It is a time of turmoil in the galaxy, where inexplicable giant titles can scroll through the emptiness of space, knocking many a starship off course.
And no ship has been more threatened than the Good Ship Hollywood, which has been so buffeted that it now can be bought all-you-can-eat-style in Las Vegas. Not only did the Covid era destroy movie attendance, not only has the streaming pipe dream turned out to be a tremendous boondoggle, not only have the Academy Awards lost all credibility, not only have major studio acquisitions led to insurmountable losses, and not only did the movie making establishment bet the whole farm on their ability to sway the 2024 election AND LOSE…
…but a new technology may render the entire laborious practice of making movies obsolete.
AI has Entered the Chat
Regular readers of this blog will remember that this is not the first time I have ever talked about generative AI. My experience with speculating about this technology began long before the current GPT-instigated era. And when AI-generated art made its public debut, I was one of the first in line to showcase the technology’s potential. Eventually, I even incorporated it in the YouTube videos I made to showcase the twelve free sample chapters of Secret Sky: The Young Universe.
Needless to say, I am in favor of the new technology…even if I prefer to hire human artists when creating a product I intend to sell. The Secret Sky book itself uses only human-generated writing and artwork, and I intend to continue this pattern for all future books. If I’m creating a product with the expectation that people will pay money for it, then I’m going to give them something they could not create themselves using computer prompts.
But for the things I give away for free, such as my YouTube videos (and this blog), I have no qualms with incorporating the work of artificial intelligence. And I wish to encourage the advancement of this technology so that its full potential may be realized.
However, even I could not have predicted just how quickly this new technology may upend the Old Order of the world. I assumed it would take a generation, or twenty years at the very least.
But no. From my current vantage point, it appears as if AI may be ready to root out the old systems before the end of this decade. Even as I write this, the world’s first feature-length AI motion picture is in production. The Woman with Red Hair is a an AI-generated production from Staircase Studios that, if it is allowed to hit theaters, could be the beginning of the end for Hollywood as we know it.
And even if this one movie fails to find an audience, or has glaring errors, or looks unpolished in the final product, that will not be enough to halt the takeover of Hollywood by AI.
How do I know this?
Because the earliest CGI movies went through the same process. Look at the original Toy Story.
The idea of creating a movie where all the characters are toys might seem like an innovation, but it was done out of necessity. In 1995, computer graphics could not accurately model human skin. All attempts to do so ended up looking stiff—making people look like plastic. So the pioneers at Pixar decided to capitalize on this limitation by making the characters of their movie literal plastic people.
And while the original Toy Story appears primitive by the standards of later movies (though perhaps still better than many movies being made today, oddly enough), the point is that the technology got better.
And that’s important because the most cited argument of today’s AI-detractors is that AI art doesn’t look good.
And, to be fair, a lot of current-gen AI art doesn’t look good—though I have seen plenty of counterexamples which are both beautiful and indistinguishable from human artwork. But even if every example of AI art looked hackneyed and hideous, we all have to face the fact that it will get better.
Not might.
Not may.
It will, sooner or later, cross the threshold where people are no longer off-put by it. Its inclusion in movies and TV will become normal, regular, and accepted. And—most importantly—there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.
Hollywood cannot stop it.
The government cannot stop it.
Your mommy cannot stop it.
Meaning that all the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth coming from today’s AI-detractors (and there are fewer of them now than there were as recently as last year) will come to naught. The time has come to leave behind denial, anger, fear, and bargaining and move into the acceptance stage of grief.
The movie business, and the hundreds of thousands of jobs it supplied, is on hospice care.
Hollywood is Going to Die…Again
But before you go thinking that this means no movies will ever be made ever again, we have to keep in mind that Hollywood has already died three or four times over the course of its history. And with each death, we see a lot of the same patterns we are seeing now. Tons of people were put out of work when sound was introduced to movies. The pit orchestras that used to perform in theaters became a thing of the past as pre-recorded music and actors’ voices suddenly came through the screen.
And, in our lifetimes, we have seen hand-drawn 2D animation undergo similar treatment (though it has found a way to survive on TV and in foreign markets, as well as the occasional domestic release).
Even now, people enjoy the medium of motion pictures. Granted, a lot more people are enjoying it in the comfort of their own living rooms, but it cannot be said that movies have become unpopular. All they need to do is evolve.
And that, more than anything else, is why the new crop of AI Movies is going to be so important. Especially for me.
There WILL Be a Secret Sky Movie
The makers of The Woman with Red Hair are touting the film as the first of an entire production line that is in the process of revving up.
And even if they fail to do it, someone else will succeed.
But—and this is the important part—Staircase Studios is suggesting that within a few years, the total production cost for any movie will be reduced to a mere $500,000.
That may sound like a lot of money, and for most individuals, it would be. But for any kind of corporation or business, half a million dollars is within reach. Or it would be within the reach of a simple bank loan. Many local businesses easily spend that much money in a year already. And if they can pay back the loan over ten years, that’s even more doable.
This severely lowers the barrier of entry for making any movie imaginable. And there’s one movie which you know I can imagine.
Unfortunately, the first generation of AI moviemaking will not be ready to adapt my books. But generations are brief things for an iterative technology such as AI. I imagine that even the price tag of $500,000 will decrease with time. Someday, in some way, you will see Skylar and the others brought to life on the big screen.
And that is an exciting prospect for me, as the author.
So the movie business will rise again, as it so often has before. Though, this time, it might not be confined to the town they call Hollywood. I can’t foresee all the details, but I am looking forward to the ride.
Other exciting things are also in the pipeline. You will be hearing about them soon.
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