Disjointed cinematic universes, mediocre sequels, and recycled franchises. Formulaic straight-to-streaming flicks, AAA video games with the same tired mechanics, and the rise of the celebrity author. The death of the music genre, an influx of cancelled series, and a tentative approach to new IPs. The mainstream media is experiencing a creative crisis, and while AI has the power to rejuvenate the slump, I fear it will only perpetuate the problem.
There will always be creative outliers, but on the whole, mainstream media has become formulaic, because industry moguls are afraid. And with good reason. Habits have changed, short-form content is king, ‘forever games’ are challenging AAA dominance, and audiences are no longer flocking to see the next big Hollywood blockbuster. But beyond this backdrop of uninspired creativity and financial uncertainty, artificial intelligence is waiting to throw an AI-generated spanner in the works.
When the generative-AI floodgates opened in 2023, the creative industry was changed overnight. Suddenly, anyone could open a browser window and access powerful AI-image generators such as Midjourney and DALL-E . Digital imagery that would have previously required years of training, expensive industry-standard software, and peripherals such as lightboxes and drawing tablets , could be ‘generated’ in seconds, with a simple prompt.
I’m a photography tech journalist and nothing made me understand the impact artificial intelligence was going to have on the creative industry than when an AI-generated image won the creative open category in the Sony World Photography Awards 2023. Its creator, or ‘prompter’, Boris Eldagsen , outed the image himself and refused the award. To this day, Pseudomnesia: The Electrician is one of the most convincing AI-generated photographs I’ve seen.
So, if AI has the power to fool a panel of prestigious photography judges, why has the Internet become a breeding ground for AI-generated humanoids, rammed so far up the uncanny valley that doom scrolling through Facebook is fraught with more jump scares than Five Nights at Freddy’s ?
Because crap AI-generated content is cheap. And this is my cause for concern…
AI will be used, not for expanding creativity but because it’s cheap…
I’m worried that artificial intelligence – which has the power to usher in a gilded age of creativity – will be used to spiral the mainstream media further into a creative depression. In his book The Coming Wave: AI, Power and Our Future Microsoft AI, Mustafa Suleyman, states: “it [AI] now looks set to reach human-level performance across a very wide range of tasks within the next three years.” He continues to predict that in just a “few decades (…) AI systems would replace “intellectual manual labor””. And while I’m not suggesting we’re going to see purely AI-generated blockbusters or AAA video games anytime soon, artificial intelligence is already becoming increasingly prevalent.
Just recently, speculation was rife that Posters for Marvel ’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps were AI generated – and poorly at that. And although The Wrap confirmed that Marvel has denied this, it’s clear that audiences are already on the lookout for poorly implemented AI. The root of this skepticism surely comes from past faux pas . And there is perhaps no better example than the film industry’s misuse of computer-generated imagery.
Jurassic Park is a movie that helped pioneer CGI and despite being over 30 years old, it still holds up remarkably well today (Image credit: Universal Pictures)
CGI has become a constant criticism of modern film, but there’s nothing inherently bad about it. Films such as Tron , Jurassic Park , The Matrix , Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest , and Avatar , all made the best of their respective CGI, but too many films have relied on the technology as a cheap alternative to practical effects, extras, locations, and even costumes (Green Lantern’s horrific CGI costumes anyone?) And I can’t help but wonder if a worse fate awaits AI. I say worse because, unlike CGI, AI has the potential to affect almost every facet of the filmmaking process. From casting to script writing, storyboarding to concept design, set dressing, and of course, computer-generated imagery.
My main cause for concern is that where other technological innovations require human input, AI will increasingly need very little. And we’re only at the beginning of what AI is capable of. Artificial intelligence may have been conceptualized in the 1950s, but AI as we know it today is very new and evolving rapidly. AI writers won’t strike. AI visual effects artists won’t complain that they’re underpaid and overworked. AI has no concept of an unrealistic deadline. It doesn’t require expensive recording studio time, and won’t need a break between book sequels. AI isn’t there yet, but the temptation will be to use AI to cut costs as it evolves, and that’s the wrong way to use it.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m well aware AI is here to stay. Once ChatGPT became every high school student’s best homework buddy, the AI cat was out of the bag. But the mainstream media has a choice. Use AI to bolster creativity and improve working conditions. Or use AI to churn out movies, video games, music, and books faster and more cost-effectively than ever before.
Choose the latter and Green Lantern will be the tip of the iceberg.
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