The real A.I. problem that faces Hollywood is not what you might think. The issue is not so much it taking creative jobs, it’s that most of what Hollywood creates at the moment with people is, well, rather formulaic.
As such, it’s very easy to assume that very, very soon most of Hollywood will AI generated and no one will notice because of how bad what Hollywood generates at the moment is.
It sucks, but it definitely seems to be the future. MidJourney keeps getting better and better and there will come a moment when MidJourney is hooked up to the moving imagine and ChatGPT and…ta-day….99% of Hollywood is AI generated and the average person won’t even notice.
I’m not being serious, obviously, but I sometimes wonder if Madison Beer is a a Simone kind of AI-generated personality. I’ve never heard her voice, even though she’s a “singer.” She’s got a perfect smile and a great body. So, while, yes, she’s obviously, real, we’re careening towards point where you could actually pull off a Simone-type AI generated celebrity, parasocial relationships and all, pretty easily.
I say this because it’s going to happen soon enough, one way or another. Once we figure out if America is going to have a revolution / civil war or turn into an autocracy, the thing thing we’re going to address is all the amazing cultural changes that are going to happen because of AI.
We may have to bomb ourselves into oblivion to get the “cool stuff” of AI, though.
Anyway. I think all human-generated art is probably going to fade away. It’s just a matter of how long it takes. It may be 10 or 20 years, but, in the end, Hollywood as we know it — actors and all — will be more industry built on software than celluloid.
AI is going to sucker punch Hollywood actors, directors and actors in a pretty astonishing way, leaving producers sitting pretty. Will a Simone of the future be able to win an Oscar? That’s a question we’re going to have to ask ourselves as a species, I’m afraid.
As we all wake up from the Superhero movie era daze we’ve been in for 20 years, I think maybe we aren’t asking the right question. The question isn’t, “What type of movie genre will replace Superhero movies?” but, rather, “Is this the twilight of not just mass media, but human generated art?”
It’s very possible that a lot sooner than you might think, AI sensors on your TV and phone hooked up to “Her”-like technology will generate movies, TV shows, songs and — gulp — novels, that are designed specifically for what you want at that specific moment because of your mood.
Some 99% of what is generated by the hand of man when it comes to art is shit and, as such, 99% of all art could very well be, well, AI generated shit. AND, there won’t be any mass media anymore, no shared reality.
As such, the Singularity won’t come with us uploading our minds into computers, but with the very idea of human-generated art for profit being seen as a quaint notion of a bygone era. And that dystopian nightmare is probably going to happen a lot — A LOT — sooner than you think.
If it happens at all, that is.
And add the general tendency to name, shame and drug anyone who is “different” and, lulz, our posthuman future may already be here.
If you want a prime example of how different The Elites conceive of the notion of sexuality relative us Poors, look no further than Cate Blanchett. The woman has never met a lesbian character to play that she didn’t like. I think it’s safe to say she’s giving the audience a sense of what’s going on in private life.
Yes, she’s married to a dude, but I think they probably have an “understanding.” And if they don’t then whatever urges Blanchett may have to wade into the lady pond, she uses her Art as and outlet to do so.
As such, it’s comical how all the Swifties want Tay-Tay to be a ‘mo. She probably is “queer” but she’s not…gay. She, and every other powerful female celebrity just has a very vague, flexible concept of who they do what with with their bodies.
So, no, Tay-Tay isn’t probably going to start dating a woman in public because she’s America’s Heteronormative Sweetheart, but in her private life, I think she’s probably done her fair share of same-sex bed hoping.
Now that we learn that Warner Brothers Discovery is thinking of licensing HBO content to Netflix, why don’t the two companies just merge? It would make a lot of sense. It would be a massive media powerhouse that could go toe-to-toe with The House of Mouse.
What’s more, then Paramount Global could merge with NBCUniversal (or something) and then all of America’s media would be owned by The Big Three (Except for Columbia studios, owned by Sony.)
I just don’t know enough about the companies involved, but just a back of the envelope thought experiment about a Netflix – WBD merger seems to make a shit ton of sense.
To every season, turn, turn turn. As such, it is at least possible that we’ve finally reached the end of the post-911 “If Only A Superhero Could Have Saved The Day” expectations of audiences. But what’s going to replace the Superhero Movie Era if that is the case?
