Welcome to tex stuff. This is a story. I'm mos Voloscen here with Cara Price.
Hi.
Ah, so I would like to show you something and just get your reaction, and I promise you it relates to today's story.
Here we are planet Earth. It's impossible not to appreciate the sheer grandeur of our world, and yet there remains one forest unexplored by humans, a forest filled with life, with creatures living in the burrows of the firms, the branches of the trees, by the flowing streams, and the mossy box. I'm David Attenborough's neighbor Dennis, and welcome to a forest filled with little critters.
So this is a sort of Pixar style animated film with a parody of David attenborough narration. The publication date is April tenth, twenty twenty three. So I am a little curious why you want me to watch this film, which is titled Critters with a Z.
Critters what you just saw is the beginning of a five minute animated movie that was created using open AI's text to image software back in twenty twenty three. Critters with a Z was created using doll e. We're obviously now in twenty twenty five, and open Ai, in conjunction with a creative agency and film production company, are turning critters into a feature length film. Not only that it is set to premiere at can in twenty twenty six, so they have a drop dead deadline.
The twenty twenty three short is not terribly engaging.
In the first forty three seconds, it feels like a product demo, which of course it is. But what can we expect from the twenty twenty six version. Will this be a moment that has Pixar quaking in their boots.
Well, you know, if open Ai and their partners in this can deliver a feature length hit, the very definition of studio could change, you know, especially given their goal, which is to make this movie for less than thirty million dollars, which is nothing really compared to the hundreds of millions it can cost a major studio to make a feature length animated film. And then there's the timeline
that we talked about. You know, open Ai said they will wrap in nine months, while Pixar would probably take two to four years to make something similar.
Assuming the film comes out in twenty twenty six and it's well received, it can standing.
Ovation fifteen minutes, and then it.
Drives real box office. I mean, there are a lot of big assumptions. If all of that happens, and it happens at a fraction of the cost, at a fraction of the time the pix I would do it in this would represent kind of a seismic moment for the whole of Hollywood.
It would represent a seismic moment. I think that it's something that Hollywood definitely should be worried about. But there also are a lot of humans inside this loop. You know, OpenAI products like Dolly and Sora will be used for production, but humans will be the voice actors, and there are some human artists who are even overseeing the project. I think most importantly, the screenplay is being written by two of the writers from the Paddington franchise.
How is the industry responding, I'm obviously generative AI was one of the huge issues of the writers strike.
Yeah, and I think there are a lot of people outside Hollywood that assume that generative AI is no go in the industry, especially because of how tense the strike's got. But that's what today's episode is about. I actually got to talk to Lila Shapiro, who's a features writer for New York Magazine, and her recent piece was titled Hollywood already uses generative AI in parenz and is hiding it? And in this piece she talks about how generative AI
is viewed and used in Hollywood. She actually heard from studio execs, VFX artists, writers, act directors, and even up and coming generative AI studios hoping to work within the studio system.
The victories of the strikes were largely about like what people can sort of be forced to do, but people are being sort of pressed to do it off the record informally by people lower down the production chain because everyone is pressed for time, and here are some really
efficient ways to do things. So it's like there are these guidelines, but it's limited to how much it's going to really like stave off these greater pressures of needing to be more efficient, productive, and deal with tightening budgets across the industry.
I think it's important to remember that AI already plays a role in Hollywood, and it has for over a decade. Lila told me every studio uses some form of AI. The thing being argued over in Hollywood is like generative art like purely creative task that can take the artistry out of a job or threatened to replace jobs entirely. But there are a million uses for AI that are
just replacing gruntwork. I mean, the writer's strike resulted in a contract that says scripts can't be generated by AI, but if a writer wants to use AI, they can use it.
And this is how.
AI is treated in most parts of the industry. Here's Lila again.
