If you’re on the internet much nowadays, one thing you’ll not have been able to avoid is the topic of AI. Artificial Intelligence, GenAI, or Large Language Models, as it’s also known. Whatever you call it, it’s there: the images and videos, the attention seeking fake posts, the fan films, the arguments for or against it, the outrage when it comes to light it was used to make a film.

For myself, I’m skeptical of the technology, but as I have an interest in movies and TV, I can’t ignore that it’s already affecting them, and that there’s a lot more to come in the future.

Every so often, a popular film will be revealed to have used AI in some way, which then leads to an outcry on social media. The recent poster accompanying the first trailer for Fantastic Four: First Steps was accused of using it, leading Marvel to quickly proclaim that there was no AI anywhere in the artwork. But that doesn’t absolve it from the fact that the previous year, it used it in the creation of opening titles for the Disney+ show Secret Invasion. Also last year, the low-budget indie horror flick Late Night With the Devil ended up making a stir when it came out that several title cards had been made for the fake talk show featured in the movie.

Now there’s The Brutalist, an awards favourite which has already snagged several Golden Globes, but which used Artificial Intelligence to tweak the Hungarian accents sported by some of the (non-Hungarian) cast. The amount of media coverage this film is getting means the question of the tech’s use can’t be ignored.

All of these might seem like small things, and they don’t really amount to much, it’s true. There’s no way AI can replace actors just yet, but how long will that last? It was only a couple of years ago that we were laughing at GenAI that thought humans had three arms or six fingers, now it can do some very accurate replications of humans, and even the cheapest models can easily make stock images of inanimate objects.

In the next five years, as long as the big tech companies continue to pour money and brains into it, it will get more advanced, in the same way all other technology has done, and if other companies, like movie studios, think they can make or save money from using it, they will begin to invest in it too. No matter what, AI is in Hollywood, and it’s not going anywhere, not as long as it’s useful.

Netflix hit Cobra Kai has come to an end, and it turns out this series also made use of the tech, to bring back Mr Miyagi, a character played by Pat Morita in the original Karate Kid, who died in 2005. They used a body double and deepfake to make the body, then used AI to make the voice sound as much like Morita as possible.

Now, this is the kind of situation where you could say AI is acceptable. After all, it’s not much different to the situation of characters like Grand Moff Tarkin in Rogue One, which used a digital Peter Cushing, with mixed effects. If the tech allows you to get a character looking and sounding more like their original actor, then all for the best, surely? Not necessarily.

As I’ve said before, Hollywood has a big problem with nostalgia, relying on it to make money. So many recent movie, like Ghostbusters: Afterlife and Alien: Romulus have brought back deceased actors to “reprise” their roles, and a great many more have used cameos from popular legacy characters to get that quick nostalgia hit. As studios get increasingly desperate to make more franchises spin out as long as they can, they will resort to this more and more, and there’s no reason it would stop there.

We all joke about things like the Stranger Things cast, who are still playing their teenage characters, despite being in their early twenties, well why not just AI them to make them appear younger? Or how about we make the Star Wars trilogy fans wanted, except that it features a recreated Han, Luke and Leia?

This might seem like a stretch, but it’s already been done to an extent with Luke Skywalker in The Mandalorian season two, and whether we like it personally or not, that episode was one of the highest rated in the show. Nostalgia might seem cheap and unoriginal, but one thing’s for certain, it still sells.

With the use of this technology, there would be no reason to stop making something just because the actors were too old or had passed, and there would be no need to recast for a prequel.

There are some pretty big ethical questions attached to all of this though. One is that these actors might not want their likenesses to be used in this way, but if they have passed on, they have no say in the matter, and it’s up to their estates. Likewise, background actors were being asked to essentially sell their likeness to studios, so it could be reused in multiple projects. How might this spill over to leading roles, especially for younger actors, desperate to get a break in the industry?

How long will it be before we see movie stars from the Golden Age coming back as a selling point in otherwise prosaic movies? Just a few years ago, there were plans to reanimate James Dean to star in a boiler plate film about a Vietnam War veteran. Thankfully it went nowhere, but there’s sure to be another one along sometime.

A big concern here is what it means for the art and creativity of a movie. We go to watch films because we want to see humanity portrayed onscreen, it’s why we give out awards for astonishing performances, because, much like a painting on canvas, they say something profound.