I only ask this question because, apparently, The Flash was something of a dud this weekend — at least, relative to Hollywood expectations. My natural inclination is to think that Hollywood is going to, because of inertia — just drift until AI Generated Movies are good enough that, lulz, movies made by people will seem quaint. Like silent films once Talkies went mainstream.
And, yet, nature abhors a vacuum, so, it’s at least possible that the upcoming hard reboot of the Alien franchise might be so good that between now and our inevitable Her scenario future where we have a digital assistant who will make all our entertainment for us, that humans might manage to squeeze out a brief era of good scifi movies.
Maybe?
I wouldn’t get too excited, however. I think we’re just going to slouch towards a post-human Hollywood between now and, say, maybe 2026-2029. Remember, there’s a good chance The Fourth Turning is going to happen and all hell will break loose for a few years while we sort out if America will be an autocracy or not.
Anyway. Enjoy your human-made movies while you still can, I guess.
As I often say — I’m always, always wrong. But it definitely seems as though it’s at least possible that we’re in something of a waiting game when it comes to the current WGA strike.
And the two sides, tragically, are waiting for different things.
The WGA is waiting for the Suits to come back to the negotiating table, while the Suits are waiting for LLMs to advance to the point that Hollywood writers are…moot. So, rather than “September” being the deadline as one very young and naive striking WGA writer proposed, I think we have a far more open-ended situation on our hands.
It could be 18 months before there’s any resolution to the Writers’ Strike and the resolution will be that technology has reached a point where the Suits feel like they can just ignore the WGA altogether. And, rather than thinking about a WGA strike, they’re thinking about how many programmers they’re going to have to pay in place of them.
Like I said — I’m always, always wrong. So, I suppose it’s possible that something will happen and the Suits will come to some sort of agreement with writers. But..I couldn’t count on it.
I have very strict metrics for consuming a story and if the story doesn’t meet those metrics, I bounce. And, yet, I can’t just read my own writing all the time. If I’m going to be a well-rounded author, I have to consume someone ELSE’s story on occasion.
I’m trying to watch Tar, but I’m not having much success. It’s a really good movie and if I was 20 years younger, I probably would really enjoy it. But I’m an old coot now who has spent a few years obsessing over the finer points of storytelling and I find it overwrought and sort of meh.
Get to the point, people!
But, whatever. It IS a good movie. I think I’m going to have to get so drunk that I don’t care and just sit down and watch it without skipping 10 seconds forward TOO many times.
I watched “This Is Where I Leave You” and all I could think was, “Man, this movie has really bad background music compared to The Big Chill.” The movie itself was pretty good. I didn’t roll my eyes too much. I did skip through some parts, but that says more about me than the movie.
But I will note — spoilers — that it would have been more interesting if the wife had slept with the “good brother” and they were forced to keep it a secret. This prospect happened in the third act and THAT would be have taken things to the nexxt level.
But, whatever. I’m just pleased I managed to get through a movie — any money. I’m so spoiled when it comes to storytelly that just the act of finishing a movie is a big deal for me. I usually get upset and don’t finish a story if it doesn’t meet my own very — very strict — requirements.
Hollywood is fucking doomed. While we may have to go through a civil war (Reds) or revolution (Blues) between now and then, it definitely seems as though within 10 years even Hollywood suits will be replaced by a Her-like AI.
Let me say that again in a different way — it could be that through a combination of Her and Simone all recorded entertainment will be generated by AI. People will develop parasocial relationships not with Tay-Tay or a this or that Hollywood heartthrob — but with a simulation generated on-the-fly by their very own Her-type digital assistant.
The path to this (dystopian?) future won’t be a straight line, but that’s definitely where macrotrends seems to be taking us in the medium-to-long term. Hollywood is so, so very fucked.
Two things to keep in mind.
One, the transitional phase of all of this will be a new Feudal system for Hollywood where there will be three types of people — suits, software and schmucks. Writers, directors and actors will be seen as quaint and moot soon enough — unless they join together and demand specific, hard-fast carveouts for those jobs.
I just don’t see that happening because things are moving too fast.
The other issue to think about is — Broadway may see a real resurgence. It could be that the revolution may not be televised — because it will be performed live on the stage. People who want “real” actors will turn to having parasocial relationships with Broadway and Westend, (and local theatre) stars rather than some computer-generated bullshit.
I can’t predict the future, but it’s definitely something to think about, something to worry about. The future may see a very, very dramatic change in how we interact with entertainment.
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