Studios aren't advertising what they're doing with it because the public response is so negative and there aren't like tons
of examples that we know about. To give you an example, like you've looked at what happened with The Brutalist, where the director came under criticism when it developed that they'd used generative AI to adjust the audio on some of the dialogue, you know, And I think it had to do with adjusting the actors like Hungarian accent, and so something like that I think is extremely widespread, and it's
almost it's hard to argue with. You're like, well, there's not something sacred about like adjusting audio levels in a certain way, and now there's this technology that makes it much easier and faster. If you look at like specific little windows. You're going to find everyone is doing it, and why wouldn't they.
But here's the thing. The only people motivated to scream about it from the rooftops are AI companies like Open Ai or other creative studios that are dedicated to the use of generative AI, which means that Lila had to really dig to understand the true role of AI in Hollywood right now, not to mention the industry's collective opinion on it.
So what you're saying is we're going to get an expose today.
Well, I started my conversation with Lila asking about a swanky Hollywood party she attended. There were a ton of high powered people in attendance, but so many of the people Lilah interviewed there refused to be named. And that's because the party was a launch party for a new generative AI studio. I'll let Lila take it from here.
So the party was put on by one of these new AI studios. This one is called Asteria, and it had described itself as sort of the Pixar of AI. And part of the reason the studio had some buzz around it was that it was run partly by the actress and showrunner and writer Natasha Leone who sort of this like Indie World Darling. And the other component of it is that this studio is sort of positioning themselves as the ethical AI studio in that they are training
their model, they say, only on licensed material. So there's this sense that a lot of artists feel, rightly so that like their work is being scraped, they're not being compensated, and now they're being replaced by these models that can do what they did much more efficiently. So Asteria is trying to sort of get around that problem by saying that they're licensing all their footage and they're building a model with a group of engineers who kind of come
out of the AI scene in the Silicon Valley. This party that I went to was the launch party for their model, and it's in this big room and there are these images that are created by their model projected across the walls, trippy things of like a cloud turning into a man and the man falling into the clouds and turning back into them, or like undulating fields and galloping horses.
Everything is very dolliesque.
Yes, there was no presentation or anything, so you don't really know how they made it or what the process was of producing those moving images. It was very like scene. They weren't leading with an explanation of sort of what they were and what they were about and how they were doing these things.
There was sort of a weird thing that you described in your article that there were a lot of people who didn't want to give their names.
What was that about, right?
I think that people still feel that there is a kind of stigma like associated with using generative AI. When the article came out, a lot of people were really upset with Natasha because they're like, this is a betrayal. So people would tell me, like, I think this is going to like alienate me from my friends and colleagues if they know that I'm here and then I'm interested
and I'm looking into it. Even though it's becoming increasingly widespread and it's happening everywhere, people still don't like it.
I understand that there's still a stigma around the use of AI and supporting companies that use AI, even though every company now uses AI.
Yeah, a lot of what's being done with generative AI is replacing what CGI was, and it's not like there's something that's sacred about CGI or like rotoscopic where you're like very painstakingly cutting out a person's image and moving them into another background. That's not like a pleasurable activity. It's not a creative activity. It's like a roat task that has to be done over and over and over
and over and over again. If you have a way to do that where it happens much faster, saving you like days or weeks of time and looks the same essentially,
then like why wouldn't you want to do that? A lot of the people who are most interested in experimenting with it are like CGI VFX people because they're like tech people who are interested in emerging technologies, and their work itself is part was once in an emerging technology, so it's not like they're like dead set against it, but it does have the effect of no matter what way you sort of slice it, visual effects is now going to be much faster, which means from like a
labor perspective, it takes less people to do it, and it takes those people a shorter amount of time. And that even leaves aside the ethical issue of is this based on stolen work? Which hysteria is trying to get around with their system.
So one of the studios you spoke to is Runway. Can you tell me a little bit more about them, and like what do they do exactly.
