A view from the intersection of AI and creators.
On this podcast, Motley Idiot host Wealthy Lumelleau and information scientist Hilary Mason focus on:
- How her firm, Hidden Door, makes use of generative AI to show any work of fiction into an internet social roleplaying sport.
- Whether or not Napster is a good comparability.
- What the way forward for storytelling might appear like.
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A full transcript is beneath.
This podcast was recorded on July 13, 2025.
Hilary Mason: I feel the way forward for leisure appears actually completely different, and that it really does not matter the place the thought begins.
Dan Boyd: That is Hillary Mason, the co-founder and CEO of Hidden Door. They use generative AI to show any work of fiction into an internet social role-playing sport. Our Wealthy Lumelleau talks to Mason about all that this entails, together with their Satisfaction and Prejudice adaptation and parallels to Napster.
Wealthy Lumelleau: Let’s leap in the place we’re at this time. As I discussed on the prime, you are the CEO and co-founder of Hidden Door. Inform us about Hidden Door. Inform us in regards to the thought course of behind beginning it, what it does and what your function is there.
Hilary Mason: Sure. What we do at Hidden Door is we accomplice with individuals who create worlds by means of motion pictures, books, TV exhibits, or on-line communities, all of that basically fantastic world-building power, and we create methods for the followers to role-play in these worlds. We do use AI and machine studying to make that potential, and our followers get to return in, create their very own characters and role-play their very own tales with a extremely mild stat system. The place they get problem, shock, they get to be artistic, and it is all inside the guidelines of the world, the foundations of the IP. If there are characters from these worlds that seem, we implement all the foundations round how these characters must behave. This can be a means for followers to fan-fick as a sport, keep excited in regards to the factor that they love. I do not learn about you, however once I end studying a guide, I normally have 20 completely different concepts for various plots or corners of that world I might have liked to discover, and to actually try this in a means that reinforces and helps the authors and creators they admire. That is what we do at Hidden Door, however there’s a lengthy story about how we received right here.
Wealthy Lumelleau: Love to listen to it. Completely. That is query quantity 2 I’ve for you.
Hilary Mason: The abbreviated model is that I have been working on this space of tech that’s now referred to as generative AI and a extra broad tackle it. For a really very long time, I went to grad college for machine studying. I have been a pc science professor, realized I used to be very mediocre at that, however I actually love constructing issues and I really like constructing merchandise for folks. I ended up shifting again to New York Metropolis, which is the place I am proper now, additionally the place I grew up, and becoming a member of an organization referred to as Bitly which was simply beginning on the time, and we made brief hyperlinks on social media earlier than social media was actually a factor. I had the job there of Chief Scientist, which, by the way in which, is the very best job title anybody can ever have, as a result of you haven’t any actual tasks apart from to invent the longer term enterprise alternative for the corporate. Bitly was simply brief hyperlinks on social media, and my job was to determine how one can use that dataset to create a enterprise. It’s the most enjoyable I’ve ever had. However that led me to begin exploring language modeling and determining what folks have been being attentive to throughout the social internet world wide. We constructed lots of cool stuff.
Then I based an organization referred to as Quick Ahead Labs in 2014, and our very first mission, we did our personal utilized AI analysis, was on language era, and we constructed a prototype that wrote actual property advertisements. You’ll put in structured information like two bed room residence close to the park, and it might write the advert the place it might be like, this sun-filled residence close to transit shall be your loved ones’s escape. That actually received me enthusiastic about the facility and to illustrate, the perils of producing textual content and reworking textual content. I will skip a bunch of stuff that occurred within the center. However Cloudera acquired Quick Ahead. We constructed a bunch of scaled enterprise functions utilizing embeddings and textual content modeling, that’s primarily computable methods to grasp and mannequin info. The entire time, I used to be pondering, all the issues which can be limitations in doing this in an enterprise atmosphere with requirements for fax and issues like which can be property. If we take into consideration storytelling, if we take into consideration making a palette of choices and letting folks choose those or rewrite them or proceed gaming adventures. I began hidden door with my co-founder, Matt Brandwein 5 years in the past, with the concept that we have been simply initially of the technical window, and this was effectively earlier than ChatGPT, the place we’d have the ability to construct a product like this, and let’s have a look at the place we are able to go together with it. Now right here we’re 5 years later. We’ve got a product in Early Entry. If anybody needs to play it, go to hiddendoor.co and join the waitlist. We’ll get on in. It has been actually unimaginable to see all of it come collectively.
