The results of Sunday’s Oscars ceremony could also further the industry’s embrace — or distrust — of artificial intelligence. Several big-ticket movies up for golden statues this year were created in part with AI, sometimes provoking fierce criticism online.
“AI” has become a two-letter dirty word in Hollywood in recent years, provoking pushback from creative types who believe that movie magic should be the product of primarily human — not digital — brains. That extends across everything from scriptwriting to voice dubbing.
The technology survived the drubbing it endured during the dual strikes of 2023, however, and is now an uninvited guest at the industry’s most glamorous night.
and Holocaust survivor — said that AI helped perfect the lead actors’ accents in the film.
Why AI is different than other Hollywood tech
To be sure, Hollywood is no stranger to technology. Some of the most iconic moments in cinema have only been made possible thanks to greenscreens and computer-generated imagery, or CGI.
But that’s different from AI, which doesn’t require manual human inputs to create images or operate like CGI does. The ability of AI to supplant so many parts of the creative process was central to the 2023 actors’ and writers’ strikes — schisms that divided the entertainment industry and sent thousands onto the picket lines across Los Angeles and New York.
Even their historic efforts to put parameters around AI’s use, however, haven’t been enough to halt its march. So long as investors, financiers, and production companies see money-making potential, Hollywood probably isn’t going to say farewell to AI.
Look at Lionsgate, the production company behind titles like “The Hunger Games” and “La La Land.” Last year, it inked a partnership with Runway, an AI media company, to focus on the “creation and training of a new AI model, customized on Lionsgate’s proprietary catalog,” according to a 2024 press release.
So this year’s Oscars might be less about whether Hollywood will embrace AI (that seems inevitable) — but more about how quickly.
Though perhaps a dark experiment, we decided to put the question to the world’s most famous AI, ChatGPT. When asked whether it thinks AI will one day be involved in all moviemaking, it gave a reply with which people like Bailey would likely agree.
“AI is already playing a growing role in various aspects of filmmaking, and it’s likely to be involved in nearly all movie productions in some capacity moving forward,” ChatGPT said.
But, it continued, adding just one caveat: “Full automation of moviemaking is unlikely, as human creativity and artistic vision remain essential.”
