AI vs Cinema, are we losing the fight?

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion…”

Robin Williams

I want to preface this entire article with a few comments:

• AI can be a productive tool in the production life cycle of any form of creative work; speeding up boring tasks, assisting creative teams on all the mundane crap and good shit like that.

• The tech behind AI is impressive.

• AI is here to stay and should be considered within the production process.

• The purpose of this article isn’t to bash on AI but give a logical perspective.

Let me paint a picture of the world AI-bros want us to experience…

We scroll down TikTok. We are inundated with imaginary influencers selling AI generated version of real products. The review from this AI-human is AI scripted. We speak to our AI assistant to book the cinema, our AI-assistant texts our partner on our behalf to tell them we are seeing ‘Mission Impossible: 14 Dead is Still Reckoning’. The film has no crew, new actors, no GFX teams, nothing. It was amazingly crafted by a prompt. We melt into our chairs and watch the photorealistic junk the prompt has regurgitated. Entertainment, life, products are all replaced by robotic and uncreative approaches in the name of removing magic, lowering costs and providing the highest quantity of the bare minimum. Sounds fab… RIGHT?

I paint this picture to try and illustrate the part people flogging all these crypto tools miss. Lowering costs & making the learning process ‘easier’ isn’t a sell to real creatives. It’s a shame as these ‘cost cutting tools’ will mean people lose their job, however it also allows us to have a platform to evolve and become more creative. 

When you remove the art from life, there isn’t much of a reason to exist. We exist to feel things, experience things, feel the magic that really exists. When you remove the human element to all these points you lose the point. 

Real creatives struggle, they graft, they spend their lives in the pursuit of creating their art. When you try to skip ahead you miss the entire reason and lose the ‘why’. Enjoying the journey and learning to love the struggle isn’t a buzz term but the reality. As Robin Williams once said, “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion…”. I think this hasn’t been as true as it is now.

As always thanks for reading! If this added any value to your day please feel free to share it with a AI enthusiast.