Session 6/7 AI in Entertainment by Olivia Milo

Personalized Overview

oliviamilo2 — 2025-03-16 17:08:20 UTC

Dealing with the early stages of AI means that it hasn’t been researched or regulated nearly enough for it to be such a comfortable and large component in any industry, especially entertainment. The entertainment industry is very coveted and made up of a very small and creative group of people. It’s concerning because we are close to creative individuals getting replaced by people who simply know how to work an algorithm. Anyone can learn the ins and outs of AI, but creativity is not something that can be replicated or replaced. AI can and has been used to write scripts, enhance voices, create images, predict profits, and more. I love going to the movie theater and watching shows, but lately I’ve been overwhelmed with the feeling that nothing is original anymore, and the industry seems to be floundering. One of the biggest problems with using AI in media is that these programs absorb and use everything that exists on the internet to learn and gather information. There’s absolutely no copyright concerns and it isn’t possible for a machine to create something original. No original ideas is a big part in why the industry is not performing well right now, despite the mass amounts of money that are getting poured into each new project. I chose this industry to research because I can see somewhat of an advantage for AI usage in most other industries, however, I see no positive in taking away artists’ jobs and giving them to people who will soon have job opportunities everywhere else.

Respeecher in The Brutalist

oliviamilo2 — 2025-03-16 18:45:46 UTC

The Brutalist was released in December 2024 and won three Academy Awards, despite public backlash for its use of AI. Respeecher was used in post production to make the actors' voices indistinguishable from a local Hungarian accent, by inserting a native speaker's voice into the program. I find it interesting that it faced such brutal backlash, when a little research proves that it’s unwarranted. Both Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones worked with a dialect coach for months, and the AI was used to fix small imperfections throughout. This work would have been done anyway by a non-AI software, however, it would have taken much more time. While it did speed up the process, post-production still took eighteen months, and perhaps in the future it will become even more efficient. While the people working on this project seemed to understand the importance of maintaining an actor’s work, it could easily spiral into less and less effort being put into vocals if no regulations are put in place.

Orion QC and Audiobooks

oliviamilo2 — 2025-03-17 01:57:34 UTC

Penguin Random House, the largest publishing company in the world, uses AI in many aspects of their process. They developed their own tool named Orion QC to supplement the proofreading of audiobooks. It allows quality control to be done in a few minutes, rather than a few days. They’ve expressed that it is solely to increase efficiency, and that it has not taken away from human roles. I still have concerns regarding the future, because as the technology improves, why would humans need to be a part of the proofreading process? The technology currently struggles with being able to identify differences between an audiofile and a manuscript, however, that should soon improve. After a certain amount of time with no mistakes from the software, it would be inefficient for people to keep working alongside it. People are being overly optimistic about the security of the human role in mundane jobs.

Future Trends and Ethical Considerations

oliviamilo2 — 2025-03-17 03:09:24 UTC

AI will become more advanced and better at jobs such as editing and proof-reading, all of which will shorten the amount of time projects take to create. Creating projects in a shorter time period will allow for more to be released, and AI could lead to a boom in movie output. There are good and well thought out regulations put in place with the intent to protect artists and jobs within this industry, which is a direct result of the Writer’s strike in 2023. The WGA had support from the SAG-AFTRA union, who also put regulations in place after the strike. The contract was extensive and states that AI cannot replace writers, writers will get full credit for ideas, they can prohibit their work from being used to train AI, and more. This does of course only protect movies made within the WGA, which separates movies made by directors such as Quentin Tarantino from these rules. Within the WGA, greed could drive people to work around these regulations. It could be possible for a writer to be fired and given a false explanation for why they’re removed from a project, when the truth would be that the studio wanted someone who agrees with their AI usage. AI as a cost-cutting method is too good of a resource to not use, but in the wrong hands it can lead to heartless projects that negatively impact the entertainment industry. It’s important that there are people continuously keeping a close eye on AI usage and making sure that each piece of media is created with integrity.

Societal Impact

oliviamilo2 — 2025-03-17 03:28:25 UTC

While all of the research I’ve done is sure to maintain an emphasis on the stability of the human role, I can’t see how human jobs won’t be negatively affected by AI. Yes, the efficiency of AI in mundane jobs allows for more time to come up with creative storylines, but it already seems like people have run out of ideas for movies. If there’s no new ideas, then the efficiency AI brings is only going to lead to people not being able to work enough. Efficiency can also be seen as a negative, because hard work makes people more inclined to see a movie. There’s a large amount of appreciation for works that people had to dedicate years of their life to. When people hear how long a movie took to get made, it becomes a selling point, and it drives people to support it. The backlash each project that uses AI receives from the public is going to be difficult to change. It has such a negative connotation and people tend to have a narrow idea of what it means to use AI. For a large group of people, AI is not seen as something that can enhance a story. In terms of privacy, I’m very pleased with the regulations organizations have already put in place regarding this matter. If the rules are truly upheld, then plagiarism and consent issues should not be a cause for concern.

Reflection

oliviamilo2 — 2025-03-17 03:32:32 UTC

This research process eased some of my worries about the future of AI in entertainment. I was happy with my struggle to find examples of unethical AI usage, as I expected to find scandals about scripts being plagiarized and people losing their jobs. I had to broaden my scope and look for examples outside of Hollywood, which led me to the research on Penguin Random House. I was happy with my findings, but I still believe that AI should stay away from creative spaces. The extensive regulations and heavy monitoring of AI usage would not be a problem if there was a blanket ban on it within entertainment. Public fears and distrust in this industry would also be eased if a ban were to be put in place.

References

oliviamilo2 — 2025-03-17 03:46:16 UTC

Davenport, T. H., & Bean, R. (2023, June 19). The Impact of Generative AI on Hollywood and Entertainment. MIT Sloan Management Review. Retrieved March 16, 2025, from https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-impact-of-generative-ai-on-hollywood-and-entertainment/ [Rationale: Provides general overview and introduction to AI in this field.]

Kinder, M. (2024, April 12). Hollywood writers went on strike to protect their livelihoods from generative AI. Their remarkable victory matters for all workers. Brookings. Retrieved March 16, 2025, from https://www.brookings.edu/articles/hollywood-writers-went-on-strike-to-protect-their-livelihoods-from-generative-ai-their-remarkable-victory-matters-for-all-workers/#:~:text=Solidarity%20with%20other%20unions%2C%20and,that%20spanned%20markedly%20different% [Rationale: Extensive overview of the 2023 writer’s strike and how it affected AI in the industry.]

Murphy, C. (2025, January 24). The Brutalist’s AI Controversy, Explained. Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/the-brutalists-ai-controversy-explained?srsltid=AfmBOoqvpULRecjxzwdUH9or-Zr1Cc8odp3HwFQ154N1kZkw4W8yGlPc [Rationale: This article gave insight on how the AI was actually used and provided direct quotes from the movie’s editor and opinions from the public.]

Muruganandam, S. (2022, October 21). Orion QC. Tech Blog. Retrieved March 16, 2025, from https://tech.bertelsmann.com/en/blog/articles/orion-qc [Rationale: Blog provided insight on the pros and cons of Penguin Random House’s AI software]

Penguin’s approach to generative artificial intelligence. (2024, August 8). Penguin Random House. Retrieved March 16, 2025, from https://www.penguin.co.uk/discover/articles/penguins-approach-to-generative-artificial-intelligence [Rationale: Shows publishing company’s opinion on AI and their promise to protect employee’s jobs.]