The Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger says people should “embrace” new technologies like controversial artificial intelligence (AI).

Bob Iger Embraces AI

Iger discussed new and changing technologies with Canva co-founder Melanie Perkins on Thursday morning at the Canva Create showcase. Iger is an investor and board member of the graphic design platform.

He praised Canva for incorporating generative AI tools and other cutting-edge technologies.

Walt Disney himself was a big believer in using technology in the early days to tell better stories. And he thought that technology in the hands of a great storyteller was unbelievably powerful.

Bob Iger, Canva Create

Iger said the current anxiety about AI replacing human labor is the wrong perspective.

“Don’t fixate on its ability to be disruptive — fixate on [tech’s] ability to make us better and tell better stories,” Iger said. “Not only better stories, but to reach more people.”

AI was a major issue discussed during last year’s WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Writers and actors demanded safety from being replaced by the technology and their writing/voices/images being used in AI without their consent.

Disney created an AI task force to evaluate future uses of the technology. Last summer, Disney and Marvel’s “Secret Invasion” caught flak for its AI-generated opening sequence.

At Canva Create, Iger said there is no option but to figure out how to make AI work to enhance movies, TV shows, music, and other content.

“You’re never going to get in the way of it,” he said. “There isn’t a generation of human beings that has ever been able to stand the way of technological advancement. What we try to do is embrace the change that technology has created, and use it as the wind behind our backs instead of wind in our faces.”

Bob Iger told Perkins to stay true to the company’s core ideals of simplifying tech tools and building architecture that helps power creativity. He pointed to Disney and Coca-Cola as examples of companies that were popular in the 1920s and still have recognizable brands.

“There’s this belief sometimes that adjusting your values is necessary to adjust to the world that has changed,” he said, noting he doesn’t subscribe to that. “Think about what Canva is today and the business you have today because of the values that were imbued in the brand and the company culture years ago. That value creation should be ongoing. Abandoning those core values that got you where you are is what, in my opinion, results in the extinction of brands and companies.”

Source: Variety

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