Sony Pictures CEO Says Studio Will Use AI To Make Movies In "MoreWays"

https://comicbookmovie.com/spider_ma...1243#gs.9miwmu

Sony Pictures has made a bold statement by confirming it will use Artificial Intelligence to produce future movies and TV shows.

Chief executive Tony Vinciquerra recently attended an investor conference in Japan and told attendees that the studio is "very focused on AI" as they look to cut costs.

"We'll be looking at ways to use AI to produce films for theaters and television in more efficient ways, using AI primarily," Vinciquerra said.

He'd later add, "The agreements that came out of last year’s strikes and the agreements that will come out of the IATSE and Teamster [negotiations] will define roughly what we do with AI."

He's referring to the ongoing negotiations between Hollywood's major crew union and top studios; the fear is that AI tools like OpenAI's "Sora" will undermine labour from crewmembers and talent. Now, the IATSE hopes to secure the same guarantees as actors and writers following the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes.

Like it or not, studios are becoming increasingly reliant on AI; it was only last year that DreamWorks founder Jeffrey Katzenberg suggested it would likely cut the costs of making an animated movie by as much as 90%, with only 50 artists needed to create them in place of 500.

As for why Sony is heading down this route, The Hollywood Reporter believes it may come down to a series of commercial disappointments, including Morbius, Madame Web and, if we had to hazard a guess, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.

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The death of cinema as an artform is imminent

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Preserving the sanctity of cinema. Subtitles preferred, mainstream dismissed, and always in search of yet another film you have never heard of. I speak fluent French New Wave.

I've got a cost cutting measure. How about they fire Tony Vinciquerra? And they don't even need to use AI to replace him. Just put a pair of sunglasses on a bag of laundry and prop it up in a chair.


I've saved them millions already.

I make, and will continue to make, a massive distinction between cinema as it exists in its best forms and cinema in aggregate, because the latter is a meaningless average weighed down by a whole lot of mass-produced dreck that I can easily avoid. 50 mindless action films on Netflix might be a waste of resources, to my mind, but it does nothing to diminish the things I'm actually watching.

There is more of everything. This just means we're unable to pick something at random and have it be good, which nobody who cares about the supposed "death of cinema" was doing anyway.

A bad cookie-cutter film made by humans is still art. AI art is not art. Plus this is literally taking away money from actual artists.

Just allowing this to happen already creates a dangerous precedent.

That horse left the barn years ago, amigo.

I'm trying to find a reason why anyone would be excited about this, and the only one I can come up with is an ironic one: "think about how much money they'll save!" Anyone got anything better?

It's been heralded ever since the 1950s but now it really seems like it's going to happen - at least at the blockbusters/mainstream level. Unless studios find God in their heart again but I doubt it. I'm a luddite when it comes to using AI in art.

If it actually works and is "good" the industry will reshape itself around this, spending more time and resources on the things AI isn't good for/affordable for/whatever. I'm not saying this will be good, but neither will it be cataclysmic.

I don't wanna be Pollyannaish, but this will no more be the death of cinema than photography was the death of painting. Human creativity extends even to the manner of being creative itself.

Y...yeah... We're not talking about the emergence of a new form of art. We're talking about artificial intelligence concocting derivative non-art based on countless works of actual artists that it first must devour.

I think you’re missing the point, which is that this sets a horrible precedent. If studios sniff that they can use AI in movies without the audience giving a damn, they'll continue to do it more and more and minimize the actual work of artists as much as they can. That's why the only chance of stopping this is a boycott of any film that was made using AI. The only argument they understand is money. If they make less money than before, they might reconsider using AI and hire people back.

Otherwise, many artists will lose their jobs - people are already losing jobs because producers who only think about $$$ see AI as a way of saving money, even if it's at the expense of people's livelihood AND the state of film as art.

Film as an art form will die once films are made in AI without or with minimal human input. I'm not sure if this is going to happen for all films - probably not, but I'm sure some films will be done this way. They'll stop being films and art, then. This is unacceptable and has to be criticized.

With projects like the Star Wars Sequels already devouring their own IP and reproducing a lesser version than what it was, I don't know that Hollywood thinks they can squeeze out of it in the long term. All the AI images I've seen follow a formula where everything that's good comes from the original source and everything new is less interesting than what already existed. God knows Hollywood doesn't need extra help endlessly recreating the past already.



Maybe it's a naive take, but I do hope AI kills the internet and the broader cultural industries and leads to a resurgence of individualism and regionalism in mainstream art.

As long as they're always honest about what AI had a part of, and that it doesn't infect restorations of classics, i feel no great trepidation personally, and if it's inevitable, i hope to not have to see it. Sorry for those this effects and causes them to be unemployed.

The way these tools are trained raises serious ethical questions, to be sure. But that's not germane to what I'm saying.

