BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA – MAY 01: Ashton Kutcher attends the 2023 Milken Institute Global Conference at The Beverly Hilton on May 1, 2023 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Jerrod Harris/Getty Images)
Ashton Kutcher is once again being slammed on social media, but it's not because he's pals with convicted or accused celebrity predators like Danny Masterson or Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Now, the “That '70s Show” star and famous tech investor is being accused of touting advances in AI as the future of filmmaking, essentially talking about how great it would be to save costs by not needing to hire stuntmen, screenwriters, visual effects artists and other humans to create stories and content, Deadline and Variety reported.
During a recent conversation with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt in Los Angeles, Kutcher specifically touted the benefits of OpenAI's video generation tool, Sora, after apparently using the beta version and discovering that he could “generate any video I wanted,” according to Deadline.
“We can create a great 10-, 15-second video that looks very realistic. We're still going to make mistakes. We don't fully understand the laws of physics,” Kutcher says. “But if you compare SORA to this generation that existed a year ago, we're seeing a quantum leap forward. In fact, there's footage in this that could easily be used in a major film or TV show.”
Kutcher went on to explain how AI will make filmmaking much faster and cheaper, suggesting that movies will no longer need location scouts, set designers or stuntmen.
“Why go outside and film a house when you can have an opening shot for a TV show for $100?” Kutcher says.
“It would cost thousands of dollars to go out and film this,” Kutcher continued. “The action scene where I jump off this building can be done with AI without a stuntman.”
Kutcher also said he used Sola to create footage of a runner trying to escape a sandstorm in the desert, and seems to envision a day when visual effects artists will no longer be necessary.
“I didn't have to hire a CGI department for that,” Kutcher says, “I rendered out a video in five minutes of ultramarathon runners running through the desert being chased by a sandstorm, and that's exactly what it looked like.”
In fact, Kutcher said he expects that in the near future, anyone will be able to use AI to create their own custom, professional-quality movies.
“You come up with an idea for a movie, a script is written, you feed that script into a video generator and it generates a movie,” he said. “Instead of watching a movie that someone else thought up, you get to watch a movie that you've made.”
Unsurprisingly, Kutcher's comments were unpopular among workers in an industry still recovering from last year's strikes, with many actors and writers ranking AI at the top of their list of concerns about future job security and protecting the integrity of their art.
Katie Delaney, a former writer for the animated series Rick and Morty, was quick to take issue with Kutcher, writing in X that he ignores the contributions of workers “below the line” and is “rip-off of his own industry because he plays Steve Jobs in bad movies and thinks he's a tech genius.”
“When you remove every single human being from a collaborative, creative pursuit, you literally remove the human element,” Delaney continued. “You leave it as an empty, mindless, meaningless shell. Television has the same artistic value as dish soap.”
According to Deadline, Delaney isn't the only writer to speak out about Ashton's comments.
“This is a very ignorant, short-sighted and self-centered way of thinking about short-term costs versus long-term benefits,” X writer Ash Laser said.
SAG-AFTRA member Damon Gonzalez also wrote about X, “Greed always comes first. Just because it saves money should only be spent if it minimizes the cost of human work. As consumers and filmmakers, we must reject this garbage.”
Another screenwriter, J. Filiatraut, reflected on the hostility Kutcher generated with his comments about AI and wondered whether anyone on the film's staff would still want to work with him.
“Imagine Ashton Kutcher walking onto a movie set right now after coming out and suing to put his entire crew out of work and starving them,” Filiatraut said. “That would be a brave choice.”
Read more at The Mercury News
