Some Consumers Believe AI Could Produce Better Content Than Humans
By Movieguide® Contributor
While many actors, directors and producers have voiced their concerns about artificial intelligence in the entertainment industry, some consumers believe AI could create better content than humans.
Per Variety, “Although 70% of U.S. consumers say they would rather watch a TV show or movie written by a human than by generative AI, a surprising percentage — 22% — said gen AI could actually write TV shows and movies that are more interesting than humans, according to Deloitte’s 18th annual Digital Media Trends survey, released Wednesday. That sentiment was highest among millennials (30%) and Gen Z consumers (25%). In addition, overall, 42% said generative AI and humans can each produce entertaining content.”
However, while AI could produce entertaining content, it would lack the creativity and emotion that comes from real human experience.
“The lack of creativity means AI can’t create new solutions to problems or excel in any overly artistic field,” Tableau reported. “One scientific paper posited that at the present stage of AI development, it can be programmed to create ‘novel’ ideas, but not original ones. This paper posits that until AI can create original and unexpected ideas, it won’t overtake humans in the ability to be creative, which means it will be hindered in its decision-making.”
Additionally, using AI would disrupt humans’ jobs, create other ethical problems and be costly to implement.
“An estimated 62,000 entertainment jobs in California spanning film, TV, music and gaming will be disrupted by the rise of artificial intelligence within the next three years,” the LA Times reported, noting that another “204,000 entertainment jobs across the United States will be affected by AI during the same time frame.”
The use of AI in the entertainment industry was a hotly debated issue in last year’s WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
“The WGA’s deal includes guardrails around the use of generative AI in the creative process, including a provision that gives the union itself the power to challenge the use of writers’ existing work to train AI software programs. The SAG-AFTRA agreement with the studios includes some, but not all, of the union’s demands on AI,” Variety reported.
Movieguide® previously reported how AI regulations drove the strikes:
The actors’ strike ended last week after 118 days, and Fran Drescher and Duncan Crabtree-Ireland explain why AI regulation was a hot-button issue from start to finish.
“With AI, things move very fast, and three months is equivalent to a year in how things can change,” said Drescher, the SAG-AFTRA President. “If we didn’t close that up now, then you’ll be so far behind you’ll never be able to catch up. It was really important to us that we got the protections we felt that we absolutely needed to sustain this contract until the next one.”
This topic proved to be the hardest to resolve as this was the sole issue left for the final weeks of negotiations. The protection that SAG-AFTRA negotiators pursued was more extensive than the ones the writers pursued with their strike. This differed from both unions’ desire for better compensation from streaming platforms, where the actors’ and writers’ requests were comparable. Thus, once the writers’ strike was resolved, the question of better pay was quickly resolved for the actors, while AI regulation remained unsolved.