The thing the studios don’t seem to appreciate about this is that once they can have an AI generate Iron Man 7, so can any other schlub; you can say you want to watch a movie where Iron Man enters a mini-golf tournament with Genghis Khan and the 1927 New York Yankees and it’ll make one for you.
There are 3 possible outcomes, basically:
AI is never more than a curiosity as far as movie making and this whole argument was pointless;
AI gets good enough to replace a lot of the capital-incentive grunt work of movie making, like VFX, but not high-level creative work like writing / directing / production design, so making AAA movies gets cheaper and the big studios lose power while indie studios gain more;
AI gets as good at making movies as humans are, in which case we don’t need studios at all.
None of these are good for them; the status quo is actually the least bad outcome. The real game, I suspect, is that they hope that they can convince writers that AI is a big enough threat to a) make concessions in other areas to stop it and b) be grateful they’re still employed at all; a world where AI actually replaces creative talent on films is a world where we don’t need studios at all anymore.
a movie where Iron Man enters a mini-golf tournament with Genghis Khan and the 1927 New York Yankees
Don’t give them any ideas LOL.
Overall, I think you’re completely correct. So far consumer LLMs cannot come close to anything a human writer can create, but I’m concerned that Hollywood would gladly take the hit on quality to save on writers. I hope the strikes succeed in preventing AI from entering the writing and acting space, but hopefully they don’t need to make concessions to prevent it.
As an aside, if everyone could create their own movies with AI, I wonder if studios would simply become IP holding companies (more than they already are). Anyone could make Lethal Weapon 5, but only the studio with the likeness rights (and training data) of Rob McElhenney would be able to have it look like the original actors are present.
The thing the studios don’t seem to appreciate about this is that once they can have an AI generate Iron Man 7, so can any other schlub; you can say you want to watch a movie where Iron Man enters a mini-golf tournament with Genghis Khan and the 1927 New York Yankees and it’ll make one for you.
There are 3 possible outcomes, basically:
AI is never more than a curiosity as far as movie making and this whole argument was pointless;
AI gets good enough to replace a lot of the capital-incentive grunt work of movie making, like VFX, but not high-level creative work like writing / directing / production design, so making AAA movies gets cheaper and the big studios lose power while indie studios gain more;
AI gets as good at making movies as humans are, in which case we don’t need studios at all.
None of these are good for them; the status quo is actually the least bad outcome. The real game, I suspect, is that they hope that they can convince writers that AI is a big enough threat to a) make concessions in other areas to stop it and b) be grateful they’re still employed at all; a world where AI actually replaces creative talent on films is a world where we don’t need studios at all anymore.
Don’t give them any ideas LOL.
Overall, I think you’re completely correct. So far consumer LLMs cannot come close to anything a human writer can create, but I’m concerned that Hollywood would gladly take the hit on quality to save on writers. I hope the strikes succeed in preventing AI from entering the writing and acting space, but hopefully they don’t need to make concessions to prevent it.
As an aside, if everyone could create their own movies with AI, I wonder if studios would simply become IP holding companies (more than they already are). Anyone could make Lethal Weapon 5, but only the studio with the likeness rights (and training data) of Rob McElhenney would be able to have it look like the original actors are present.