UNESCO Held Conference on AI in Filmmaking
Renowned industry professionals were invited to a UNESCO conference addressing the impact and concerns of AI in filmmaking.
UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) recently organized a conference in Paris to address the growing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) in the filmmaking process and industry, inviting experienced and established filmmakers to contribute to the conversations.
Joseph McGinty Nichol, popularly known as McG, the director of ‘Charlie's Angels’ and ‘Terminator Salvation’, articulated a rather dystopian view. He suggested that if left unchecked, AI could replace hundreds of thousands of professionals, including actors, writers and visual effects artists, in the film industry within a couple of decades. He suggested that AI is getting better and more creative at a rapid pace to a point where they are emulating human behaviors. The Spanish filmmaker, Pedro Almodóvar, on the other hand, thinks that AI would be just an imitator, which is not enough to make it a rival to acclaimed directors and creative originality.
Christóbal Valenzuela, the Chilean-born CEO of AI video generation company, Runway, whose technology played a role in the Oscar-winning 'Everything, Everywhere All at Once', sees AI as a revolutionary force in filmmaking. Drawing parallels with the advent of cameras, which once threatened painters but eventually birthed cinema, Valenzuela believes that AI could democratize film production, providing a powerful tool benefiting broader content creators.
Hollywood’s concerns over the rise of AI, especially in the light of the dual strikes, are discussed as well. SAG-AFTRA’s longest strike to date underscores fears about the ownership and replication of an actor’s likeness by AI, and writers have echoed these anxieties. Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator, while acknowledging AI's inevitability, emphasizes the importance of informed consent and rightful compensation.
The topic then extends to the concerns of plagiarism. Sarah Dearing of the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds highlighted the importance of artists' consent when their work is used by AI, and that since “opting out” is not much of an option at this time with the trained AI systems in use, licensing the artistic materials that was and will be used in training is the appropriate approach.
Despite the concerns, there is hope that AI can be a collaborative tool rather than a replacement. Yvonne Muinde, a renowned visual effects artist who worked on ‘Avatar’ and ‘The Hobbit’, sees the value of AI handling mundane tasks but also emphasizes the irreplaceability of human experience and mentorship in the creative process.
The most important takeaway from this special conference held by an international organization, going beyond the widely-known conditions and debates in Hollywood, is perhaps the emphasis on the key role played by international institutions that have the capacity to forward research, regulations, education etc. at a global scale. The potential collaboration among UNESCO, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the International Labor Organization can, as stated by Crabtree-Ireland, can encourage world leaders to come together and enforce protections of human workers and creativity.