Runway CEO Compares AI to the Invention of Photography

The co-founder and CEO of Runway Cristóbal Valenzuela has compared the current state of artificial intelligence to the invention of daguerreotypes in the 19th century.

In a lengthy X post, Valenzuela says his company Runway, an AI video platform, is “not an AI company” and believes the “era of AI companies is over.” The grandiose statement argues that AI is no longer a standalone technology but a foundational infrastructure.

Valenzuela uses the invention of the camera as a simile: “I often talk about our work as a new kind of camera. Not in the literal sense of capturing images, but in terms of its historical impact,” he writes.

“The camera didn’t just create photography — it birthed entire industries, economies, and art forms. Cinema, television, TikTok — all children of that first revolutionary tool that could capture light and time.”

The technologist argues that AI — like the camera — will be a genesis of industry, a foundation for a different media world.

“Just as the camera transformed how we capture reality, AI is transforming how we create it,” says Valenzuela. “The models and technical capabilities we’ve built are just the beginning — they’re the equivalent of those first daguerreotypes, primitive yet pregnant with possibility.”

He says that it is a mistake to see AI as the “end goal”, rather it is a mechanism for “new forms of expression, new ways of telling stories, and new methods of connecting human experiences.”

“Media has traditionally operated like a one-way street. Creation flows down established channels to reach consumers. Even when distribution was disrupted — first by social media, then by streaming — the fundamental pattern remained: someone creates, others consume,” says Valenzuela.

“The roles were clear, the boundaries defined. But we’re witnessing something different now. Imagine watching something that generates itself as you watch it — truly dynamic content that responds to you, understands you, creates for you. Universal Simulation and world building. The distinction between creation and distribution dissolves when content can shape itself in real-time. That is the foundation for an entirely new media landscape. It’s about fundamentally reimagining what media can be: interactive, generative, personal — yet simultaneously shared and universal.”

Pause for Thought

Valenzuela’s vision certainly is grand, if not a little self-important. However, there is little doubt that virtually every new product is attached to AI in some way; this week Apple rolled out Apple Intelligence.

In July, it was reported that Runway had scraped hundreds of YouTube videos — including dozens of popular photography channels — to train its latest Gen-3 model with.