> Viewers will be able to "order up" films—for example, "I want a film about a panda and a unicorn who save the world in a rocket ship. And put Bill Murray in it."
> From there I believe viewers will be given the ability to be digitally scanned themselves, and pay extra to have themselves inserted in these custom films. You'll also start to see licensing deals made with studios, so that viewers can order up older films like "Star Wars" and put their face on Luke Skywalker's body, and their ex-wife's face on Darth Vader's body, and so on.
This is pretty far from what most people want, I think. How are you going to chat about your AI generated custom personal vendetta movie around the watercooler?
It's a red herring, only reaction videos would do that. Studios are going to double down on the current quantity over quality gambit they're running and not mention AI after this because AI tears are the first real entertaining thing to come from them in a decade. AI will not divide us.
I expect a lot more meandering miniseries MMO style where tangents for quality are pay-per-view. Mainly because if they try to starve out their audience with dither and delay tactics pirate AI will win.
Imagine a movie about divorce, except instead of Kramer vs Kramer it's you vs your wife, with your kids, in your city. It could elevate the human experience in a way previously unfathomable. The AI would be a sort of mix between a psychologist, lawyer, and film producer, stringing together a creation that tugs at your deepest emotional heartstrings.
Or imagine a horror where you get to slaughter your worst enemies.
Is it a Pandora's box? Certainly. But I think it's coming.
Why be upset at imitation? That's how all good genres happen. I sense the grumblings are more about creative people's total decline in cultural relevancy and now worthless gatekeeping credentials.
The film industry of today got started because of misfits refusing to toe the line of the anti-celebrity industry bigwigs, it's why hollywood exists where it does (easy to skip over the border to film). And this round of creative destruction is no different.
I would like to know where this luddite outrage was when CGI took over practical F/X? noise and sound? where is their 75c on the dollar per explosion? Creatives emulate what's emulatable all down the line. But you can try to jerry rig artificial backstops in where they no longer fit.
The TV shows and movies thought they made it through the User Generated Content onslaught of the past two decades. This is just technology catching up to them and they are rehashing all the same arguments of that time: monopolies on expertise are good, false content rampant, loss of centralized cultural control bad.
> The film industry of today got started because of misfits refusing to toe the line of the anti-celebrity industry bigwigs, it's why hollywood exists where it does (easy to skip over the border to film).
The history I've heard didn't involve celebrities... The movie industry began in the East coast. Movie producers began to use a variety of cameras, and Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company tried to stamp that out by sending gangs of thugs to beat people up and destroy equipment on productions that didn't comply. Plus a move to the West Coast meant better light for productions as well as cheaper land and labour (as Hollywood was just farmland at the time).
The feisty independents back then spread out in order to illegally fight back (court battles take time, beatdowns are instant) against the east coast Trust's effective moral censorship, and celebrity probably was a side aim or help.
The Master Switch by Tim Wu touches on what the Trust did to stifle celebrity/stardom and acting as an artform in order to maintain a low-cost monopoly over film watching. This is in contrast to a high-cost monopoly the article above is advocating for.
Art is about more than just imitation. It’s about the meaning behind the work. I am not talking about Marvel movies, which might as well be totally AI-generated at this point.
I would suggest having some empathy for those affected. It’s not just gatekeeping, it’s people reacting to being told that the meaning they put into what they make doesn’t actually add any value.
In the Human Condition, Hannah Arendt outlines three parts of the Vita Activa. The first is labour, at the bottom of the pyramid. It is by definition consumable and has limited meaning in itself. The second is work, through which we build a world (i.e. something bigger than just the cyclical and physical properties of the ecosystem). The third is action, or politics, which ripples through the world and inspires linear change. Put together, these three parts make up what it is to be a living human. Giving meaning-making away, by replacing it with mere imitation, is tantamount to revoking those qualities which make us human.
I couldn't agree more. The idea that AI will mean that 'creative people' suffer from a 'total decline in cultural relevancy' is extreme philistinism. Culture is meaning and meaning is human; AI predicts from a training sample, and cannot genuinely create, by its nature.
Humans also invent to make hard things easier. Glorifying toil has worked fantastically as a ranking mechanism for society so far but it is surely going to fail going forward, so too indirect democracy.
I suspect a lot of art lovers like not knowing that an artist's work has very exact beginnings and egoistic motivations al a marvel movies. Rather prefer the altruistic mystery that muses were involved curating the work out of nothing for the enjoyment of all. Maybe when you know the AI has exact origins it ruins the illusion of art for you because maybe deep down you liked to be tricked by human creativity.
