. There is something about the human face that matters deeply. Again, for me, always it was, hey, not Miles Fisher or enterprising. It's like just reduced to Tom Cruise kind of guy. Right. Just because of the face. Yeah. And it's interesting too, that what Tom Cruise is, is immediately contextualizes the thing for everybody. We've all seen him and it's like, oh, that's interesting because that's you.

42:39People can just understand it. But in order for that to happen, his face has to stand for something. And I think that's something that's really important as we get into the like generative AI conversation, like human beings are able to create that emotion, you know, that emotional transformation in someone. And then you build off of that because they've, the human has created it. And then the generative AI can either remix it, recreate it or transform it. But in my opinion, like the stuff that's amazing us right now is like, oh, someone, uh, you know, wrote a Kanye West type, you know, uh, hip hop song, and then they put it to a Kanye West type beat and then generated his voice.

43:19And then we're amazed because it sounds like him. Right. But it's what we're amazed by is that it sounds like him. Right. You know, and so it has to start with him, him creating a brand, a vibe, a sound. And I think maybe now, but not over time. You think that over time, I think like Kanye has a brand. Yeah. Right. Because of his ability and because of the time that he's been in market producing music. And there may be a time when generative AI produces things that are, of course, gathering other inputs, but have maintained a consistent enough brand that connects with humans over time where it's like that brand is not Kanye.

43:55It's some new name. Right. That is a brand that exists within generative AI. I guess that's my question. That connects with people. Is there a, do you think there's a future to, you know, a movie star that is purely generated? You know, or a hip hop artist or a YouTuber or a live Twitch streamer that's just, you know, the inputs are being generated that what's being output is being generated by AI. The face is generated by AI. The voice is generated. We've already seen that in a static sense with say Michaela. Yeah. You know, Japan and South Korea traditionally has been very kind of forward on this where huge influencers, you know, and you have LVMH brands actually paying these synthetic creations as influencers.

44:41I find that a lot of these existential crises for creativity trains of thought are a bit cyclical. For example, I've been reading a lot of kind of criticism from the 1850s and the 1860s. Publications like The Atlantic are pretty extraordinary. They have all their archives. and around the time the advent of the camera, which is the actual camera, unanimously, everybody, thoughtful people, said, creativity's dead. What are painters gonna do? For thousands of years, they have captured the essence of portraiture, of landscapes, of moments. Well, now all that's out the window because there's no more, what's the point?

45:33This captures in perfect likeness everything. thing. So there's no more creative, you know, art is dead. Well, we know that not to be the case. Perspective matters. And again, feeling matters. You know, one thing I just want to impart to your audience, you use the tools that are available to you and you express an original point of view. And if it is your original point of view, if people respond to that, then you're the only source that can provide that. And it's authentic. Yeah. I think the thing that when we first met that really opened my eyes when I talked to you and then learned more about you, we had breakfast.

46:10And I remember coming away from that breakfast and thinking about the expansion of the term creator. Like the way we talk about the term creator, specifically on this show, you immediately think someone who makes YouTube videos or someone who makes internet videos, right? That's how we've defined creator. But to be someone who has utilized the internet to create, it can expand beyond just video and media, right? It's to create businesses, to create relationships, to create, like, you've created a lot. And I think that you embody the definition of creator, where it's like, you know, right now, the breadth of businesses you have, you know, between AI and coffee.

46:47Like, I don't think this is Miles Fisher in your final form. Like, I know that the next chapter, there will be another chapter at some point where you might enter a totally different business because it hits you creatively. And you're like, that's cool. You know, there's a great Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford. And you can look it up, maybe put it in the show notes where he just says, look, you can only connect the dots in the rearview mirror. Yeah. You need to have faith in something going forward that just holds you on because only in retrospect can you say, oh, naturally, A led to B led to C.

47:22I couldn't in a million years have made up the fact that I came out to Hollywood. A little bit of like luck is when preparation meets opportunity. The opportunity was this new thing of visual media and YouTube. I started making music videos, impersonating other people, Christian Bale and Zach Morris. That went well. Then started acting and stuff. then realize there's a ceiling of acting because people can't get beyond this like visage thing. Starting a coffee company, having that coffee company blow up when we signed, like worked with a 19 year old whose core audience was 16, who, by the way, when you're 16, like I wasn't brewing coffee at home nor subscribing to anything.

