Hollywood Unions vs Studios: The AI Divide in Entertainment's Future

Published Date: 6/08/2024

The arrival of artificial intelligence has hit Hollywood like an earthquake, with unions and studios on opposite sides of the issue

The arrival of artificial intelligence has hit Hollywood like an earthquake. It was 2022, and the industry was in flux. Layoffs, cost-cutting, and what appeared to be an inevitable strike from writers was looming. That fall, OpenAI released an early demo of ChatGPT, which became the first momentous moment of the tech entering the public consciousness.

Everything changed, starting with “Heart on my Sleeve,” a song that used AI versions of voices from Drake and the Weeknd. SAG-AFTRA mobilized its fleet of lobbyists in Washington D.C, as did the Recording Industry Association of America, according to people familiar with the situation.

The studios, meanwhile, stayed on the sidelines, at least until there was a clearer picture of what the bill would look like. For them, the calculus was different. Executives supported the measure as long as it didn’t interfere with their right to use so-called “digital replicas” in parodies and documentaries, among other things, people familiar with studios’ lobbying efforts tell The Hollywood Reporter.

When it was introduced, the studios’ trade group, the Motion Picture Association, said in a statement, “We particularly appreciate the sponsors’ inclusion of safeguards intended to prevent the chilling of constitutionally protected speech,” which will “be necessary for any new law to be durable.”

The MPA has other concerns — and interests — in the realm of AI. While its members have a trove of movies and TV shows to protect against AI companies that may be hoovering up their intellectual property to power their systems, as well as incentives in staving off machine-generated works that they could possibly compete against, they also create a lot of content, which AI tools may have a bigger hand in creating one day.

The break marks a growing rift between Hollywood’s unions and studios on issues related to AI.

Much of that fight over AI has quietly played out in an unexpected arena  The U.S. Copyright Office, which has been exploring policy questions surrounding the intersection of intellectual property and AI and on Wednesday issued a report warning of the “urgent need” for laws regulating deepfakes.

The unions landed on opposite sides of several hot-button issues with the MPA, which was joined by Meta, OpenAI and tech advocacy groups. Where they clashed the most was whether new legislation is warranted to address the unauthorized and uncompensated use of copyrighted material to train AI systems and the mass generation of potentially infringing works that appear similar to existing content.

Still, the tech is increasingly being adopted, even in the writing process. “I use [large language models] to do research,” said Momo Wang (Minions, Despicable Me, Sing), director of animation at Illumination, at the AI conference. “I first write a story in Chinese and translate with the LLM to English, which is easier for me and better than any translation software.”

The utilization of AI tools has split filmmakers too. No tool has piqued the town’s interest more than OpenAI’s Sora, which was unveiled in February as capable of creating hyperrealistic clips in response to a text prompt of just a couple of sentences.

The studios’ position indicating an eagerness to adopt AI in the production pipeline stands in stark contrast to that of SAG-AFTRA and WGA, which urged the Copyright Office to recommend that lawmakers pass legislation requiring companies to secure consent from creators to train their tech on copyrighted material.

“At a fundamental level, AI cannot create,” says Laura Blum-Smith, WGA senior director of research and policy. “We’ve been active in talking about this issue both with regulators and agencies.”

The DGA, meanwhile, hedged. While it expressed concern about misuse of the technology, it said it “fully expects our directors and members” to “integrate it into the filmmaking process.” With the WGA, it advocated for the institution of “moral rights” that would recognize writers and directors as the original authors of their work, giving them larger financial and creative control over the exploitation of their material even when they don’t own the copyrights.

“We’re not doomsayers about AI,” says DGA executive director Russell Hollander. “It can be a tool that can be used effectively in filmmaking. But like many other tools, there needs to be appropriate guardrails, and it needs to be a tool that’s assisting filmmaking opposed to destroying it.

FAQS:

Q: What is the current state of AI in the entertainment industry?

A: The entertainment industry is currently experiencing a growing divide between unions and studios over the adoption of AI technology.

Q: What is the main concern of unions regarding AI in the entertainment industry?

A: Unions are concerned about the unauthorized and uncompensated use of copyrighted material to train AI systems and the mass generation of potentially infringing works that appear similar to existing content.

Q: What is the position of studios regarding AI in the entertainment industry?

A: Studios are eager to adopt AI in the production pipeline, but want to ensure that they can use digital replicas in parodies and documentaries without interference from unions.

Q: What is the role of the U.S. Copyright Office in the debate over AI in the entertainment industry?

A: The U.S. Copyright Office is exploring policy questions surrounding the intersection of intellectual property and AI and has issued a report warning of the “urgent need” for laws regulating deepfakes.

Q: What is the potential impact of AI on the entertainment industry?

A: AI has the potential to revolutionize the entertainment industry, but also raises concerns about the role of human creators and the ownership of intellectual property.

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