Runway is this company that they've designed a model that generates video and they also, you know, have the ambitions to become a studio themselves. And they've now produced a pilot and they run these film festivals that are AI film festivals. So they're really embedded in Hollywood at this point, and they've gotten a lot further there than the big
tech companies have around. When I started reporting, I think the picture had been big tech doesn't know how to operate in Hollywood, whereas I think Runway came in and started having meetings, and at this point they're meeting with every studio. They had the first publicly announced partnership with the studio, which was Lionsgate. But they have a model
which can do incredible special effects. When I was talking to the Lionsgate executive and other filmmakers who are working with Runway, they talked a lot about how, say you want to have a shot of ten thousand soldiers in the mountains during a snowstorm. To really shoot it, they'd have to go to the Himalayas, and it would take three days and cost many millions of dollars. And then using Runway, they can just create that for ten thousand dollars.
And it can also do like much more insignificant things like say you have a shot, but you want an extra foot of image around every part of the scene. We can do that. So it can do a lot of things with varying degrees of excellence, all of which are much faster than alternative ways of doing those things.
In your piece, there was one paragraph that really struck me. It's a paraphrase of something a lions Gate exact told you. With a library as large as lions Gates, they could use Runway to repackage and resell what the studio already owned. You know, I already feel like we're in.
The We have sequelitis.
Right now in Hollywood, and I think people who love movies, like myself are often lamenting the fact that everything seems to be something that already existed. I guess my question for you is, do you feel like we are increasingly just pushing into repackaged, repurpose content territory that is Hollywood or is that lament a little bit pollyannish.
Like, of course you hear something like that and it's like, that's depressing. Now, I'd say the alternate argument to that, which I heard a lot from the people at Hysteria, certainly Natasha Leone, is that sure, that's one possibility. Another possibility is that this technology levels the playing field right, fresh voices, new people who would otherwise be unable to get a foothold in Hollywood will be in a position
to make films. And so there are certainly people who are arguing that this can lead to a new golden era of independent filmmaking. I don't think that's impossible, but the worst case scenario doesn't seem that improbable either, Which is what which is that like it'll just be all
slop from here on out. The slop will just get more and more and more slop, Like because we're so focused in like chure out content and if someone can just click a button and star in like seven seasons of Game of Throne knockoff, they're going to want to do that. What are the incentives for making quality content? But at the same time, like, I don't think it's an all or nothing. I'm sure it'll just continue to be kind of both.
It's a matter of if people who care about movies and the art form of movies will invite these kinds of movies into their lives or worlds.
Yeah. One thing I thought was really interesting in response to the piece is at the end of the piece, Natasha talks about how her neighbor was David Lynch before he died, and she related to me like this conversation she had with him about asking him his thoughts, and his response was to pick up a pencil and say this is AI, basically like, it's a tool. What matters is how you use it. And then all these people online were like, how dare she drag David Lynch's name
through the mud like this? He would never have used AI, But I thought it was actually very probable that he would have said that because he was a constantly evolving filmmaker who did use many tools that were at the time that he began using them controversial and something that others were saying would lead to the death of art
and the death of filmmaking. So I do think it's true that it's just a tool and that like, of course, people will make interesting things with it, and there are interesting artists right now who are experimenting with it, and we haven't seen their work yet, but I think once those projects start to come out, there will be a
shift in attitude. I think the Netflix. Ted Surrando said this, like he thinks that it's not just going to make movies much cheaper to make, but also ten percent better, and that the reason it would make movies ten percent better is because like, oh, we'll be more freed up to spend more time on the creativity. And to me,
it's like, well, that's certainly not an inevitable outcome. It could easily be just that it's faster and now you're expected to just churn out more and more and more and more, and you're never giving that time back to invest in the creativity.
After the break, Will AI ever completely replace human filmmakers?
Stay with us?
I want to pivot a little bit here to the thing that people are focused on most in any conversation about AI, which is job. It's no secret that creative workers in Hollywood are struggling. Whether it be writers, actors, I don't know. It seems like there's a lot on the line right now. What were people saying to you in your piece, and in your reporting about the future of the quote unquote Hollywood workforce.
Yeah, I mean, I think there's no question that there has already been job loss and that there will probably be more job loss. It's very hard, though, to really pin down the reasons why. When I was talking to unions in Hollywood for the piece, no one was sort of able or willing to say, like, our members lost to this many jobs because of AI. There's also problems like the box office is down and budgets are tighter.
