For every problem you can think of, someone is out there proposing a solution that involves artificial intelligence. AI could help solve such difficult problems as climate change and dangerous working conditions, the technology’s most enthusiastic boosters promise.
It might even fix the much-maligned “Game of Thrones” ending, if you believe one of the industry’s most powerful advocates and a featured speaker at this month’s South by Southwest conference.
“Imagine if you could ask your AI to make a new ending that is different,” said Greg Brockman, president and co-founder of OpenAI, the research group behind the ChatGPT chat software and the DALL-E imaging module. “Maybe you’ll even put yourself there as a main character or something, having interactive experiences.”
Rewriting an HBO show so that your digital image can slay dragons might seem a bit frivolous for such a hyped technology as artificial intelligence. But it’s an app that’s getting a lot of attention, including at South by Southwest (or SXSW), the annual tech and culture expo that swept Austin, Texas, last week with movie nerds, celebrities and venture capitalists.
Throughout the conference, attendees imagined what chatbots, deep-fakes, and content-generating software will mean for the creative industries.
In a live podcast recording titled “Generative AI: Oh God, What Now?” two technologists wondered how many jobs fueled by creativity will be taken over by machines. In a “Shark Tank”-style pitching session, the entrepreneurs proposed new ways to integrate AI into entertainment, such as splitting audio clips or automatically displaying movie scripts. A SoundCloud executive told another audience that people who categorically reject AI-generated music sound “a bit like synth haters” from the early days of electronic music.
And it’s not just SXSW attendees and speakers who are excited about the space. According to market research firm PitchBook, VCs have inked 845 AI-related deals worth a total of $7.1 billion so far this year, despite an otherwise booming tech market. waving.
In Los Angeles, home to the entertainment industry and a growing tech sector, companies are already looking to bring artificial intelligence into the Hollywood production cycle. Santa Monica-based Flawless has focused on using deep-fake-style tools to edit the mouth movements and facial expressions of the actors after principal photography has finished. Playa Vista’s Digital Domain is bringing technology into stunt work.
“AI could be an incredible tool to help democratize a lot of aspects of cinema,” said Tye Sheridan, an actor who has starred in films like “Ready Player One” and the rebooted X-Men series. “You don’t need a lot of people or a lot of equipment or a lot of complicated software with expensive licences; I think you’re really opening the door to a lot of opportunities for artists.”
Along with VFX artist Nikola Todorovic, Sheridan founded Wonder Dynamics, a West Hollywood-based company focused on using AI to facilitate motion capture.
In a demo Sheridan and Todorovic showed The Times ahead of their own SXSW panel, the software took an early scene from the James Bond movie “Spectre” — of Daniel Craig dramatically walking across a rooftop in Mexico City — and removed the actor to replace him. him with a moving and gesturing CGI character. The benefits, for Sheridan, are simple.
“I mean, you don’t have to wear those silly looking motion capture suits anymore, do you?” Sheridan said.
But despite all the hoopla, some remain skeptical, wondering how much of the excitement is froth fueled by venture capital.
It was only a year ago at SXSW 2022, that technologists seemed to be betting on cryptocurrencies. But very soon, crypto values collapsedregulators repressed and industry pillars imploded. Even the metaverse, the other “next big thing” Silicon Valley has been launching in recent years, has so far proved disappointing.
It doesn’t help that the tech entertainment space has its own trail of broken promises. Do you remember 360 degree virtual reality movies? Remember 3-D TVs?
The rise of AI in writing has also raised concerns from unions representing screenwriters, who fear that studios could replace experienced film and television writers with software. This year, the Writers Guild of America will require studios to regulate the use of material produced by artificial intelligence and similar technologies as part of negotiations for a new pay contract this year.
“We’ve been through several hype cycles before, not just with AI, but with other types of technological innovations as well,” said David Gunkel, a professor of media studies at Northern Illinois University who focuses on the ethics of media. Emerging technologies. “So the smart thinking is always to be careful how much you forecast about radical changes to anything, because in some cases that doesn’t happen.”
Even if the general hype of AI is justified, the question of what impact this rapidly emerging field will have on the entertainment industry specifically is more thorny, in part because it raises questions about creativity, originality, and artistic providence that don’t arise. when a show makes, say, an interview transcript or a dinner reservation.
Entertainment-oriented AI has not yet reached the standard of true artificial creativity, said Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile. Pointing to Alan Alda’s recent effort In order to have ChatGPT write him a new “M*A*S*H” scene, Amabile noted via email that the software required a substantial contribution from Alda, and even then produced dialogue that was alternately incoherent or unfunny.
“That’s not to say that AI will never be able to produce a truly funny sitcom script or a masterfully moving soundtrack,” he said. “But it will have to be a different type of AI. We’re not there yet, and I don’t think we will be any time soon. In my opinion, anyone who claims to know when and how that will happen is either delusional or wishful thinking.”
However, the potential impact of artificial intelligence seems hard to deny. Generative programs like DALL-E and ChatGPT have, in the span of a few months, gone mainstream, filling social media with machine-made images and sacking interviews that many public relations representatives would envy for their human clients.
AI also doesn’t require users to set up a complicated crypto wallet or buy an expensive VR headset to understand the appeal, and the technology is quickly being integrated into search engines and social media apps.
“Crypto and (the) metaverse were two big trends that I think Silicon Valley and the tech industry expected to be massive waves,” BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti said onstage at SXSW. His company has begun integrating artificial intelligence into its personality questionnaires. “I think AI is a much, much better wave in the sense that it’s producing a lot more useful stuff.”
“Don’t you think…we’re just riding through these false trends until interest rates go up?” asked his interviewer, former New York Times media columnist Ben Smith.
No, Peretti said, this is not another bubble destined to burst. The rise of AI is more like mobile phones or social media: “massive trends that changed the economy, society and culture.”
Amy Webb, CEO of the Future Today Institute consultancy, is optimistic about the transformative potential of AI. In a trend report just released by her firm, AI was the only technology vertical out of 10 for which its predicted impact was color-coded lime green, meaning imminently relevant, for every industry they tracked, including entertainment. .
Webb reflects on a world in which artificial intelligence programs are used to mass-produce many different versions of a single television pilot, either to test them before launch or to show different ones to different viewers afterwards.
“I bet sometime in the next few years it will turn into this horrible industry practice where you have to have multiple variations before things get the green light,” Webb said in an interview. “And then there’s a predictive algorithm that tries to figure out which version has the highest probability of raising the most (money).”
As promising as AI is, and as eager many SXSW panelists were to announce its full arrival, some industry insiders caution against expecting too much, too soon, from the technology.
Many of the AI tools that have gone mainstream in recent months look good on a Twitter feed, but may not hold up to closer scrutiny, said Todorovic, the VFX artist-turned-AI entrepreneur. “Some of these things where you’re just thinking, ‘Oh, I’ll just write this, generate the whole movie,’ I think it’s more like… you get a concept and you can go and work on top of that.”
“It’s a bit of a stretch,” he added, “to think that you’re just going to replace all these artists.”
