Is Hollywood “cooked”? Will AI model-generated video mean the end for filmmakers? The jury is out on that. But one Hollywood insider says the industry as a whole is “lying” about how much it uses AI.
“The state of AI in Hollywood: Everyone is lying a little bit,” says former editor Janice Min. hollywood reporter said the CEO of film industry media group Anclar Media. business insider In a new interview. “Studio is lying about usage.”
When the interviewer asked if that meant the studio was using AI more or less, she clarified, “We’re using it more.”
“Companies are lying about the features of their products, and for creative people, they’re lying about the fact that they’re not using their products,” Min continued. “I dare you to find a screenwriter who isn’t staring at a blank page and talking to Claude and ChatGPT at the same time.”
Last year, the Oscar-winning film The Brutalist was at the center of controversy after director Brady Corbet admitted that AI was used to enhance the Hungarian accents of stars Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones. But Min said this was not an isolated case.
“This year it’s crickets,” she said of the lack of AI controversy. “Even the Academy, Hollywood’s most treasured and legacy custodian, hasn’t taken a very clear stance on AI. They basically have a don’t ask, don’t tell policy. I can say with some certainty that this year’s Best Picture nominees all use AI in their production.”
It’s worth treating these claims with some skepticism. Indeed, Hollywood studios are probably using some form of “AI” in post-production, especially in applications such as visual effects. But AI can refer to a number of tools that aren’t necessarily generative AI, just powerful algorithms that have been around long before ChatGPT or image or video generators became a phenomenon.
Artists also tend to be passionately opposed to AI, perhaps more than any other field or demographic. AI protection was a key factor in the 2023 strike, led by actors and screenwriters, which was one of the longest in Hollywood history. That’s why it’s hard to believe that most screenwriters are using AI chatbots.
Moreover, this is the same alarming narrative being promoted by AI advocates, who see it as cause for celebration rather than concern. Every minute, a new AI-generated video is created with the latest video generators (currently Seedance 2.0), featuring deepfaked celebrities and usually accompanied by the familiar refrain, “Hollywood is cooking.”
But like many exhibitions in the AI industry, many of them tend to be theatrical. Did the viral AI video of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt fighting on a rooftop make Marvel’s trusted screenwriters shake in their boots while their AI friends prematurely danced on the actor’s grave? It turns out to be a digital reskin of a video of two flesh-and-blood people fighting in front of a green screen. Perhaps the only thing that is “cooked” is the brains of people who believe all the claims that come out of AI circles.
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