Given that most of your post is describing all the things about generative AI that might be bad, it seems as if you've mistaken my post for a general defense of the idea (note that I said "I'm not saying this will be good"). It is not meant to be that. It is much narrower: it's just a response to the idea that some people using AI for some rote parts of filmmaking inevitably means the "death of cinema." And to be fair, you seem to think lots of things are the death of cinema.

I think you've tucked away the important part: without the audience giving a damn. That's the part I'm not convinced of, especially long-term. And to be honest, if the production is rote and soulless (which I think it would be, eventually, by its very nature) and audiences still don't give a damn about that, then the AI stuff is the symptom, not the disease.

There will be lots of unfortunate tumult, as there always is with big technological shifts, but let's be clear: that's true even in areas where everyone agrees the technology is great. It's even true in areas where the technology manifestly saves lives.

I don't have much of an opinion on what the optimal, ideal, or "fair" (what would that even mean?) number of cinema art department jobs is. I don't think anyone does. But I don't see the mere creation and preservation of a specific type of job, at the inevitable expense of some others, as a particularly good argument for anything.

All of this is beside the point, though, because this is still about whether this is a positive or negative thing society-wide, and not about the smaller, starker claim I actually chose to engage with.

This would be true if it happened, yes. I'm saying it will not happen.

Please clarify: is it your position that it would be bad if all/most films were like this, or is it your position that precisely zero films should be made with this technology, to any degree?

Ultimately AI will surpass human intelligence, IMO.

I believe it shouldn’t matter how much they use or how many shots it’s in. It’s shitty to use it at all. However, I believe the death of cinema would come only if AI is extensively used in most films.

Good clarification, thank you. I think this is a reasonable position. To whatever degree I am less worried than you, then, is the degree to which I think this (the latter scenario) is less likely to happen than you do.

The worry about creative jobs being outsourced is a legitimate fear. That can't be over stated. It's a serious worry. After all, it's already impossible enough for a creative person to make a living this way. This could make it even harder.


As for the death of the art? Nah. Is an AI generated script really that much less a product of a human mind than your standard boilerplate scripts that get cobbled together by group think and "how to write a punchy script" seminars and self help books. That kind of garbage has already done the kind of damage we might worry about. Those films are already barely related to the human race, so how much more perverse can it really get completely removing people from the equation. The ones playing in that sandbox had already sold out everything worthwhile about the art of film anyways. Let them just ruin it completely for all I care.


If I'm feeling cruel, which I often do, I might even say that I'd be more than happy to have all of the hack ass writers out their lose their jobs to these glorified pocket calculators, because they are lazy ****s and they don't deserve the work or the money they get anyways. Who gives a shit about the kind of movies that AI is going to be commissioned to write anyways.


As has already been mentioned, what matters most when it comes to preserving the art of film is if anyone going to even notice or care. And I honestly don't know. When I see how much discourse about films revolves around "getting as much bang for my buck" and "just make it look expensive", I doubt it. Because what is being asked for in these situations is likely to be (at least eventually) easily replicable. It's already barely art in the first place. It's craft, and frequently craft of the lowest order, that can excite a very large chunk of people out there. In short, a lot of people might not notice, because I actually don't think anyone cares. Or at least, not enough people.


But there can be good that comes out of this. We might eventually get to a point if AI is scripting the majority of major releases, a deeper and deeper hunger for something real might develop in a very loud minority of people. Maybe it opens an opportunity for smaller films (made by people) to actually flourish and be worthwhile investments. Maybe more people than do now, might start to recognize how hollow things are once the last traces of humanity are erased and replicated by AI.


Great moments in art often come after a supposed death in that art form. And AI is very likely going to at least start sounding like a resounding death knell at some point.


Who knows? But I don't think it will be the end of film. Film just might become a more niche and artisan type thing, which is a shame in a lot of ways, but also....**** all those people who are going to suck up all this coming ai swill. That's what they deserve, and maybe they will be easier to avoid in the future. They can go where the fake movies compliment the fake butter stink on their fingers.

I was wondering when someone would broach the idea of accelerationism for art.

I'm your man.


Plus, I've learned a new word today.

While photography did bring about the demise of much practical and applied visual art which thrived for centuries, or at the very least transformed the space in which it occurred and the manner of its creation, I don't disagree, especally as it gave birth to the moovees!

If the corporate fantasy of generating content at 10% of current cost (yeah right) ever were to come true, perhaps we'd actually see MORE great art rather than less. If 50 artists can really do the work of 500 (yeah right) with AI's assistance, might we see 10 times as much work, and inevitably, mightn't some of it be good, and the product of genuinely original thinking and clever manipulation of AI's strengths and weaknesses?

AI is INCREDIBLY stupid, and in a way that actually transcends human stupidity, which would astound even Einstein. But that brute stupidity can, I think, be harnessed by creative geniuses undaunted by the hype.

That possibility is at least as great as AI being used by amoral mega-corporations to make PAW Patrol even more unbearable. (Of all the indignities of parenthood...)

Here's an excellent article (from of all places The Guardian) which explores many AI-related issues:

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...dall-e-chatgpt

Excellent topic btw.

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