Wealthy Lumelleau: To illustrate I end studying a guide and I feel, man, I might like to take this to the following degree, and I contact you of us at Hidden Door. Do I come to you with the thought and we work out how one can do issues, or will we get in contact with the writer or the present creator?
Hilary Mason: We work with the writer and the creators, and we now have signed agreements with them to construct video games of their world. We actually need to do that from a spot of respect and primarily constructing extra worth for them, serving to them encourage their communities and followers to remain concerned on the planet. That is the technique we have selected. For any world the place we now have that partnership, you’ll be able to are available in as a participant and begin to make your personal characters and inform your personal tales, which you’ll then share and different folks can construct on as effectively.
Wealthy Lumelleau: It is nearly like from the angle of the writer or the creator, this can be a likelihood to have interaction immediately with followers and presumably one other income stream for them.
Hilary Mason: Precisely. That is the gross sales pitch. Hold your followers lively. We respect all the foundations of the world. This isn’t simply an LLM wrapper, and it offers the followers a option to have interaction, that’s blessed. It is actual, and the place additionally they have the power to be artistic and have their very own adventures.
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Wealthy Lumelleau: Clearly, Hidden Door is bringing collectively storytelling authors, creators, in addition to by means of the lens of AI.
Hilary Mason: Sure.
Wealthy Lumelleau: It hasn’t at all times been the case that these two domains are seen as complimentary. It seems like we all know what the pitch to the authors is, however do you ever get pushback like, no, I do not need my child introduced in that means?
Hilary Mason: Nicely, not that factor. I speak to skeptical folks on a regular basis, and the skepticism is true. Should you take a look at the market, and also you take a look at what most individuals are working round enthusiastic about, they’re saying issues like, we do not want authors anymore. I am simply going to ask ChatGPT or I will ask Cloud, and so they’re write the following novel for me. That is not true, and it is not what I feel any of us need. It isn’t what issues. However, sure, I speak to skeptics on a regular basis, and if we actually take into consideration the place that comes from, it comes from the truth that many of those massive language fashions have been constructed off of the writer’s work with out their permission and even their data in lots of instances.
Wealthy Lumelleau: Certain.
Hilary Mason: I’ve written a guide or two. That they are in there, too. I do not thoughts within the sense that it is not how I make my residing, however should you’ve written something on idiot.com, it is most likely in there as effectively. That’s not essentially proper, and so there’s a actual moral and precept motive for authors to be skeptical, and it’s due to the precise conduct of lots of the corporations out there, how lots of the tech is constructed, and I’ve to say right here, not ours at Hidden Door, however lots of the folks out there are doing that, and the way would they know the distinction except they speak to us? I feel one of the vital essential questions of the second is separating out the know-how itself after which enthusiastic about the sociotechnical means that we relate to the know-how, enthusiastic about what our values are and the way will we construct tech and companies that align with our values and are trustworthy about the place the information comes from, what we’re utilizing it for, what transformations occur? You could possibly additionally say that I personally am a skeptic of lots of the generative AI market. If that is not apparent, I will simply say it out loud and clearly, as a result of I feel it is gone in a lower than preferrred course, however I am making an attempt very a lot by means of our work at Hidden Door and our work with authors and creators to point out a means that it might be carried out that’s respectful and is values aligned and is income aligned, as effectively, as a result of values are one factor, however it’s essential to place your cash the place your values are. This is not an ideal analogy, however as I’ve examine Hidden Door, this nearly brings me again name it 25 or so years when Napster got here on the scene. It is this nice likelihood to create neighborhood, and we are able to all entry the music with one huge flaw. The musicians received nothing for it. I received to construct up my music listing, my music catalog or library, no matter you need to name it, however the Doobie Brothers do not revenue from that. You have taken that mannequin and mentioned, “Hey, we are able to get you compensated additionally”.
