Hollywood veteran and outspoken AI critic Justine Bateman had some interesting observations about the use of artificial intelligence in Hollywood recently.
The 80s star made her comments about the ongoing Writer’s Guild of America strike, which has shut down multiple productions, live shows, awards ceremonies, and caused the industry to come to a standstill. AI regulation is on their list of issues. The reason is clear.
Many believe the studios have refused to budge in negotiations with the writers because they want to shed employees and programming in order to get lean. The best way to do that? Cheap reality shows, and generating scripts with the aid of AI.
Many studios and streaming services have been absorbing massive losses, and a return to cheaply made reality and game show formats may be all that saves some in the industry.
In her interview, Bateman told Fox News Digital, via The Daily Wire:
“I think AI has no place in Hollywood at all,” “To me, tech should solve problems that humans have. Using ChatGPT or any … software that’s using AI to write screenplays, using that in place of a writer is not solving a problem. We don’t have a lack of writers. We don’t have a lack of actors. We don’t have a lack of directors. We don’t have a lack of talented people.”
While the industry does have talented people, they lack creativity and imagination, often resorting to sequels, reboots, and woke programming that no one wants to watch.
With the use of AI to aid script writing and editing, the studios could cut their workforce dramatically.
Bateman continued:
“The use of AI makes me sad because I feel like it’s … getting away from being human,” Bateman told the outlet. “But we’ve been doing a lot of that, right? Plastic surgery. Filters. Doing things over Zoom instead of in person. But the idea that somebody would use AI to replace human expression, I think, is the saddest thing to me.”
In terms of motivation for studios to use AI, Bateman seems to know what’s up:
“Incredible amounts of money are made off of our work,” she said. “Incredible profits are made off of our work. But what if you could make even greater profit? What if you could get rid of the pesky overhead of paying for the directors and the actors and the writers and the locations, the production, the post-production? What if you just get rid of all of that? Can you imagine how much larger your profit could be? That’s the road we’re going down,” she said.
She continued, saying, “The entertainment business is not going to do it better. It’s just going to do it faster, less expensively, and you will have a greater volume of it. You’ll have more content. And, like, even referring to films and series as content to begin with, I think is … insulting.”
Hollywood has a problem. To be accurate, they have many problems. Stale, woke storylines, a lack of any real star power, too much competition from upstarts, and big name actors seeking to take their game out of California.
With upstart companies like Tubi, Philo, and Roku providing quality content, often for free or at a fraction of the big guys like Hulu and Netflix, studios are looking for any angle to stay profitable, even if it means garbage programming and fewer employees.
Something had to give with the streaming industry, and if the studios have their way, it will be jobs and content in favor of profits, and the use of AI instead of humans.
Featured image screen shot from embedded YouTube video
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