Writers strike to stop AI from taking over Hollywood. Is it too late?

As a tech reporter, I thought it would be good for me to get away from San Francisco. Today, I spend my days surrounded by people in the industry who can’t help but talk about AI.

Platforms like ChatGPT and Midjourney connect conversations with screenwriters, concept artists, and film producers to Hollywood, a worker-driven industry fueled by powerful unions rapidly infused with the fast-advancing tech bomb. turned into an existential parley about the future.

All of this culminated in May when the TV, film and digital writers who make up the Writers Guild of America announced they were going on strike. This is perhaps one of the first times we’ll see AI (a completely unconstrained, groundbreaking technology concept running across every imaginable industry) face the workforce.

What are the results? We don’t know yet. That’s the problem.

But generative AI is already making its way into Academy Award-winning movies and TV shows, letting you age down actors, lip-sync in different languages, and build worlds straight from storybooks. .

AI revolution in Hollywood

In 2015, when I was a teenager, I spent my days watching an animated series called BoJack Horseman.

In one episode, the famous movie star is asked to sit in front of a machine that performs 3D scans of his face and body. If he died, production companies would be able to make movies without him.

The absurdity of that concept seemed on par with a show about an alcoholic anthropomorphic horse.

After all, it was quite real. The show used technology from Artec Group, which manufactures the 3D scanning devices used in the production of The Chronicles of Narnia, Jurassic World, Terminator Genisys, and even The Big Bang Theory (although the latter is actually was developing a product). Microsoft’s placement ad for his Kinect while using Artec’s technology).

Even former President Barack Obama became the first president to receive a 3D scan via Artec.

Artec’s technology allows film studios to create ‘digital twins’ of actors and manipulate them on screen. Actors can transform, disintegrate, and disappear. In The Chronicles of Narnia, the creators scanned humans and stuffed beasts and stitched them together to make magical characters walk. Artec CEO Artem Yukhin watched Star Wars filming on the set of Lucasfilm.

“It was very funny because all my friends and colleagues were envious and said, ‘You idiots who don’t understand all this stuff, go and see everything that’s out there.’ ‘ And I didn’t really care, ‘said Yukin. “But it quickly became clear that we were very much needed there.”

Fast forward to today. I’m no longer a teenager (still a dirtbag), and AI companies are on the rise, signing movie studios and turning studio executives into tech executives.

Flawless, an AI solution that can synchronize an actor’s mouth with different languages, does both. The company was co-founded by film director Scott Mann. He saw one of his films awkwardly dubbed in German. Using the same technology that creates deepfakes, Flawless can morph an actor’s mouth to match the language being dubbed. The same technology is used for digital reshoots.

This kind of technology helps companies save money on creating reshoots. You can also accelerate your entry into international markets and earn revenue.

“You can also come in to explore other markets, simply because the immersive experience is better when the actors seem to be telling the story in the native language of that market. It allows us to do all these interesting things to take more risk with our content,” said Flores Chief Strategy Officer Peter Bush.

The battle between AI and workers

Among the WGA’s demands is a ban on studios from using documents to train AI (although the Motion Picture and Television Producers Alliance disagreed). It’s important. If you were the writer responsible for his two seasons of a TV show, using that material he wouldn’t want the AI ​​spitting out the next few episodes of plot and character development.

As this technology seeps further into Hollywood, the various guilds that protect actors, directors, producers and animators are raising more questions about the potential damage of these platforms.

“We are going to have a Taylor Swift moment when Spotify is scrutinized by Taylor Swift for damaging the record industry,” Bausch said.

Bryant Griffin, a visual effects artist who has worked on films such as “Pacific Rim” and “The Avengers,” said the WGA’s demands had far-reaching implications for the film industry, including those who are not unionized. said it was likely.

“Everybody feels like this match is really important. I think that’s why the Writers Guild has a lot of support from other unions in the industry right now,” said Griffin. “WGA [strike] It’s the tip of the spear. ”

Flores, which employs Hollywood veterans, including studio executives and animation directors, said it is working closely with various Hollywood guilds in developing the platform.

“The Guild basically rules Hollywood, right?” Bausch said. “So we have to work within the existing framework to bring the product to market.”