There is someone who offers an artificial intelligence solution for every conceivable problem. AI can help solve persistent problems such as climate change and unsafe working conditions, promise the technology’s most ardent supporters.
It could even solve the much-hyped Game of Thrones finale, according to one of the industry’s most powerful advocates and a speaker at this month’s South by Southwest conference.
“Imagine if you could ask your AI to create a new ending that takes a different path,” said Greg Brockman, president and co-founder of OpenAI, the research group behind conversational software ChatGPT and image engine DALL-E. “Maybe even as a main character or something, with interactive experiences.”
Rewriting an HBO show so that its digital counterpart can slay dragons might seem a little frivolous for a technology as hyped as artificial intelligence. But it’s an app that’s getting a lot of attention, including at South by Southwest (or SXSW), the annual technology and culture fair that rocked Austin, Texas last week with movie nerds, celebrities, and venture capitalists.
During the conference, attendees imagined what chatbots, deepfakes and content-generating software will mean for the creative industries.
On a live podcast recording entitled “Generative AI: Oh God What Now?” two technologists examined how many creativity-driven jobs are being taken over by machines. In a “Shark Tank”-esque pitch session, entrepreneurs proposed new ways to bring AI into entertainment, such as splitting audio stems or automatically visualizing movie scripts. A SoundCloud exec told another audience that people who categorically reject AI-generated music are “a bit like the synthesizer haters” of the early days of electronic music.
And it’s not just SXSW attendees and speakers who are excited about the space. Venture capitalists have signed 845 AI-related deals worth $7.1 billion so far this year, despite an otherwise sluggish technology market, according to market research firm PitchBook. flutter.
In Los Angeles, home to the entertainment industry and a growing technology sector, companies are already trying to bring artificial intelligence into the Hollywood production cycle. Santa Monica-based company Flawless focused on using deepfake styling tools Edit the mouth movements and facial expressions of the actors after filming is completed. Playa Vista’s Digital Domain brings the technology to stunt work.
“AI can be a great tool to democratize many aspects of moviemaking,” said Tye Sheridan, an actor who has starred in movies like Ready Player One and the rebooted X-Men series. “You don’t need a lot of people or equipment or complicated software with expensive licenses; I think you really open the door to a lot of opportunities for artists.”
Sheridan co-founded Wonder Dynamics with VFX artist Nikola Todorovic, a West Hollywood-based company focused on using AI to simplify motion capture.
In a demo Sheridan and Todorovic showed to The Times for their own SXSW panel, the software captured an early scene from the James Bond movie “Spectre” — of Daniel Craig dramatically leaping over a roof in Mexico City. walked — and scrubbed out the actor to replace him with a moving, gesticulating CGI character. The benefits for Sheridan are simple.
“I mean, you don’t have to wear those crazy-looking motion capture outfits anymore, do you?” Sheridan said.
But despite all the hype, some remain skeptical, wondering how much of the excitement is due to the venture capital hype.
It’s only been a year at SXSW 2022that technologists appeared in crypto. But soon cryptocurrencies droppedcontroller demoted and industry focus implodes. Even the Metaverse – the other “next big thing” that has reduced Silicon Valley to rubble in recent years – has so far proved astonishing.
It doesn’t help that the tech entertainment space has its own string of unfulfilled promises. Do you remember 360 virtual reality movies? Do you remember 3D TVs?
The rise of written AI has also raised concerns from unions representing screenwriters, who fear studios could replace veteran TV and film 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 deal later this year.
“We’ve been through multiple hype cycles, not just with AI, but with other types of technology innovation,” said David Gunkel, a media studies professor at Northern Illinois University who focuses on the ethics of emerging technologies. “And so it’s wise to always be careful about how many predictions you make to change something radically, because in some cases it doesn’t happen.”
While the general AI hype is justified, the question of what impact this burgeoning field will have on the entertainment industry specifically is more thorny, in part because it raises questions about creativity, originality, and artistic foresight that are out of the question, such as if a program is doing interview transcripts or a make a dinner reservation.
The standard of true artificial creativity has not yet been reached by entertainment-oriented AI, said Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile. Regarding Alan Alda’s recent attempt to get ChatGPT to write him a new scene from “M*A*S*H”, Amabile noted via email that the software required significant input from Alda and even when it produced dialogue that was alternately incoherent or unfunny.
“That doesn’t mean AI will never be able to produce a really funny script for a sitcom or a masterfully moving movie,” she said. “But it has to be a different kind of AI. We’re not there yet and I don’t think we’ll be there any time soon. In my opinion, anyone claiming to know when and how this will happen is either delusional or wishful thinking.”
Still, the potential impact of artificial intelligence seems hard to deny. Generative apps like DALL-E and ChatGPT have gone mainstream in a matter of months, filling social media feeds with machine-generated images and Bags job interview which some PR reps would be the envy of 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 hoped would make big waves,” said BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti on the SXSW stage. His company has started integrating artificial intelligence into its personality tests. “I think AI is just a much, much better wave in the sense that it creates so many more useful things.”
“Don’t you think we’ll just reverse these false trends until interest rates rise?” asked his interviewer, former New York Times columnist Ben Smith.
No, says Peretti, this is not another bubble destined to burst. The rise of AI is more like that of mobile phones or social media: “massive trends that have changed the economy, society and culture.”
Amy Webb, CEO of the consultancy Future Today Institute, is fundamentally positive about the transformative potential of AI. In a just-released trend report from her company, AI was the only one of 10 technology industries for which the predicted impact was colored lime green — i.e. immediately relevant — for every industry they tracked, including entertainment.
Webb envisions a world where artificial intelligence programs are used to mass-produce many different versions of a single TV pilot, either for testing before release or for later showing to different viewers.
“I bet there will be a terrible practice in the industry sometime in the next few years where you have to have multiple variations before things get the green light,” Webb said in an interview. “And then there’s something like a predictive algorithm that tries to determine which version is likely to earn the most.” [money].”
As promising as AI is — and as eager as many SXSW panelists were to announce its all-encompassing arrival — some industry insiders caution against expecting too much from the tech too soon.
Many of the AI tools that have gone mainstream in recent months look good on a Twitter feed but may not stand up to scrutiny, says Todorovic, the VFX artist turned AI entrepreneur. “Some things where you just think, ‘Oh, I’ll just type it, I’ll do the whole movie’ — I think it’s more like you have a concept of it and you can go on to the top.”
“It’s a bit of a hype,” he added, “to think you’re just going to replace all these artists.”
Source: LA Times