Ep. 5: ICE in Airports, AI in Hollywood, and The Oscars
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
ICE is back in the news—and now they’re showing up at airports. So… what’s actually happening here?
Then we pivot from government to Hollywood, where AI is starting to reshape how movies get made—and who’s really in control.
And finally, a few Oscars moments that might have been easy to miss—but say a lot more than you think.
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to the It’s Gonna Be Fine podcast.
I’m going to be honest with you: I am exhausted right now. I slept maybe an hour last night, which I think might be the least amount of sleep I’ve ever gotten in my life. I just could not fall asleep—probably because I had too much on my mind. Taking a very long nap yesterday definitely didn’t help. So I was basically up all night.
That said, I really wanted to record today for a couple of reasons. First, the podcast gives me energy, which is always a good thing. Second, there were a few topics in the news that I wanted to discuss while they were still relatively fresh. One of them may already be drifting out of the news cycle, but we’re going to talk about it anyway.
ICE at Airports
The first topic wasn’t even part of my original plan for today’s episode. A few days ago, reports started circulating that the Trump administration was planning to send ICE personnel to certain airports in the United States. Initially, it wasn’t entirely clear why. Was this meant to address TSA staffing issues? Was it related to immigration enforcement? Was it simply intended to send a message? The reporting felt vague, and the overall tone felt more like a warning than a clearly defined policy.
My immediate reaction was concern. At first, I thought there was a possibility that ICE personnel would somehow be performing TSA-related functions. If that had been the case, it would have raised obvious questions about training and expertise. TSA officers perform highly specialized work, and it’s not something you can simply step into overnight. The idea of ICE agents suddenly taking over airport security responsibilities felt both unrealistic and unsettling.
Now that the deployment has actually happened, it appears those concerns were largely misplaced. Based on what I’ve seen reported so far, ICE personnel are not operating as TSA agents. Instead, they seem to be helping with crowd management, line control, and maintaining order in airport environments. That’s a very different situation than what many people initially feared.
Part of why I reacted so strongly was because it reminded me of previous situations where federal personnel were deployed in ways that felt more symbolic than practical. There was a sense of showing strength rather than solving a clearly defined problem. That’s the vibe I got when this story first broke, and it immediately brought me back to some of the controversy surrounding earlier federal deployments. Before I knew exactly what was happening, I found myself assuming the worst.
So far, though, the reality seems much calmer than the rhetoric that preceded it. I still don’t fully understand why ICE specifically was chosen for this role, but if the deployment remains limited and genuinely helpful, that’s obviously preferable to some of the more alarming possibilities people were imagining. More than anything, I hope airport operations remain smooth and that TSA employees receive the funding and support they need. Many of them have continued working through difficult circumstances, and that’s a much bigger issue than who happens to be standing near a security checkpoint.
Hollywood’s Identity Crisis
The topic I originally planned to discuss was Hollywood.
Recently, Bloomberg released a piece examining how dramatically the entertainment industry is changing behind the scenes. None of the trends were particularly surprising, but seeing them all laid out together was striking. Studios are consolidating. Companies are merging. Budgets are tightening. Longtime industry professionals are finding themselves unemployed or forced to take positions far below where they once were in their careers.
The report highlighted people who had spent years building successful careers in editing, writing, producing, and other areas of film and television, only to find themselves starting over. One writer, for example, had worked his way up into producing before eventually finding himself back in an entry-level writers’ assistant role. That’s a dramatic shift.
Part of what’s driving this is AI. Part of it is economics. And part of it is something else entirely: the explosion of content creation. Today, you don’t need a major studio to create something people will watch. You can film content on your phone, edit videos from your living room, and reach millions of people without ever setting foot on a studio lot. That’s a fundamental change.
The barriers to entry that once protected traditional Hollywood have largely disappeared. On one hand, that’s exciting because it democratizes creativity and gives more people opportunities to create. On the other hand, it creates real challenges for people who built careers inside a system that no longer functions the way it once did.
At first, it’s easy to look at all of this and conclude that things are getting worse. But when you zoom out, technological disruptions often follow a familiar pattern. A new technology arrives. Companies panic. Jobs disappear. Organizations restructure. Nobody is entirely sure what’s coming next. Then, over time, new opportunities emerge.
We saw versions of this after the pandemic. We saw it with previous technological shifts. And we’re probably seeing it again now. That doesn’t mean the transition is painless—it isn’t. But uncertainty doesn’t automatically mean decline.
The Bloomberg piece ended on a somewhat optimistic note, suggesting that independent film might help preserve some of the traditional creative roles that are under pressure right now. I’m not entirely convinced independent film is immune from the same forces affecting the rest of the industry, but I understand the argument. Either way, I think we’re still very much in the middle of the story. We don’t yet know what the long-term impact of AI and content creation will be on Hollywood. What we do know is that the industry is changing, and everyone is trying to figure out what comes next.
Ben Affleck’s AI Company
That brings me to another story that caught my attention.
Apparently, Ben Affleck quietly built an AI company. I had no idea. Even more surprising, Netflix recently acquired the company for a reported $600 million.
