The award goes to… who will we celebrate on the red carpet: artists or AI?
Santiago Steiner looks into whether audiences and artists if given the choice will buy into AI-generated entertainment over the real thing
“This CGI bullsh*t is the death knell of cinema. Movies are far too f*cking expensive at the moment, and it’s killing the f*cking art form. The way it’s going, in ten years, it will officially be killed.” In a 2003 interview with Empire Magazine, critically acclaimed writer and director Quentin Tarantino shared these words that are seemingly more relevant than ever, as AI-generated content is becoming more and more common within film, TV and ad production.
The rising use of AI has raised lots of questions regarding areas such as ethical standards, quality, originality and integrity. As shown in the previous quote, Tarantino is not a fan of the involvement of computer-generated content in cinema. He believes that relying on computers to tell a story compromises the artistic integrity of a film.
This criticism of AI is not unique to Tarantino. Legendary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki labelled an AI rendition of a zombie as “an insult to life itself” and added that it is “devoid of soul and humanity”. His strong views on AI come from a place of concern, he fears that the increasing use of AI within film will lead to art that lacks true emotion and conviction as well as lacking purpose.
Will the public accept AI over the real thing?
A survey carried out by YouGov showed opinions on the use of AI in films are split pretty evenly down the middle, with 48% of Britons finding it completely or somewhat unacceptable to use AI in the filmmaking process. These findings could look completely different within the next five years, as AI advances and becomes harder to identify, meaning that audiences may not even be able to tell what is real and what is generated by a computer.
The public is more understanding of AI’s presence when it comes to special FX, upscaling old titles and dubbing into foreign languages. AI is less noticeable in upscaling and dubbing, whereas special FX has been very blatantly affected by the arrival of AI.
The death of DVDs was the demise of special FX
For example, audiences have started to catch on that older films seem to have more convincing special FX than the films being released today. There are several reasons for this but in short, it all comes down to money. Studios in the past had multiple options when it came to crafting a scene with special FX. They could either use practical effects, a fantastic example of this being the T Rex in Jurassic Park, or they would entrust CGI, such as Michael Bay’s Transformers. Studios used to place more importance on the believability of SFX which was reflected in higher budgets, whereas now there is much more emphasis on being cost-effective and creating a safety net of some sort in case of box office failure.
This arguably “timid” approach to filmmaking stems from a massive change within the industry, the death of DVDs. The rise of streaming meant that films could no longer rely on the bursts of revenue (theatre release and DVD release), because of this, studios are much less likely to take risks whether it’s to spending or the whole plot itself.
Brady Corbet’s most recent film, The Brutalist, was a certified hit at award shows this year. However, it did raise controversy with some film fans making the argument that it should not have been eligible for any awards due to the use of AI within the film. With the help of the company Respeecher, the crew behind the film was able to use AI to refine Hungarian dialogue scenes in an attempt to make actors Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones’ Hungarian spoken scenes as authentic as possible.
“We were very careful about keeping their performances. It’s mainly just replacing letters here and there,” said movie editor Dávid Jancsó, a native Hungarian speaker.
I think that it would be unfair to compare or even associate the use of AI in this film with other films we have seen in recent years where AI was used to write an entire film script, such as Peter Luisi’s The Last Screenwriter or sometimes even create entire visuals, like in the recently released Flight Risk starring Mark Wahlberg.
The award goes to…
A survey conducted by YouGov found that 45% of Britons believe that films that used AI should not be eligible for awards. The findings did not detail specifically the different tasks that AI could be used for so it is unclear whether the percentage would be the same if the question was centred around, for example, The Brutalist’s usage.
The integration of AI within the film industry aims to lower costs while increasing efficiency, this means that roles which are usually entrusted to freelancers could be at risk. The main areas that are already being substituted by AI are location scouting, script testing, audio editing etc. This is worrying for those who are freelance workers within the industry as it seems like they will be slowly forced out by artificial intelligence, however, there is still hope.
Big studios are constantly analysing their profit margins and are notoriously cutthroat when it comes to eliminating costs that they deem unnecessary, but people in the industry are starting to speak out and stand up for preserving job roles that are being replaced by AI.
Iconic American actor Tom Hanks has spoken out against his voice and likeness being used in a dental advert without his knowledge or permission. This poses the question, what does AI mean for artist ownership when it is starting to appear that those within the film industry no longer have control of the use of their own likeness, let alone the work that they produce?
For example, and for the sake of an argument, if a writer sends a script to a studio that was written with an AI script generator, what is to stop a studio from inserting the script into AI and changing it just enough to no longer give the original writer credit while also compromising their initial vision.
“AI script generators are distinguishable from AI image generators because the studio using the AI-generated base script can easily adjust the text so that it reflects their “original mental conception,” making the studio the “mastermind” of the final work, according to law firm Lutzker & Lutzker.
Artistry not reliant on AI: does it have a chance?
This is very worrying for creatives who have already felt as if there’s a growing lack of respect and recognition for their craft. The lack of copyright laws and regulations related to AI means that there are many grey areas where creatives are not protected and are vulnerable to being exploited for their work.
Some AI developers will cut corners where they can and where the regulations allow by scraping content, meaning it is extremely important that the copyright laws related to AI creation keep up with new applications and the language models’ capabilities.
Because like the death of DVDs, we could soon see the death of original talent. And it’s not looking like the public is game for that just yet, nor is the red carpet.
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