Hilary Mason: Nicely, and I might say that that may be a good analogy, however then you consider, I bear in mind Napster. It was superior from a buyer viewpoint. Any tune you needed was there and there have been recordings of stay exhibits you could not get some other means. We’ve got nothing like that at this time, and in addition, musicians do not make sufficient cash for his or her music. I feel that is an instance of how to not architect an business round a technical change, and hopefully we are able to do higher this time.
Wealthy Lumelleau: That is what I am saying. Looks like you guys have discovered a option to take that nice concept and work out a option to make the creator a beneficiary.
Hilary Mason: We’re making an attempt, and I feel it’s the proper means. Whether or not we determine it out or another person does, I feel we’d like folks out out there constructing companies and making an attempt to create examples of that.
Wealthy Lumelleau: What’s essentially the most shocking factor that you simply discovered about constructing an organization round generative storytelling?
Hilary Mason: I might say essentially the most shocking factor is extra round what tales matter to our gamers, in that, I feel I spend a bunch of time within the gaming business, and there is this thread the place persons are like, generative AI and AI tech lets us have infinite video games. We have found by means of our personal testing, no one really needs that. The issues folks need are their character, their journey, after which they need moments which can be the identical as what everybody else is experiencing, so that they’ve one thing to speak about. Our gamers, I ought to say, they are not normally individuals who would say, I am a gamer, however they’re individuals who learn, and so they’re individuals who watch TV, and so they’re folks for whom media is a giant a part of their social life. I am certainly one of these folks too. I speak to my mates about books. That is how I discover out what I must be studying. For this group of individuals, at the very least, having infinite tales which can be skilled alone is just not that attention-grabbing, however having a shared cut-off date or a shared story or the power to share it and say, “Hey, how did you meet Mr. Darcy in Satisfaction and Prejudice?” Or I received him to be a vampire. Did you get that? These are the issues which can be really significant, and in order that was one which it did shock me as a result of there may be lots of power going into infinite sport worlds, and truly, that is not what issues. What issues are the moments which can be shared between our experiences, as a result of it offers us one thing to speak about and relate to one another about.
Wealthy Lumelleau: Certain. Has Hidden Door realized, is it extra books or exhibits or motion pictures which can be producing essentially the most curiosity, essentially the most engagement?
Hilary Mason: For us, it is each. We have been actually lucky to do an adaptation of the Crow based mostly on the graphic novel, however it was across the time the film got here out final summer time, and that was actually standard and stays tremendous standard. We even have a Satisfaction and Prejudice adaptation, which, once more, it is a 200-year-old novel, however all of us nonetheless find it irresistible, and it is one thing that we share culturally. I can not say it is one or the opposite. I really assume that one of the vital attention-grabbing locations this tech shall be influential in leisure is in breaking down the variations between, say, the publishing business, the gaming business, the film business, as a result of every of these industries continues to be architected round what it took to supply the artifacts. Movie is financed, careers are constructed, roles, job titles exist due to what it takes to make a movie. Then you’ve got publishing, which is basically completely different than the movie business. Video video games, completely different but once more. TV is a little bit little bit of a combination between movie and books, however I feel we are going to see a sluggish transformation in leisure broadly, as a result of what this tech is basically nice at is adapting info in a single format to a different, in a single place to a different. It isn’t artistic. It does not provide you with good things. However given any individual’s course and an authentic world to begin with, it may do one thing attention-grabbing. I do know you did not ask me for a giant long-term sizzling take, however I gave you one anyway.
Wealthy Lumelleau: I’ve taken.
Hilary Mason: I feel, basically, it does not matter the place the creativity begins, and I feel there are lots of people on the market with world-building expertise who haven’t written that guide but or who’re constructing on-line communities round their worlds, who will have the ability to discover an viewers and construct that viewers due to this tack on this change. I feel the way forward for leisure appears actually completely different, and that it really does not matter the place the thought begins.
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