Recently, I was watching The View and the conversation about AI and Hollywood came up. Sunny Hostin presented the argument that she is okay with AI being used because it gives Black creatives and other people of color a way to get their stories out there.
The other side was: if people are relying on AI to tell these stories, does that not make it harder for actors of color to get on screen? If there is no longer a need for physical labor and it becomes cheaper to just use AI, what happens to the people who are supposed to be represented?
This made me wonder: Is getting representation in stories more important, or is having the real stories with real people in them more crucial?
Is it a win for us to just get our stories told without worrying about whether we actually have the people in the room to represent them?
If we are truly trying to make the industry more inclusive, I think it is crazy to shortcut these stories and give AI a place to portray the people in them. True representation comes from not only a story being told, but the lived experience of the actors, the pain that the actors bring, and the relatability of that person.
You can watch a story that is written by someone of a certain background, but it can still feel so inauthentic when the people portraying the story cannot relate to the concepts themselves.
In my opinion, there is something so intimate and vulnerable about watching someone go through an experience when you know that they can relate to some part of what they are representing.
AI can replicate what pain looks like, but it will never understand what it feels like. And then this leads me to my other question, “Who gets cut out?”
On the surface, I understand the argument that AI provides more opportunities on the producer and director side. For people who cannot get the budget or the support to have their stories represented, AI could give them a way to make those stories. I understood what Hostin was trying to get across.
But this is such a dangerous thing to support.
This does not solve the problem. It creates a different problem as a short-term solution while still allowing people to keep POC out of Hollywood.
And that is what makes this conversation so interesting to me as a student.
There is already so much uncertainty surrounding entering the film industry. I feel like the one thing people constantly tell you is that you will be safe in film and Hollywood because robots cannot take the jobs of people when it comes to emotions and human connection.
But what happens when the stories do not need actors? What about when they do not need intimacy coordinators, background actors, casting directors, or all the little in-between jobs that make a production happen?
I believe that this threatens the security that students feel they’re supposed to have when entering this industry.
Additionally, the fact that actors and writers have already had to negotiate protections around AI makes this feel like more than some far-off possibility.
SAG-AFTRA’s 2023 agreement included protections around the use of performers’ digital replicas, including requirements around consent and compensation. The Writers Guild of America also negotiated protections around AI-generated material, including that companies cannot require writers to use AI.
In my opinion, this is not just a conversation about whether AI can make a movie, it’s about who gets to be part of making the movie.
I think that is the part that gets lost when we talk about AI as a solution for representation.
Yes, maybe AI can make it easier for someone to get their story on screen. But if the way we make those stories possible is by removing the people who would have been given the opportunity to tell them, then what exactly are we fixing?
What industry is safe for us to go into? What will actually provide security?
If the solution to making Hollywood more inclusive is to remove the very people who have historically struggled to get through the door, I must wonder: Are we actually making the industry more inclusive?