Lionsgate’s New Deal Is a Test of Hollywood’s Relationship With AI
It’s arduous to not really feel the ripple impact when massive shifts occur. One such shift got here Wednesday when Lionsgate—the studio liable for the John Wick, Hunger Games, and Twilight franchises—introduced it had teamed up with synthetic intelligence agency Runway for a “first-of-its-kind partnership” that may give the AI agency entry to the studio’s archives in an effort to create a customized AI instrument for preproduction and postproduction on its movie and TV exhibits.
Runway’s forthcoming instrument will “assist Lionsgate Studios, its filmmakers, administrators, and different artistic expertise increase their work” and “generate cinematic video that may be additional iterated utilizing Runway’s suite of controllable instruments,” in keeping with a press release asserting the deal.
If that sounds prefer it would possibly pique the curiosity of those that have been watching AI’s affect on creatives’ work, it did. Hours after The Wall Avenue Journal broke the story, writer-director Justine Bateman, who was vocally critical of AI through the Hollywood strikes final yr, made a put up on X that just about felt like a warning: “Over a yr in the past, I instructed you that I assumed the studios have been NOT sending legal professionals to the #AI firms over their fashions injesting [sic] their copyrighted movies, as a result of they wished their very own customized variations. Effectively, right here you go.”
If something, the brand new deal might function a take a look at of the AI protections that unions just like the Display screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Tv and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) obtained of their contract negotiations with studios final yr. Underneath these protections, studios should get consent from actors earlier than making a digital duplicate of them. As a result of, in keeping with Lionsgate and Runway, the instrument shall be used just for preproduction and postproduction work, it’s throughout the realm of that settlement, says Matthew Sag, a professor of legislation and AI at Emory College.
“It looks as if a big growth, however the film business has been utilizing all kinds of know-how and automation for years,” Sag says. “So you may additionally see this as a pure evolution. The distinction is that now we’re seeing extra issues we had considered artistic and inventive being automated.”
The announcement got here the day after California governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation aimed toward defending actors from having their work cloned with out consent. Set to take impact subsequent yr, Newsom’s transfer comes at a time when online game employees, particularly voice and motion-caption actors, are on strike, partially over AI protections.
“We proceed to wade by uncharted territory in the case of how AI and digital media is reworking the leisure business,” the California governor stated in a statement. “This laws ensures the business can proceed thriving whereas strengthening protections for employees and the way their likeness can or can’t be used.”
Even when actors’ and different performers’ work gained’t be impacted by the brand new instruments, it’s arduous to not surprise about what impact new generative AI instruments might have on those that work in preproduction and postproduction. Per the WSJ report, Lionsgate initially plans to make use of Runway’s customized instrument for issues like storyboarding. Finally, the studio plans to make use of it to create visible results for the massive display screen. Based on Sag, “it’s unattainable to know for positive which productiveness instruments shall be job creators or destroyers,” however it does appear attainable these instruments might influence jobs.
Based on Runway CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela, although, they won’t. “Our core perception is that AI, like all highly effective instrument, can considerably speed up your progress by artistic challenges,” Valenzuela says. “It achieves this by serving to to unravel particular duties, not by changing total jobs. Artists are at all times in command of their instruments.”
Like Valenzuela, Lionsgate vice chair Michael Burns sees AI as a boon to moviemaking, one that can assist the studio “develop leading edge, capital environment friendly content material creation alternatives,” he stated in a statement, noting that a number of of Lionsgate’s filmmakers have been excited in regards to the new instruments with out naming which filmmakers. “We view AI as an excellent instrument for augmenting, enhancing, and supplementing our present operations.” What it is going to do to their future operations stays unknown.
