I don’t think I’ll see self-driving cars in the next 20 years (see here for my definition of what a self-driving car is).

I don’t think I’ll see general artificial intelligence in the next 20 years. The sort of general AI that can distinguish between what it means when you drive a car and see a soccer ball bouncing into the street, and see a empty plastic bag floating into the street. The sort of general AI that can understand that the former has a much higher chance of a small kid running into the street to chase that ball. The sort of general AI that we would need for that self-driving car utopia.

But I am 99% certain that in the next 5 years Amazon will have a fully automated warehouse that does not have any human presence on the floor. I keep on thinking about how “I, Robot” portrayed fully automated highway traffic at 180+ mph with barely any space left between vehicles. And I keep on thinking how much money Amazon will be able to shave off of every single physical purchase when they remove the last human operator from that chain. Except for the delivery vehicles of course. I don’t for a second believe that we’ll see automated delivery of any sort, be it ground vehicles or drones, in the next 20 years.

At that point, it’s pretty much game over for anybody else in the retailer space. I don’t think that anybody else – be it Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Office Depot, JC Penney etc – has the right blend of warehouse coverage and technological research into warehouse automation. And how likely is it that Amazon would be willing to share that automation technology with their competitors?

Of all the individual tech stocks that we own, I am by far the most optimistic about Amazon.

Three things that are highly unlikely to happen within the next 20 years (be sure to read the disclaimer after the list before jumping in to comment):

1. SkyNet-style machine uprising or any similar “at which point the technology has became self-aware and decided to eliminate the humanity” event
2. Self-driving cars
3. George R.R. Martin finishing the “A Song of Ice and Fire” books

And now the disclaimer. By self-driving cars I mean the combination of technology and legislature that would give me the option, owned, leased or on-demand, to have a vehicle for myself and my family to get me from point A to point B at my time of choosing. The only mandatory condition is that it would not require me to pay any attention to what is happening during the trip.

If I am required – by technology or by law – to be able to take over the control of the vehicle at any point in time, that is not a self-driving car in my world. If the technology is only available on specific roads (highways, for example) or under very specific weather conditions, that is also not a self-driving car in my world.

I’ve been playing a couple of games from the same developer, and along the way talking to my not-quite-yet teenage son about paying money for games.

The thing that I tell him about in-app purchases, as well as paying money for stuff in general is to think about what you’re getting out of it. Let’s forget for a second that behind every decent game there’s a whole bunch of people – designers, testers, programmers, managers – without whom this piece of entertainment that keeps you occupied wouldn’t exist. Let’s forget for a second that not only those people expect to be paid for their effort, but the nature of capitalism dictates that a profit is expected to be made on top of that as well. So let’s put that aside.

The concept of pay-to-win (or p2w) is that you pay to get things that make you more powerful. You get to beat the game quicker or more easily. You get an advantage on non-paying players (more on that in a moment). And, at least for me, you get to enjoy more of the game sooner.

When I talk with my son about in-app purchases, I talk about what he expects to get out of it. Is it a one-time purchase for something that is gone, so to speak, after you use it? Is it a one-time purchase for something that you can use for as long as you want until you get something better. Or is it, perhaps, something that gives you ongoing benefits for a fixed amount of time – like in these two games where you pay $2.99 and have certain daily benefits for 30 days.

And I always tell him that entertainment is in the vast majority of cases not free. I tell him that when we go to a movie theater, we pay $8-12 for a ticket for something that lasts about a couple of hours and might not even be that good by the end of it. I tell him that watching his favorite soccer team or the last episode of Spongebob comes with a three-digit monthly bill from Comcast. I tell him that if I want to enjoy the latest book in “The Expanse” novel series, I need to pay.

And I also tell him that some of that entertainment can be enjoyed if you’re willing to wait longer. That movie will eventually find its way to basic cable, heavily peppered with ad breaks. That book will eventually find its way to the nearest library, with an additional healthy wait if it gets too popular with other readers. But that some entertainment might never be free, such as top-level sports competition or anything Disney.

Instead, I say that it is the “pay to enjoy” model. I pay to enjoy movies on the big screen instead of waiting a few months until they’re available in digital formats to be watched at home. I pay to enjoy reading books from my favorite authors as they are released instead of waiting until they get to the library. I pay to enjoy albums from my favorite performers instead of trying to catch a song or two on free streaming networks peppered with, you guessed what, ads.

And here’s the argument that I’ve been toying with in the last few days.

Specifically in the realm of games, and especially mobile games – how much difference is there between advancing in the game by paying with money and paying with time?

Most people advance by putting a lot of time, grinding through the “obstacles” carefully placed by the game designers. People in this group have what I consider to be disposable time. For this group, putting in 12-16 hours a day to hone a perfect execution without using any extra resources is a cause for celebration in forums.

And some people advance by putting some (dolphins) or a lot of (whales) money into it, triggered by the “opportunities” carefully placed by the game designers. People in this group have what I consider to be disposable money.