Are you only going to watch certified AI/CGI free movies going forward?
Art, or creativity, is the part of the movie that is not toil.
Art being made purely for the enjoyment of all is purely commercial, and so it is in some ways equivalent to toil: it is something whose sole purpose is to be consumed.
Yes, being “tricked”, in your words, by human creativity is precisely the appeal. If art were simply an equation, it wouldn’t have any meaning to it - it would simply be fact.
I’m sorry, but I think we’re talking about two diametrically opposite conceptions of art here.
As Pablo picaso said 'Good Artists Copy Great Artists steal', the luddites give a headache for a short while then they fade in oblivion every time. They always loose.
Am I cynical to be saying this? The debate over whether AI is banned in the film industry is a struggle over how the benefits are distributed.
If it's just a free-for-all, then things will indeed develop as predicted: people who aren't traditional film-makers will get jobs producing films, replacing the old guard, with all the cultural changes this implies.
However if an agreement is reached to ban this kind of AI, what will happen? Screenwriters themselves will employ AI as a kind of tool. There's no way to deny it, AI is good at making text. A capable professional will leverage this to become more productive, while keeping the benefits in terms of negotiating power with the studios.
In my own business the march of technology also brought upheaval. You can run into London cabbies who used to be floor traders. When things went to computers, a fair few of them never adjusted. The whole culture has changed, too, as has the opportunity. My first boss didn't do a degree, now you wouldn't hire a guy without one.
It's the industrial revolution all over again and Luddites.
People are afraid of change, especially when it means they'll need to retrain.
In the IT industry we're used to it, constantly new languages, new tech, and yes ultimately learning to write AI and using AI to write our programs. But we adapt or die, aside from copyright problems, very few are complaining.
Likewise, AI films will need tools, curators, larger story arc direction, stylistic decisions. They can include real actors with more CGI, nobody has said they can't, body scans are restricted by copyright too.
Like a developer that will have to step up their ability to compete with AI, actors will need to be compelling in the same way we prefer to watch theatre instead of movies.
>In the IT industry we're used to it, constantly new languages, new tech, and yes ultimately learning to write AI and using AI to write our programs. But we adapt or die, aside from copyright problems, very few are complaining.
Not a member of IT industry and not even near it, but from the outside it seems like the large majority that is not complaining assumes that at least in the short term, they will continue getting the same money and work a little less thanks to AI.
> The future I'm describing rings true for many, though some have told me that they don't believe that viewers want to see AI-generated images, or see themselves in AI films, or watch regurgitations of past films. I believe they are wrong: Viewers have already been conditioned for AI film, because we have gotten away from being fully human.
Well, yes. I can't watch most new movies anymore, because the abuse of visible CGI breaks the charm completely and throws me out of the story (when there is one, which is not often). But people seem to be happy with all those superhero movies? And since they are, why not make them entirely with machines?
What I think (hope) will happen is that there will be a kind of schism; mainstream will go full-AI like the author describes -- that's just inevitable, the convenience and economies of scale are just to great for an industry to ignore. And then there will be a resurgence of small-scale indie productions, almost home-made, that a small number of people will share by word of mouth.
Fast food didn't kill fine dining; there's an argument to be made that one couldn't exist without the other.
The movie industry in America is what, $7B per year? About the same as the athletic-shoe industry? Maybe they'll have to just compete like everybody else.
18 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 52.8 ms ] thread> From there I believe viewers will be given the ability to be digitally scanned themselves, and pay extra to have themselves inserted in these custom films. You'll also start to see licensing deals made with studios, so that viewers can order up older films like "Star Wars" and put their face on Luke Skywalker's body, and their ex-wife's face on Darth Vader's body, and so on.
This is pretty far from what most people want, I think. How are you going to chat about your AI generated custom personal vendetta movie around the watercooler?
I expect a lot more meandering miniseries MMO style where tangents for quality are pay-per-view. Mainly because if they try to starve out their audience with dither and delay tactics pirate AI will win.
Imagine a movie about divorce, except instead of Kramer vs Kramer it's you vs your wife, with your kids, in your city. It could elevate the human experience in a way previously unfathomable. The AI would be a sort of mix between a psychologist, lawyer, and film producer, stringing together a creation that tugs at your deepest emotional heartstrings.
Or imagine a horror where you get to slaughter your worst enemies.
Is it a Pandora's box? Certainly. But I think it's coming.
