Lionsgate, which is the studio behind John Wick, Twilight, Saw, and hundreds of other Hollywood hits has just signed a deal with Runway AI. The deal, which Lionsgate maintains will aid humans working in the movie biz rather than replace them, will see Runway’s generative AI used in everything from set design to help with scriptwriting. Runway will be given permission for its AI to train on Lionsgate’s decades of output, and then it can start advising based on that input.
As you might imagine, there has been some outcry over the move. The Hollywood writers’ strikes of 2023 were partly based on protests on the use of AI in the film industry. The gaming sector, too, has seen potential strikes from video game actors who see AI as a potential threat to their livelihoods. Yet, on paper, it makes a lot of sense for movie and game studios to embrace AI – and it goes well beyond cutting out labor-intensive tasks.
If we consider top-tier strategy games, for example, where decision-making and planning are key. AI could assist by creating more complex and engaging scenarios, adjusting difficulty dynamically based on a player’s skill level, and generating environments that offer fresh challenges each time. Most gamers would welcome the role of NPCs becoming personalized and adaptive, and that’s an area that would not directly step on the toes of voice actors.
A fine line between technology and human creativity
In essence, both the movie and game sectors are treading a fine line between having this nascent technology and not wanting to alienate the people who provide the creative spark for the industries. That said, the protests are nuanced, and the complexities of the argument go well beyond just saying, “AI is bad.”. Most design platforms, such as Canva and Adobe, now put AI at the front and center of their toolkits – without controversy. If AI is used in web design, then why not movies and games?
The main selling point – or at least the framing of the argument – is that AI will help with labor. If you’re a gamer, you’ll know that many games can get stuck in development for years, and it’s often the case that it gets delayed due to the sheer volume of coding, design, and testing required. Similarly, in the film industry, large productions can become bottlenecked by the number of creative decisions and technical adjustments that need to be made in post-production. AI offers a potential solution by automating many of the repetitive tasks that slow down both gaming and filmmaking processes.
As such, we get into this scenario where AI provides the building blocks in areas like code generation, automated tasks, and troubleshooting, enabling creative professionals to focus on the elements that require human insight, such as storytelling, emotional depth, and general artistic vision. Those of us who are not artistically gifted would struggle to create anything worthy of Hollywood, even with the suite of AI tools offered. In short, the creatives are still needed to steer the ship.
Yet, if you look at a platform like YouTube today, you can already see AI creeping into certain areas of content creation. Short two-minute clips appear, showing, for instance, what The Avengers movie would look like if it were made in the 1950s. You may also find clips of songs that purport to be from the 1930s but are wholly AI-generated. This is not a problem, per se, as some of the videos are amusing or interesting, but it does provide a hint of where we might be going.
Sora has been used by select artists
OpenAI – still arguably the leader in the AI field – has been careful in its roll-out of its AI video generator, Sora. Instead of putting it out into the wild, as such, OpenAI has bequeathed to a select number of artists, some of whom have been able to present at the Tribeca Film Festival, which launched the Sora Shorts category. There is a sense of dipping a toe into the water here, holding back on giving everyone access to a disruptive tool that could rock the movie business. OpenAI has been selective in its partners, almost marketing Sora as a tool that could only be used by true creatives. To an extent, it has worked.
It’s easy to see a use case for Sora. Imagine you are in a room trying to pitch a script to some movie execs. With a tool like Sora, which for the moment can only create short videos, you could show them a glimpse of your idea instead of relying on a written script alone. The issue, of course, is when a future iteration of Sora allows you to generate a full movie via prompt. But for now, OpenAI and others can promote it as a building block, not a supplantation tool for artists.
Governments strive to protect artists
Normally, governments are slow to react to new technologies, but it is clear that there is at least a will to do something. California Governor Gavin Newsom announced a sweeping AI bill that covers some of the issues raised here, notably the protection of artists’ likenesses from being reproduced on screen. In short, you can’t just clone Scarlett Johansson’s image and have an AI version of her in your movie. As for her voice, well, it’s the same logic. Of course, that already happened, with OpenAI being on the receiving end of Johansson’s wrath in May after having an eerily similar voice for its AI assistant.
In a legal sense, the laws should protect artists while not hampering innovation. In essence, that’s also what AI companies are trying to market themselves as when it comes to movies, games, and even music. If you sell an artist an AI tool that they can be used to create, it is just as valuable – perhaps even more so – than selling a company an AI tool they can use to replace that human artist. Nobody is kidding themselves about the potential loss of some jobs, but many are talking about AI leading to evolving roles.
With all the discussions with AI right now, what it cannot do is often not discussed enough. Right now, you can’t simply ask an AI to create a full-length movie or code a video game from scratch. Moreover, even prompts for short tasks can go awry. If you’ve ever used OpenAI’s flagship DALLE-3 image generator, you’ll know what we mean by the latter statement. The AI future is simply not here – yet. As such, there is no need to panic. The movie, games, and broader entertainment industry will harness AI; those sectors just need to codify some rules and wait for the technology to meet expectations.