My first reaction was confusion. Why would Ben Affleck—someone who has spent his life immersed in filmmaking—want to help introduce more AI into Hollywood? At a time when so many creatives are worried about AI replacing artistic work, it seemed like an unusual move.
But after learning more about the company, it started to make a lot more sense.
The company, called Inner Positive, isn’t focused on generating movies from scratch. It isn’t creating scripts, replacing actors, or producing entire scenes from a simple prompt. Instead, it’s focused on post-production. The technology helps with things like lighting, visual effects, and editing. The idea is that filmmakers still create the work. The AI simply helps refine and enhance what already exists.
That distinction is important.
The technology doesn’t replace creativity—it supports it. In fact, the system requires creative work to exist before it can contribute anything at all. The more I learned about it, the more reasonable it seemed. This feels very different from the AI tools that generate content entirely on their own. Instead of replacing artists, it aims to give artists more options and greater flexibility.
Think about all the concern surrounding AI-generated videos that look completely real. Recently there was a viral clip showing what appeared to be Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in a fight scene. It looked like it came straight out of a movie, but it was entirely AI-generated. That’s the type of thing that makes people nervous because it becomes increasingly difficult to tell what’s real and what isn’t.
What Affleck’s company is doing feels different. The goal is to keep the filmmaker and creator at the center of the process while allowing AI to act as a sophisticated tool. If used responsibly, that could actually expand creative possibilities rather than limit them.
It also highlights something we often forget whenever new technology arrives. We spend a lot of time talking about the jobs that might disappear, but much less time talking about the new jobs, specialties, and industries that might emerge. If companies like this continue to grow, they’ll need engineers, designers, creative professionals, and specialists who understand both technology and storytelling.
Netflix clearly believes there’s value in these tools. Affleck clearly believes there’s value in these tools. And if they genuinely help creators do their work more effectively while keeping creative control in human hands, that seems like a healthy direction for the industry.
I walked away from the story with a lot more appreciation for what Affleck was trying to build. And honestly, it seems kind of cool.
A Couple of Oscar Moments
Before we wrap up, I want to talk about a few Oscar moments that stood out to me—not the awards themselves, but some of the smaller moments that I thought revealed something interesting.
First, Conan O’Brien’s opening monologue.
One of his early jokes referenced comments Timothée Chalamet had made about opera and ballet being declining art forms. Given how much backlash those comments generated, I was surprised Conan went there. What surprised me even more was Chalamet’s reaction.
He seemed genuinely amused. He laughed. He looked comfortable. He didn’t appear defensive at all. In a moment where many people might have been visibly uncomfortable, he seemed perfectly willing to laugh at himself.
I found that refreshing.
Maybe it means he never took the controversy that seriously. Maybe it means he has a healthy ability to separate public criticism from his actual life. Either way, it was a reminder that not every controversy has to become a battle. Sometimes people can simply laugh and move on.
The other moment that caught my attention involved Heated Rivalry, the hugely popular HBO series that continues to generate a tremendous amount of attention.
What stood out to me was seeing Hudson Williams publicly with his longtime girlfriend. If you’ve followed the conversation surrounding the show, you’ll know there’s been significant curiosity about the personal lives of some of its stars, particularly Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie. For a long time, many of them seemed reluctant to discuss their relationships publicly.
On one level, that makes perfect sense. Everyone deserves privacy. On another level, the secrecy often seemed to create even more speculation. People naturally become curious, and the more information is withheld, the larger that curiosity can become.
I remember watching interviews when the show first exploded in popularity. There was one interview where Connor was asked about his first crush, and I thought, “Okay, here’s a natural opportunity for him to answer honestly without it feeling invasive.” Instead, he referenced animated characters from a television show. I remember laughing and thinking, “Connor, come on. This was your chance.”
Of course, I also understand why actors might hesitate. It’s a difficult position. If someone comes out as gay, they may worry about alienating part of their fan base. If someone is straight while playing a beloved LGBTQ character, they may worry about criticism from a different audience. Whether those fears are justified or not, they undoubtedly exist.
What struck me about Hudson showing up with his girlfriend was how normal everything felt. No controversy. No backlash. No major drama. Just someone attending an event with the person they’re dating.
And honestly, that was nice to see.
He seems happy. People seem happy for him. He’s clearly supportive of the LGBTQ community, and from what I’ve seen, nobody seems particularly bothered by any of it. Reality turned out to be much less dramatic than the speculation that preceded it.
Of course, now we all have to wait until 2027 for Season Two, which feels slightly unreasonable.
Final Thoughts
Kind of a strange mix of topics today—but also not really.
We’ve got ICE showing up in new places. Hollywood navigating uncertainty. AI gaining influence. Entire industries trying to figure out what comes next. In different ways, all of these stories are about change.
Systems evolve. Industries shift. New technologies emerge. Old assumptions get challenged. We don’t always know exactly where things are headed, and that’s uncomfortable. But uncertainty isn’t the same thing as disaster.
For now, all we can really do is pay attention, stay curious, and avoid jumping to conclusions before we have all the information.
Because more often than not, things find a way of adapting.
And that’s really all we need to remember to know that it’s gonna be fine.
Thanks for joining us. We’ll see you next time.
This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.