But all of that said, I think there are some specific areas where it's pretty clear that like AI can do as good job as a person, which is not everywhere by any means. But for example, the junior studio executive, a big part of that person's job was to write script analyzes, and that's something that generative AI can do a really good job of and it's not really a
creative enterprise exactly. When the studio executive talked to me about it, that was how she came up writing script summaries for her bosses, and now she doesn't need an assistant to do that for her. But at the same time she was like, but I am worried about what is the next generation of studio executives. How are they going to learn when this core function of their job is no longer necessary? And so who am I training now? No one.
Is it fair to fear that AI will take over filmmaking altogether.
I think that's a reasonable thing to be somewhat afraid of, although I do think that it's a pretty complicated question actually, because do I think that people will lose the urge to create art? No, But it could be that we reach a time where there's no economic incentive to do it because most people spend their time scrolling TikTok, and that there's no more like eyeballs that want to engage
in serious art. And I mean that's kind of true for not just Hollywood, but also publishing, writing, podcasting, everything. Is there going to be money to keep making original work? But I don't think that we're in a place where AI could produce a good movie without human involvement. And I don't really know that we will ever be in a place where AI could make a good movie without human involvement. And core feature of AI is that it
has no taste. I think sometimes when you have these conversations with people who are like thinking about this vision where like AI is replacing everything. It's predicated on the idea that there's going to continue to be like an exponential leap forward and what it can do. And like, right now, like AI can't write a good script, for instance,
and nobody thinks it can. I mean, that's part of why the writer's victory during the strikes wasn't that meaningful, because right now it really can't create a.
Good script, but it could in the future.
Maybe it seems like a real question mark. Meaningful artwork has to reflect human choice. So you can imagine someone using chat GBT as part of their writing process, but it would still have to be led by a person. Because I don't think that AI can produce meaningful It doesn't have any motivation, It doesn't have any desire to express anything.
Right, And that's why taste seems to be the final frontier that would need to be entirely disrupted, which is from where I stand, seemingly impossible.
Yeah, it's just like a different order of business entirely. A lot of people that I talk to in AI don't think that that is going to happen. They more think that it will in the realm of Hollywood, say, get better and better and better at doing these specific technical functions, which is so different than give me seven seasons of whatever TV show.
Did you get a sense at all in reporting this that of like how lay people feel about more and more AI content coming out of Hollywood?
I mean most people, I don't think feel great about it. There is, like, I think, a shift since the writer strikes, of just more and more acceptance, partly also because chat GPT is so widely used now and so more and more people are having some form of interaction with it and being like this can be helpful. Oh, I could do this thing, that would be helpful. So I think a big message right now is like, if you want
to be employed, then you have to use AI. And that's true for like every industry right now, not just Hollywood. It's like, if you take away the environmental problems, if you take away the theft of the world's artwork and set those issues aside for a second.
Those two small factors, those.
Two small factors, then I do think that it is a tool, and there's nothing inherently frightening about it, and I think there are certain areas where it's just here to stay. So it's not that useful to be like that's bad, because it's just the nature of the world right now. So I think some of the reactions to it don't make a ton of sense. Like I don't think that using AI currently curdles the work, because I think there's tons of ways to use it that the
viewer will never even be aware of. And I think that there is an increasing number of people lower down in the industry who come to their producers and are like, here's a good solution to this problem we've been dealing with. Should we try it? And I think that is something that I've heard was increasingly common.
Well, thank you so much, Llila, this was a great conversation.
Thank you so much for having me.
For tect stuff.
I'm Cara Price and I'm most Valocian.
This episode was produced by Eliza Dennis Tyler Hill and Melissa Slaughter. It was executive produced by me Oswa Lashin and Kate Osborne for Kaleidoscope and Katrina Norvel for iHeart Podcasts. Jack Insley mixed this episode and Kyle Murdoch wrote our theme song.
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