[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: I understand you grew up in Canada, but always dreamt of coming to Silicon Valley?
Russell Palmer, Co-Founder of CyberFilm AI: Definitely. Yeah. Growing up in the Toronto area, you get the lake effects, snow.
I was a skateboarder.
My mom listened to the Beach Boys.
To me, it just seemed like this dream place.
I always wanted to live there.
When I realized I wanted to work in tech and Silicon Valley was in California.
I love movies and Hollywood, I was a bit of a child actor at one point and so the thought of Silicon Valley and Hollywood in one state.
It was just a dream. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
Film Courage: Before working in AI, do you remember your first experience with AI?
Russell: Yes. So AI goes back in terms of it used to just be called machine learning and then big data.
I’d always worked with those things in my career.
I think the first time I got really inspired was when I saw an early demo of GPT2, which is what became ChatGPT.
Once we could see that a robot, an AI could speak English, it just really piqued my curiosity.
I just wanted to see it try to write a story.
One thing my brother, my co-founder and I always talk about is storytelling is intrinsic to humanity.
And so, if this AI wrote a story, what would it tell us about it and about humanity?
Would it use our 3-act structure or something completely different?
So I would say the first time I saw the demo of GPT, that’s what really got me started.
Film Courage: What was your first job in AI?
Russell: So I worked at Microsoft. That was my first job out of college when I moved from Canada.
I was a user experience program manager on the Office team…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
About:
Russell Palmer is a technologist and Silicon Valley Product Manager with a background in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, having worked at companies including Microsoft, Viv Labs AI, Samsung Research AI, and JPMorgan’s AI Lab at Stanford Research Park. He co-founded the startup CyberFilm AI in 2021 with his brother Andrew, an indie writer/screenwriter/director/producer/actor, founder of Synapz Productions and an AD on Hollywood productions around Toronto, Vancouver, and Los Angeles (and WGC/DGC/CMPA member).
To try their latest app SAGA, sign up for 3 days free at: Writeonsaga.com
CONNECT WITH RUSSELL PALMER
Linkedin.com/in/russellsapalmer
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