Thanks for this guest essay. I am a writer and a film director. People ask me if I am threatened by AI. I say ānoā because there will never be a shortage of ideas and stories to tell. Every person in the film industry will have to come up with their own moral code in regards to AI. Do you use 500 AI generated extras or do you film in Eastern Europe or India and use cheaper labor that both benefits other humans and gives you an authentic film experience?
The real problem is that Studios are not taking creative risks like they used to and so instead of betting on humans to fix the issue of creativity, they will bet on AI. Why? Because we are a technology driven society and, increasingly, world. Itās sexier to give AI a shot than a bloke who is an introverted genius.
I am of the firm belief that humans will want to see movies made by humans. We will be a commodity. It will be a niche market and we have to start building it now by touring with our films, meeting and engaging fans face to face.
An AI revolution in Hollywood will probably weed out mediocre content because AI will raise the bar very high as some of its image generated universes already are doing. The result will be that storytellers in cinema will have to raise their game and only those most insightful ones who can tap into the human heart and condition, only the most visionary storytellers will be able to compete because audiences will demand engaging films. This is a call for the return to the auteur director - āBarbieā and āOppenheimerā are clearly showing the value in that and audiences are responding.
AI training sets of which include copyrighted content is a more efficient, complete assimilation of what I do as an individual who reads, watches, and listens to copyrighted content and then creates as an amalgamation of all I have consumed.
It is true that if someone asked me to write as if I were Stephen King, Iām sure astute fans could tell the difference. Yet there are examples of master forgers in art. With AI, forging will become trivial.
This is one reason why I believe digital provenance through new decentralized technologies such as smart contracts and NFTs will help us determine what is the real thing.
What an interesting article. I wasnāt aware that the writersā strike was in response to AI. Iām not literate in this field, but I confess to some anxiety over AI. My primary skills (voice, audio editing, and writing) seem to be direct targets of AI. Iām trying to not be a pessimist, though, and to see the potential in AI tools for creativity.
Iāve thought about using ChatGPT to help edit my writing, for example, and Iām wondering if you (or anyone else) has any experience with this.
Overall, I feel optimistic about many more people becoming creative, able to make things like movies and such. I think a lot about what happened with the spectrum of music once sampling became a thing, and that's sort of akin to "sampling" other works for novel video or image production. It's going to be a very contentious few years of unrest and change, but on the other side of all the turmoil lies a lot of promise.
As production costs shift value from humans to technology, we need to rethink how we are going to collaborate, share liability and work together in the future to truly understand how to enable AI to better integrate with humanity.
We need to realise that operational value for these are going to go down as social media platforms and algorithms make content distribution more decentralized and less people will be looking at An imax theater while enjoying the theater experience on their couchš
Hollywood is churning out heaps of dumb down /woke junk written by Will smiths son or AI.
Iām real, and would like to see more in my inbox! Thank you
Thanks for this guest essay. I am a writer and a film director. People ask me if I am threatened by AI. I say ānoā because there will never be a shortage of ideas and stories to tell. Every person in the film industry will have to come up with their own moral code in regards to AI. Do you use 500 AI generated extras or do you film in Eastern Europe or India and use cheaper labor that both benefits other humans and gives you an authentic film experience?
The real problem is that Studios are not taking creative risks like they used to and so instead of betting on humans to fix the issue of creativity, they will bet on AI. Why? Because we are a technology driven society and, increasingly, world. Itās sexier to give AI a shot than a bloke who is an introverted genius.
I am of the firm belief that humans will want to see movies made by humans. We will be a commodity. It will be a niche market and we have to start building it now by touring with our films, meeting and engaging fans face to face.
An AI revolution in Hollywood will probably weed out mediocre content because AI will raise the bar very high as some of its image generated universes already are doing. The result will be that storytellers in cinema will have to raise their game and only those most insightful ones who can tap into the human heart and condition, only the most visionary storytellers will be able to compete because audiences will demand engaging films. This is a call for the return to the auteur director - āBarbieā and āOppenheimerā are clearly showing the value in that and audiences are responding.
A new Golden Age of cinema is upon us!
Thank you for the incredible inside perspective. Your perspective is appreciated.
AI training sets of which include copyrighted content is a more efficient, complete assimilation of what I do as an individual who reads, watches, and listens to copyrighted content and then creates as an amalgamation of all I have consumed.
It is true that if someone asked me to write as if I were Stephen King, Iām sure astute fans could tell the difference. Yet there are examples of master forgers in art. With AI, forging will become trivial.
This is one reason why I believe digital provenance through new decentralized technologies such as smart contracts and NFTs will help us determine what is the real thing.
What an interesting article. I wasnāt aware that the writersā strike was in response to AI. Iām not literate in this field, but I confess to some anxiety over AI. My primary skills (voice, audio editing, and writing) seem to be direct targets of AI. Iām trying to not be a pessimist, though, and to see the potential in AI tools for creativity.
Iāve thought about using ChatGPT to help edit my writing, for example, and Iām wondering if you (or anyone else) has any experience with this.
Overall, I feel optimistic about many more people becoming creative, able to make things like movies and such. I think a lot about what happened with the spectrum of music once sampling became a thing, and that's sort of akin to "sampling" other works for novel video or image production. It's going to be a very contentious few years of unrest and change, but on the other side of all the turmoil lies a lot of promise.
As production costs shift value from humans to technology, we need to rethink how we are going to collaborate, share liability and work together in the future to truly understand how to enable AI to better integrate with humanity.
We need to realise that operational value for these are going to go down as social media platforms and algorithms make content distribution more decentralized and less people will be looking at An imax theater while enjoying the theater experience on their couchš