By Gavin Boyle
Wide-ranging use of AI across the entertainment industry is on its way, but actor Zachary Levi says we still need a place for art created wholly by humans.
Zachary Levi discussed the coming wave of the broad use of AI in the entertainment industry and why there should continue to be a space where entertainment is created wholly by humans.
“When it comes to the arts, the arts are one of the only things that actually makes us human, and we have to do something in the face of all of that when everyone can just go to their computer and generate whatever they want, whenever they want,” Levi said.
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“May we create a place — and that is what I’m trying to do with Wyldwood — where we hold a line and we say, listen, we use AI to optimize workflows and stuff, but when it comes to actually making a movie, a TV show, a video game, music, anything in the arts and sciences of entertainment, may we continue to do that in a way that, like, organic food is, like, human made ‘organic,’ certified organic art. Because, I think we owe it to our children, we owe it to posterity, we owe it to ourselves that there is at least some option.”
To pursue this vision, Levi is constructing Wyldwood, a 75 acre Hollywood “sanctuary” where creatives who hope to seek refuge from the ways the entertainment industry may change in the coming years and decades can find shelter. He believes Hollywood has long needed competing studio spaces like this to keep the industry honest and true to its values.
“Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks and all those O.G.s knew it over 100 years ago. Hollywood was broken then, and we needed a better system,” Levi told Variety. “This industry is crumbling around us. In order for us to survive, we need to have a space for artists that will foster certified organic human-made content.
While the worry of Hollywood embracing AI has been at the forefront of the industry since the 2023 actors’ and writers’ strikes, these fears became more real than ever in February when TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, released an app in China which allowed users to create videos that used actors’ image and likeness. While those in the industry shared their disdain for the app, similar technology is coming to studios who will use it for their own gain. Disney, for example, has announced a partnership with OpenAI to bring a tool to Disney+ that will allow users to generate and share videos using their most famous characters.
Levi’s idea to create a sanctuary for those in the entertainment industry who want to remain free from the use of AI is interesting, and as Hollywood embraces the technology, it will be fascinating to see how the products that come out of Wyldwood compare to those coming out of Hollywood.
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