48:01And then to have like that girl turned me onto TikTok, which blew up like the most famous, like, and then the synthetic, Who knows? And who knows what comes next? All I know is this kind of overused catchphrase of, well, it's really important to be authentic. Well, you know what? It really is. And people need to learn that kind of on their own. To call yourself an artist is an awkward, weird, difficult, insecure thing for most. We think we will somehow be legitimized by getting signed or getting a degree from some fancy place or publishing or sales metrics. All of that is artificial. You are an artist when you say you are an artist.

48:48And you are a good artist when you make someone feel something deeply and unexpected. and you've got to bet on yourself. You can be more entrepreneurial now with the tools that are out there. Yeah. But you've got to kind of participate. And so now the tools are different. The tools are different when I was coming up. And before that, you know, everything changes and is in flux. But what matters is how you make people feel. And, you know, with the future of cinema, Again, we are, who knows with cinema? I mean, novels are extraordinary, but now you have chat GPT. They can generate a lot of those.

49:36You can now do even podcasts, which I find amazing. You could actually, in a very realistic way, have an entire conversation with someone who has been deceased for 200 years, having combed instantaneously through everything they have ever published and ask them very meaningful questions. Well, I think that's really exciting. I want to listen to that. I would love a real conversation with Thomas Jefferson. Yeah. Or you name it. It'd be wild. It can be done. Yeah. It's all happening right now. Yeah. And I would just say, you know, get in the sandbox and play around. What's great is it's very democratized and everybody can do it.

50:16Yeah, everyone can use it. It's crazy. But bringing awareness to the forefront is critical. That is what Deep Tom is doing. And everything now is, has to, you know, the, the, the ethics and the consent of the individual are paramount. I wanted to ask you, you've been involved in so many viral ideas. You know, I look at your catalog of work and I'm like, wow, you, you were somehow around some of the most viral videos on the internet. You created some of the most viral videos on the internet. You've now created one of the most viral ideas on TikTok. like what's the recipe for virality? Like what do you think takes an idea from like, that's a cool idea to this is going to connect with millions of people.

51:03The honest short answer is I don't know. Yeah. It's hard to do something sustainably if you're really not passionate about it. You can work your way into something, but not to continue it to make it worth watching. A viral video doesn't go viral because everybody sees it. It goes viral because the people who do watch it, watch it over and over and over again. There's this quote from David Lynch that I've always liked, which is ideas are like fish. You don't make fish. You got to catch fish. And I've always related to that. And so what I do, my secret sauce is actually read a newspaper in print every single day, every morning.

51:39I've done this since high school and it has to be in print because if you read a bit of what's on each page, you know, the traditional newspaper editor actually has a real job and you're aware and somewhat fluent in all the conversations that are going on in the world. If you just read online and I love emails and I love Substack and newsletters and everything, and you guys have an extraordinary one and I try to consume a lot, you're still not necessarily following what's going on in Myanmar or what's new in the aviation business in Latin America. Okay. It doesn't really apply, but let me tell you something.

52:15luck is when preparation meets opportunity but i believe you can increase the surface area of luck if you are aware of more than what immediately surrounds you i've only found two things in common that every kind of successful person in the entertainment sphere has one their story is entirely unique and cannot be kind of replicated by formula with anyone else. And two, they never quit. Yeah. The only two things in common. Those are great markers for every actor and performer and artist and creator. Um, you are now just, it's not that you're just starting out, but I know you guys and how sincerely, uh, ambitious you are for all the right reasons.

53:04it feels like we're just now starting out. We're just catching our, and it's like, well, 13 years is a long time to stretch before the marathon. But you didn't quit. And so you have to be resourceful. Like I can't tell you when my partner Remington and I were building this coffee business, just how many times you get to the very, very, very last squeeze of like the toothpaste in the jar. And like when you do, like you have to be really creative on finding how to get a little bit more toothpaste out of out of that you know we didn't we weren't a venture-backed business we bootstrapped everything totally on our own um and so you you you just find a way to survive and in that creates a lot of sincerity where now like the brand is very well established people are going to watch colin in Samir for like very in depth, real time documentaries of their, the people who live in, you know, their imagination and their heroes.

54:09And this sense of, you can do this too, and come join the table, pull up a chair. I think there's, if you enjoy it and you're able, again, just to collaborate with other like-minded, there's very little downside. Look, if zero people listen or watch this, I got to spend two and a half hours talking to you guys. It's net plus to me. Oh yeah. So just think in that spirit where there's very, very little downside, but a lot of upside. I love that. Well, thank you so much. Thanks guys. This has been amazing. It's been a pleasure.