James' World 2

Everyone is talking about AI, whether they want to or not. Every day, it feels like there’s a news story about how the tech is improving/ruining our lives, and many conversations about artificial intelligence either come from a place of deep fear or heightened optimism. 

As someone who works in entertainment, I’ve been wondering if these reactions reflect the actual state of the technology that’s out there. Well, as I learned during this year’s AI on the Lot, the world’s biggest conference focused on AI in media, the disconnect is significant — and the means to bridge the gap from fear to understanding, and potentially acceptance, are lacking.

The event, which drew roughly 2,500 attendees throughout its three-day run, took place near (and partially on) the backlot of Amazon MGM Studios in Culver City, California. I was there for one day, but that was enough time for me to experience the product hype and techno-optimism firsthand. (The persistent worries about human replacement and environmental damage were rarely mentioned.)

One thing you should know about me: I’m a card-carrying member of the performers’ union SAG-AFTRA and, just a few years ago, I joined the strike that raised red flags about the non-consensual use of generative AI in entertainment. Now, here I was — an AI skeptic, an actor, a CNET journalist — entering the belly of the beast. 

Recent films like Hell Grind, which made waves at Cannes, and Dream of Violets, which sparked controversy for being the first full-length AI-made movie to be featured at Tribeca, show the direction movie-making may be heading: quicker, cheaper productions with fewer humans involved.

I wanted to change my mind about the state of the entertainment industry and AI’s potential to improve Hollywood’s overall operations. By day’s end, I left feeling even more conflicted.

Albert Cheng, the head of AI Studios at Amazon, delivered the opening keynote on the day I attended. During the hour, he informed the crowd that his team’s approach to AI is “humans first.” 

“We truly believe that at every part of the creative process, humans must be an active participant and decision maker in that process,” he told the crowd, while standing in front of Amazon MGM Studios’ Volume Wall — an AI production tool used to transform a soundstage into any location imaginable. 

“Whether it would be a writer or a director or an actor,” he continued, “it’s really important to have humans involved in driving that process with AI as tools to empower, enable, and accelerate everything that we do. And with that combination we’ll get better creative product, we’ll get more creative product, we’ll get more voices.”

An hour later, Amazon greenlit three new animated series, all created with AI; that afternoon, Jorge R. Gutierrez (The Book of Life, Maya and the Three), the creator of Punky Duck — one of the titles announced — scrapped the project entirely due to peer criticism and online backlash.

A day later, screenwriter Paul Schrader, best known for writing the Martin Scorsese-directed movies Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The Last Temptation of Christ, took that same Volume Wall stage to counter Cheng’s words by dismissing the need for human actors altogether.

“We, as carbon-based fools, will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations, and then they’ll want the next one,” he said during one part of his speech. “We know where that actor lives, and he works for nothing, and he works 24 hours a day.”

Schrader also took aim at background actors — a legitimate job that can help performers make a living and qualify for union-offered health insurance (I’m speaking from experience) — who he described as utterly expendable: “Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway? We have to clothe them, we have to feed them, and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don’t we just make them?”

Two keynote speeches, two completely different AI perspectives. On one end of the spectrum, you have the human-driven message that AI is controllable and should be viewed as any other production tool — not a death knell for humanity and creativity as we know it. 

On the other? Throw all that out the window and let AI take the wheel.

This is where we are with AI and Hollywood, though. On one side, there are people, such as Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino, who look down on the use of this technology in entertainment. 

The other side of the AI in filmmaking debate has people, including Roger Avary, Tarantino’s former writing partner, using AI to make movies — just as Darren Aronofsky has been doing with his AI-made series on the American Revolutionary War. Martin Scorsese has hopped on the AI bandwagon, as well, investing in an AI company that helps make storyboards.