Ashton Kutcher Says AI Improvements Will Raise Hollywood’s Bar: ‘Can Generate My Own Movie’
By Movieguide® Contributor
Ashton Kutcher says Hollywood’s “bar is going to have to go way up” as AI technology becomes more accessible.
“You can generate any footage that you want,” Kutcher said in a conversation with Google CEO Eric Schmidt. “There’s footage in [OpenAI generative video tool Sora] that I would say you could easily use in a major motion picture or a television show.”
He went on to say that AI will cut production costs, as studios will no longer have to pay cast and crew for certain scenes that can be made using Sora.
“Why would you go out and shoot an establishing shot of a house in a television show when you could just create the establishing shot for $100?” Kutcher asked. “To go out and shoot it would cost you thousands of dollars. Action scenes of me jumping off of this building, you don’t have to have a stunt person go do it — you could just go do it [with AI].”
He continued, “You’ll be able to render a whole movie. You’ll just come up with an idea for a movie, then it will write the script, then you’ll input the script into the video generator and it will generate the movie. Instead of watching some movie that somebody else came up with, I can just generate and then watch my own movie.”
“What’s going to happen is there is going to be more content than there are eyeballs on the planet to consume it. So any one piece of content is only going to be as valuable as you can get people to consume it,” Kutcher concluded. “Thus, the catalyzing ‘water cooler’ version of something being good, the bar is going to have to go way up, because why are you going to watch my movie when you could just watch your own movie?”
Kutcher’s comments created waves online, with many criticizing him for promoting technology that puts an end to jobs in the creative industries. Others pointed out that he has a vested interest in AI succeeding.
“The fact that Ashton Kutcher has a venture capitalist firm that is currently investing in AI should have been disclosed in the article,” Alice Herring, a member of the Animation Guild posted online. “He’s not speaking as a filmmaker (because he’s never been a director, DP, writer or editor) he’s speaking as a salesman for investments.”
Kutcher later clarified his comments, tweeting, “I don’t think AI will replace the film industry or creative arts. It’s an amazing tool that we should learn to work with to become more prolific and efficient as artists. In the same way we use Avid, final draft, greenscreen, Led bg and other technical tools. Acting like it doesn’t exist will be catastrophic.”
“Jobs will change, denying that is turning a blind eye to facts…we need to be prepared and understand what’s coming,” he concluded.
Movieguide® previously reported on filmmaker Tyler Perry’s thoughts on Sora:
After OpenAI released an update on its AI video tool, Sora, Tyler Perry paused an $800 million studio expansion and began raising red flags about the future of the entertainment industry.
“I have been watching AI very closely and watching the advancements very closely. I was in the middle of, and have been planning for the last four years, about an $800 million expansion at the studio, which would’ve increased the backlot a tremendous size – we were adding 12 more soundstages,” Tyler Perry told The Hollywood Reporter.
“All of that is currently and indefinitely on hold because of Sora and what I’m seeing. I had gotten word over the last year or so that this was coming, but I had no idea until I saw recently the demonstrations of what it’s able to do. It’s shocking to me,” Perry continued.
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