The film industry of today got started because of misfits refusing to toe the line of the anti-celebrity industry bigwigs, it's why hollywood exists where it does (easy to skip over the border to film). And this round of creative destruction is no different.
I would like to know where this luddite outrage was when CGI took over practical F/X? noise and sound? where is their 75c on the dollar per explosion? Creatives emulate what's emulatable all down the line. But you can try to jerry rig artificial backstops in where they no longer fit.
The TV shows and movies thought they made it through the User Generated Content onslaught of the past two decades. This is just technology catching up to them and they are rehashing all the same arguments of that time: monopolies on expertise are good, false content rampant, loss of centralized cultural control bad.
The history I've heard didn't involve celebrities... The movie industry began in the East coast. Movie producers began to use a variety of cameras, and Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company tried to stamp that out by sending gangs of thugs to beat people up and destroy equipment on productions that didn't comply. Plus a move to the West Coast meant better light for productions as well as cheaper land and labour (as Hollywood was just farmland at the time).
The Master Switch by Tim Wu touches on what the Trust did to stifle celebrity/stardom and acting as an artform in order to maintain a low-cost monopoly over film watching. This is in contrast to a high-cost monopoly the article above is advocating for.
I would suggest having some empathy for those affected. It’s not just gatekeeping, it’s people reacting to being told that the meaning they put into what they make doesn’t actually add any value.
In the Human Condition, Hannah Arendt outlines three parts of the Vita Activa. The first is labour, at the bottom of the pyramid. It is by definition consumable and has limited meaning in itself. The second is work, through which we build a world (i.e. something bigger than just the cyclical and physical properties of the ecosystem). The third is action, or politics, which ripples through the world and inspires linear change. Put together, these three parts make up what it is to be a living human. Giving meaning-making away, by replacing it with mere imitation, is tantamount to revoking those qualities which make us human.
I suspect a lot of art lovers like not knowing that an artist's work has very exact beginnings and egoistic motivations al a marvel movies. Rather prefer the altruistic mystery that muses were involved curating the work out of nothing for the enjoyment of all. Maybe when you know the AI has exact origins it ruins the illusion of art for you because maybe deep down you liked to be tricked by human creativity.
Are you only going to watch certified AI/CGI free movies going forward?
Art being made purely for the enjoyment of all is purely commercial, and so it is in some ways equivalent to toil: it is something whose sole purpose is to be consumed.
Yes, being “tricked”, in your words, by human creativity is precisely the appeal. If art were simply an equation, it wouldn’t have any meaning to it - it would simply be fact.
I’m sorry, but I think we’re talking about two diametrically opposite conceptions of art here.
If it's just a free-for-all, then things will indeed develop as predicted: people who aren't traditional film-makers will get jobs producing films, replacing the old guard, with all the cultural changes this implies.
However if an agreement is reached to ban this kind of AI, what will happen? Screenwriters themselves will employ AI as a kind of tool. There's no way to deny it, AI is good at making text. A capable professional will leverage this to become more productive, while keeping the benefits in terms of negotiating power with the studios.
In my own business the march of technology also brought upheaval. You can run into London cabbies who used to be floor traders. When things went to computers, a fair few of them never adjusted. The whole culture has changed, too, as has the opportunity. My first boss didn't do a degree, now you wouldn't hire a guy without one.
People are afraid of change, especially when it means they'll need to retrain.
In the IT industry we're used to it, constantly new languages, new tech, and yes ultimately learning to write AI and using AI to write our programs. But we adapt or die, aside from copyright problems, very few are complaining.
Likewise, AI films will need tools, curators, larger story arc direction, stylistic decisions. They can include real actors with more CGI, nobody has said they can't, body scans are restricted by copyright too.
Like a developer that will have to step up their ability to compete with AI, actors will need to be compelling in the same way we prefer to watch theatre instead of movies.
Not a member of IT industry and not even near it, but from the outside it seems like the large majority that is not complaining assumes that at least in the short term, they will continue getting the same money and work a little less thanks to AI.
Well, yes. I can't watch most new movies anymore, because the abuse of visible CGI breaks the charm completely and throws me out of the story (when there is one, which is not often). But people seem to be happy with all those superhero movies? And since they are, why not make them entirely with machines?
What I think (hope) will happen is that there will be a kind of schism; mainstream will go full-AI like the author describes -- that's just inevitable, the convenience and economies of scale are just to great for an industry to ignore. And then there will be a resurgence of small-scale indie productions, almost home-made, that a small number of people will share by word of mouth.
Fast food didn't kill fine dining; there's an argument to be made that one couldn't exist without the other.