So far I have failed to find an argument that people in the first group use to look down, or even rage, at the second group – that can’t be turned on its head and used in the exact opposite way.

If you say that people who put a lot of money into your favorite game have an unfair advantage over free-to-play participants, the same argument goes for people who put a lot of time to grind through it. If somebody is willing to put 10-12 hours every day, would you consider that to be an unfair advantage over somebody who “only” plays for an hour or two? If that is not unfair, how different is paying a couple of bucks to get the same advantage?

If you say that people who are new to the game should “pay their dues” before they get to the same level of achievement as those who have been at it for a while, let me introduce you to the history of guilds and unions. Let me also point at how “well” Europe (on average) is doing in these unprecedented times of technological innovation. But that’s a side note.

You might say that people who “rush” though the game by paying for everything and skipping the important basics end up being pretty terrible at playing it. That you need to grind the basics to “properly” enjoy the more advanced things. Let me tell that there are some pretty terrible players out there in every game, no matter if they paid anything or not.

And the most ridiculous argument that I read just the other day was that the money the whales spend on games should instead by donated to charities, or at least done as 1-to-1 match. Makes me wonder if the person who wrote that comment spends one hour of community work for every hour they spend on playing games. If so, kudos.

I wonder if there’s an argument to be made against pay-to-win players that can’t be turned on its head. Note that I say players and not game developers. I am not asking you to rage against studios that focus on subscriptions, loot boxes, add-ons etc aka the greedy bunch. Focus only on people who are willing to pay to enjoy their games as they see fit. Convince me that I’m wrong.

Continuing the ongoing series of interviews with creative artists working on various aspects of movie and TV productions, it is my pleasure to welcome Peter Albrechsten. In what is my first interview on sound design in this series so far, he talks about the language of music and his love of storytelling, creating the sonic identity for his productions, manipulating sound and building his library over the last twenty years, the research he does when he joins a new project, and working with a variety of screening platforms and formats. Around these topics and more, Peter dives deep into his work on “The Last Race”, a glimpse into the world of a Long Island stock car racetrack that is clinging to its tradition as the world around it goes through a real estate development boom.

Peter Albrechtsen

Kirill: Please tell us about yourself and what brought you to where you are today.

Peter: My name is Peter Albrechtsen and I’m a sound designer based in Copenhagen, Denmark. I graduated from the Danish Film School in 2001, and since then I’ve been working on features and documentaries, both Danish and international productions.

I’ve had a great fortune of being part of a creative movie environment in Denmark. I graduated from the film school right when the Dogme movies came out, drawing a lot of international attention. In addition, Danish documentaries have been highly valued over the last 15 years, and it gave me the opportunity to work with a lot of very talented filmmakers. I’ve also been doing a lot of international productions from countries all around the world.

I just did a Brazilian feature film, and in the last few years I’ve done films in Israel and Bulgaria. I also do several US indie movies because I know a lot of US film people – in addition to all the Danish and Scandinavian productions. You have a lot of ambitious, very sound oriented creators from around the world who want to play with music and sound – and the visuals, of course. That means that I’m working on a lot of great and ambitious projects, and I’m having a lot of fun with it.

Kirill: If I can bring you a little bit earlier in your career, was it always the plan to do sound – when you went to the film school or before that?

Peter: As a teenager, I was always into movies and I was always into music. Then I went to the European Film College, which is kind of a pre-film school based in Denmark that is attended by students from all around the world. I think that this language of music that speaks to all of us is the only universal language in many ways. That school was the place where I realized that if you do sound for movies, you could combine all the things I love about music and doing storytelling that I loved as well. So by doing sound for movies I was able to combine those two things.

That was 20 years ago, and it feels like I’ve been doing it forever. The amazing thing is that after working with sound for so many years, I can still be surprised and overwhelmed by what sound can do for images. Working on a film and playing around with sounds for it can totally change the perception, the atmosphere and the feeling of it. Doing sounds for a film is an adventure for me. It’s been like that for 20 years now, and I don’t see myself stopping any time soon.

A scene from “The Last Race”, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

Kirill: When you started working in the industry after school, was there anything particularly surprising or unexpected for you?

Peter: I started out assisting on different projects, doing sound effects editing on films such “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and “Antichrist” by Lars von Trier. Those were big, ambitious movies, and I was a part of the sound crew, learning a lot of things from those experiences.

Gradually, I started working on movies were I was in charge of the sound. My job now is to try and be the ears of the director. I try to find the sonic language for any film that I do. That happens in via a close collaboration with the director, and I really love the collaborative way of working on movies. You’re doing something that is greater than the sum of the parts.

You’re creating something that no one could have created on their own, and I really love that. There could be hundreds or maybe even thousands of people on a film crew, and it’s all about being inspired by the director’s vision. In a way, it’s amazing every time it happens. When someone is building a bridge they can go hundreds of millions of dollars over budget. You don’t see that in the film world. Its effectiveness is quite amazing.

The art of making movies is about combining that effectiveness with creativity, and trying to create something special. Sometimes you succeed, and sometimes you don’t.

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