AI Art: Welcome to the Churn

Anytime you open a social media app or an internet browser, the topic of Artificial Intelligence as it related to art is everywhere, as it should be. This is a critical time for creatives and the business of art. While there is still a tremendous amount of legal chaos coming as it pertains to machine learning and intellectual property, I wanted to address some of the other odds and ends that don’t seem to get much attention. I read this article and found myself eager to respond to it.

https://www.vulture.com/2022/12/ai-art-midjourney-chatgpt-phenaki-movies-hollywood.html

I have had a few people ask me recently if I am concerned about my job as a writer being overtaken by AI, and I tend to say that I don’t have much concern. Someone is always trying to take my job. You wouldn’t walk up to a carpenter while he’s building a client’s deck and ask him to show the client photos of a deck you built in the hopes that you get the call to make the client’s gazebo. For some reason that happens all the time in Hollywood. And that same client is getting dozens of bids for the deck and the gazebo, so even if the carpenter does a great job on the deck, that gazebo gig might go to someone else.

This is a highly competitive industry, one of intense subjectivity, and at the end of the day writing is one of those jobs that anyone can do, even if only a few of us can do it at a high level of quality. Sometimes having a relationship with the boss means more than being a good writer, sometimes having a fantastic idea is better than knowing the boss, and sometimes you’re just the right warm body at the right time with the right idea and basic level of skill. There are any number of combinations and none of them are better or worse than the other. The point is, landing any gig as a writer is a bit like winning the lottery, and most of the folks who make a living at it buy alot of tickets to get those wins.

In other words, I am already used to pulling down gigs amidst tremendous competition and chaos, so the idea of AI joining the brawl isn’t that intimidating, there’s always room for one more.

These days AI isn’t just coming for digital artists, but also actors, writers, and filmmakers. I see alot of panic out there, and I suppose I wanted to write down a few thoughts. The sky isn’t falling, and the arts & entertainment business has always been a wild west sort of place, but it is going to get spicy.

Here’s a quote from one of my favorite scifi shows, The Expanse… This boss that I used to work for in Baltimore, he called it the churn, when the rules of the game change. The only game. Survival. When the jungle tears itself down and builds itself into somethin’ new.”

I think that addresses the situation rather well. Someone always loses when new technology emerges, and that is a tragic reality. I was entering film production right about the time digital cameras were starting to compete with film cameras, and since then I’ve seen that every time new filmmaking technology enters the game there will be those indies howling that this will finally tear down the walls of Hollywood while the unions and industry aristocrats huff and puff about how it is a fad or isn’t “professional” or “real filmmaking”. The same was said about VHS, and then DVD, and then streaming. There was even a time when I recall the pioneers of Netflix being laughed at by DVD distributors as VSDA in Las Vegas. This industry has always been in chaos, and I’d argue that this new AI thing is another example of the industry entering the churn. Some people will lose their livlihood and have to find other work, while others will adapt, re-educate, and continue to thrive in the new environment.

Using AI to create art is very easy, just like writing, anybody can do it. However, the folks who can do really impressive things with AI art are people who know to code their prompts with terms from the craft, like “ray tracing” and “white balance” and “chromatic abberation”. I predict that it will be the same when AI comes for writers and filmmakers. It could very well be that someday there are no writers, directors, or cinematographers, but all three of those professions have conjoined and transformed into a single job, like “weavers” or something, and they pilot their AI system by writing this hybrid “creative code” that generates the story, the sets & characters, the lighting, the shots, etc. We’re probably a long distance hike away from all that, but likely it is coming, and plenty of folks will be swallowed up and unemployed by the churn. I for one hope to survive, though I accept that in order to have a chance of doing so, I am going to have to continue learning my craft, and expand that learning into other areas of filmmaking that I currently am only moderately proficient with. If I am not able to do so, then there very well could come a day where I need to find another line of work. Will we reach a point where people can just type in their own prompts and AI is so good that it just spits out a 90 minute movie, and all entertainment is custom and on demand? Maybe. Probably.

A few other thoughts I had were with actors. Not sure where that will all go, but likely it will be that people will own their own likeness, and can license it. There will be others who will not license their likeness, and who will only appear in live-action films. That seems to me an exciting prospect also, which leads me to my final thought.

If these ‘woven’ films start to dominate, or if custom on-demand content becomes the norm, then live-action films will become a powerful niche. The AI generated content might be the mainstream, but people will want the human element and seek it out. Like live music, stage plays, farmer’s markets, and street fairs, people will want bespoke, they’ll want handmade, they’ll want the human element. While VFX dominate the major movie productions, there is still strong interest and support in practical FX. For all the digital cameras out there, plenty of movies are still made on film.

Humans will want Human Art, even if that becomes an alternative to the mass production mainstream. I would argue, based on what passes for Mainstream at this point, that we should embrace the churn and be optimistic about the renaissance that comes after.