‘Thank You For Generating With Us!’ Hollywood’s AI Acolytes Stay on the Hype Train
While this type of hype is to be expected at industry-led events, summit attendees were repeatedly reminded that generative AI is not just another flash-in-the-pan tech bauble, like VR headsets, the “metaverse,” or NFTs. It is In fact revolutionary.
This emphasis betrays the anxiety one might expect at a conference celebrating an energy-hungry industry facing an energy crisis. And the closure of a video generation tool from one of the largest companies in the sector. And protests against the data centers needed to make the technology work.
Indeed, much has been made of the fact that AI – despite concerns about how its many “efficiencies” might alter, or make entirely redundant, the work of those working in creative fields – was not an affront to human creativity.
Everyone seemed to agree that what AI can’t do – yet – is “generate” its own ideas. “The origin of creativity is the human mind,” said Mihir Vaidya of EA. Adobe’s Hannah Elsakr expressed similar sentiments, projected on screen as an equation: (Humanity x Creativity)AI = Unlimited possibility. We have been told that “stories are human” and that in this brave new world of limitless possibilities, “human judgment” will be key. But AI’s promise of instant gratification ignores the very heart of human creativity.
Proponents of AI see human beings as almost purely idealized creative engines: the primary drivers of an increasingly technologized process. In reality, creativity is revealed in work and in the toil it takes to figure things out. You learn to play guitar by stumbling over Green Day power chords. We learn to write by writing, rewriting and playing with the form and structure of sentences. You cannot learn to write by simply thinking about writing. Or “generate” a killer guitar riff by imagining it. Creativity is not just a commodity, trapped in the imagination, that can be exploited and sifted by technology. It is a skill that must be learned, not just released. The dreaded “imagination-creation gap” is not an inefficiency that can be filled by a computer program. This is where creativity itself emerges.
The other nagging problem concerns results. Many of the images shown at the summit looked downright horrific. They are obviously synthetic, digital, inhuman. Yet everyone applauds them, as if they look good. In another session, Rob Wrubel, founder and CEO of AI studio Silverside, bragged about how his company used the technology to create an entirely AI-generated holiday ad for Coca-Cola. Maybe I live in a bubble too, but I remember this place being widely despised and mocked. Of course, this was never mentioned.
The stifling media hype made Kennedy’s fireside chat a healthy dose of reality.
In addition to emphasizing the importance of human virtues like taste, and even basic abilities, she described a few cases in which technological advancements failed in her productions. Kennedy, who resigned as head of Lucasfilm earlier this year, cited recent film Star Wars: The Next The Mandalorian and Groguone presumes, where the 3D printed props started to break after a few takes. Because they were not built by skilled prop makers, whose experience gives them intuitions about the behavior of objects, not just their appearance, they proved fragile and of inferior quality.