What the use of AI as in The Brutalist does, is remove some of that human experience, and makes it more to do with what the technology is capable of. Yes, people will say it’s only there to aid the actor, to polish up their speech, but that’s where it starts, not where it ends. Why bother if an actor can do an accent or voice at all, why not just let them speak as they will, and “fix it in post” with AI?

The other big concern, which goes much further than just Hollywood, is what effect the tech will have on human workers, especially on human creators, whether artists, writers, designers, etc. This is a problem for movies, where we are supposed to showcase the very best of human creativity. It’s true that Hollywood has always been at the very best, only half interested in art, with the other half focused on what kind of profit they can make, but that gap has widened now, as the industry fights off more competition from new kinds of entertainment.

If they see a way to either make a saving, or “improve” a product through the use of Artificial Intelligence, then they will do so. For anyone who thinks it will just stop here, take a look at the use of CGI. When it first came to the forefront back in the 1990s, it was used alongside traditional methods like model making and stop-motion, but now it’s almost entirely consumed these skills, and every movie uses some form of computer VFX, often to excess, and often to plug the gaps left by the filmmakers lack of creativity.

AI is starting in the small places and will work its way out. One place I suspect it will be used first is in animation. Right now, there are programs which can expand an image’s background seamlessly, which would have a lot of uses in the medium, not to mention it’s easier to hide the usage, as it doesn’t need to be photorealistic.

Then, I imagine, the next place would be audio. We’ve already seen (or heard) its use here, as mentioned above, and it will probably expand from there. Imagine you need something like a radio announcer to deliver a few seconds of dialogue over the radio in your scene, would it be worth it to hire a voice actor and a studio, bring them in and get them to record it? Or would it be better to just use an AI voice creator instead? Expect to see companies like Eleven Labs credited at the end of movies soon (if they aren’t there already).

Naturally there are a lot of places where the technology will have an appeal, and indie movies is one of them. For an independent movie with a budget one-hundredth of a Hollywood production, this must seem like a free gift, allowing them to create audio, images, and promotional material quickly and cheaply. There’s a big appeal right there for those who don’t have much money, and it’s just another tool to be used, so where’s the harm?

The harm is in the precedent, not least as indie movies should be refuges for disgruntles artists, but any shrugging off of AI here will embolden the bigger studios to start experimenting with the tech.

So, should we boycott?

One thing the internet is very good at is blowing things up out of proportion. That’s not to suggest AI isn’t a concern, just that it’s not a concern everyone shares. Just because it’s a big deal online doesn’t mean it’s a general worry. There might be thousands of people liking anti-AI tweets, but those thousands are spread across the world, and even if people don’t like it, it’s a big leap to start boycotting things, and missing out on your favourite movies and shows.

Not to mention that the internet tries to divide everyone into fiercely opposed groups. For every person denouncing AI, there’s another proclaiming it as a technological revolution, that opens up creativity to everyone, and as one groups voices rise, so does the other pro rata.

Add to this that many people simply can’t spot AI, and know very little about it (million if Facebook is a judge). Unless it’s egregiously bad, there’s no reason why they would know it was there, and its use for a few seconds or more might not seem to justify completely boycotting an otherwise great movie.

The use of Ian Holm’s likeness in Alien: Romulus didn’t harm the film’s performance, though there were many people who didn’t like it.

As long as the big studios think they can make good use of the technology, they will continue to do so, often covertly, only revealing it once the movie’s been released, and the best we can hope for is to stop its worst aspects.

There are a lot of problems associated with AI’s use in writing and developing new entertainment, which I haven’t mentioned here, though I think they deserve a post of their own, at a later date.

Also, the belief that AI will release movies from the grip of the big corporations is largely unfounded. Even if it does allow a few more filmmakers to release their own projects, what’s it worth if there’s no creativity in it? It will also just be moving the control to another big group of companies, in the tech sector. The most likely outcome would be that it simply saturates the market with cheap rip-off or gimmick movies, made in a few days, and released on YouTube to try and make a quick buck.

In truth, like most technologies, it will likely expand its use until we forget about it. Maybe we can try and save creative industries from this, or at least slow its progression. For the sake of entertainment, I hope so

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Read more: Don’t Harm Human Creators With AI Restrictions