2023: the year in AI

Just 12 months ago, on 30 November 2022, ChatGPT was launched publicly, opening a year in which artificial intelligence has stormed through the world of film: everyone – critics, filmmaking professionals, film theorists – has been forced to sit up and learn fast about the new technological revolution. Recent movies have also addressed the big issues around AI: in Gareth Edwards’s The Creator, the US is at war with AI after it has destroyed Los Angeles, and John David Washington’s protagonist, Joshua, confronts the threat and dilemmas of AI. Central to Edwards’s script is a question: is AI the real danger, or is our own fear of the technology the bigger problem?

The Creator was released in September just two days after the end of the Writers Guild of America strike. For the film world, it has been in labour disputes in the US that arguments over the use of AI have played out. Writers’ and actors’ unions have faced down intransigent attitudes from film and TV producers, reaching agreements that will govern the future of AI in mainstream filmmaking. The WGA deal means that AI cannot be an originating author of a script, and if a producer uses AI to generate a storyline and asks a screenwriter to develop it, the human writer’s role is the only one recognised in the movie’s development. Importantly, the deal affirms that the technology is now completely in the hands of the creative screenwriter: the writer decides whether to use ChatGPT (or other AI) and cannot be compelled to use it.

The deal won by the actors’ union, Sag-Aftra, firmly allays fears that performers’ images could be appropriated through AI and used in new films without their agreement. The creation and use of ‘digital replicas’ of actors is now controlled and subject to performers’ consent. But there are some important areas not covered by the deal, and arguments will continue into 2024. Tim Friedlander, head of the National Association of Voice Actors (Nava) in Los Angeles, described to me how the Sag-Aftra deal “specifically allows for foreign-language AI usage in a movie – it has the potential to destroy the dubbing industry in every country outside of the United States”. So, while Manfred Lehmann is a star in his own right in Germany as the voice of Bruce Willis, and Tom Cruise insists on the German actor Patrick Winczewski to dub his movies, AI will kill off these careers and others in film cultures where dubbed foreign movies are the norm. The change has already begun in TV streaming – in, for instance, the Portuguese series Vanda, currently showing on Hulu in the US. AI has been used to translate the original actors’ voices and perform automated lip-syncing to dub perfect foreign-language versions for ­English-speaking and other audiences. Looking positively, AI means that film culture may cease to be limited by language barriers, with a seamless cultural flow of films across the world, but at the cost of redundancy for those actors whose voice is their profession.

AI in screenwriting will become widely adopted in 2024. The impact will come first at the lower-budget end of film production, where speed of project development is often key. Bob Schultz writes genre movies, often horror, and is an early adopter of AI. He told me how, within a few hours of a producer meeting, he can deliver pitches of multiple GPT4-­generated storylines to meet their brief. He warns that AI is good for structuring narratives but is lousy at drafting: “When you get it to write the actual screenplay, it’s not very good, the dialogue is not believable.” The speed at which Schultz can write is essential for his professional survival at the low-paid end of the business: he needs to deliver 20 screenplays a year to make a living solely off screenwriting, and this is possible for the first time with GPT4.

In 2024, AI will become an extraordinary tool for film preproduction. Systems will be able to take a completed screenplay and automatically generate budgets and script breakdowns – even shot-lists, storyboards and animatics. Paul Trillo, a pioneer of AI in filmmaking, sees 2024 as a year when AI will begin to benefit filmmakers outside the mainstream. For example, 3D motion capture “will be based on video input alone – so no motion-capture suit – and is going to be much higher fidelity and will allow independent filmmakers to do a lot more animated work”.

Finally, get ready for some great new terminology. My favourite is ‘Gaussian Splats’, a technology linked to 3D video capture. In postproduction, a film editor can now use this to change a camera angle or create camera movements that were never achieved on set.