As with all new technical innovations, AI promises the world. We are told that AI will change filmmaking, which provides a new set of tools that help the creators to iterate better and work faster. To set speculation driven by large venture capital dollars aside, a question that many are asking is What can AI actually do now?
It is a question author/director Scott Z. Burns To answer when he used large language models (LLMS) programs, which chatgpt, to help with a script for the sequel to his and Steven Soderbergh’s “infectiousness.” It is a six-month journey that he documented in the eight-part Audible podcast series “What could go wrong?”, And Burns discussed his results on this week’s episode of Filmmaker tolkit podcast.
While Burns investigated the complexity of the issues surrounding AI and took a nuanced strategy to find out what it could and could not do for screenwriters, he went away from the experience with a great concern.
“This is really a consumer product, and you have to understand that you are being sold, which is why they promise us the world,” Burns said.
When Burn’s document in “What can go wrong”, there are a number of times different AI models prioritized to keep him happy and committed, about being a professional tool.
“This happens a number of times in the podcast, where the ais that are put in front of me flirt a lot, and they flatter you a lot. And then you suddenly go, ‘oh wait, now in get it. That will help them someday with ad revenue, “Said Burns, Adding the Illusory Experience of the Ai Getting to Know Him, and Trying to Think Like him was a mixed bag experience. “It’s really just a kind of reflection back to you, and again it is important to always remember that this is a consumer product, and it is built to manipulate you.”
That is why Burns believes that it reveals that the greatest “infectiousness” AI breakthrough came from “lexes”, which he urged to be a tough, sharp heavy film critic, rather than a screenwriter.
“Instead of making it a mirror of me, (lexes) was almost opposite,” Burns said.
As Burn Previously detailed to indieviewThere are specific and limited ways that he has found that AI is a useful screenwriting tool, most of which around iterating on an idea or a premise.
“AI is useful in that respect, if you have an idea and you are trying to go,” okay, so what do we do now with this idea? What is, what are the permutations? What are the possible things? “It’s really good at making lists.
Burns said that these lists can sometimes be helpful in speeding up the thinking process that a writer naturally goes through, but it was not the case with the actual original ideas to iterate. At one point during the podcast, Burns is shown how to create an AI writer’s room so that he can blue an idea with a collection of different LLMs, each urged to approach the project as a writer with a specific background, life experience and expertise – such as reflecting the diversity of perspectives that a showrunner can strive. Burns was not impressed with the results.
“I feel even reassembling the consisting of the parts of four or five AI writers just meant that you made another derivative type of piece,” said Burns, who called the results “beautiful anodyne derivative ideas.”
And this is where the author/director warned his Hollywood colleagues not to ignore the issues surrounding AI, and not set aside land that AI cannot come up with original ideas behind previous studio success.
“I think the big threat here is that we are so shy around (AI), and so unwilling to roll up our sleeves and go,” What does this thing do? How do we use it? What is good for? “That we allow streamers to use it instead and track the contours of movies that will be really derivative and then give them to our agents and say,” You have someone who can write this? “, Said Burns.” That for me is the end of Hollywood, and we have to protect ourselves from it. At least we have to start saying: “Hi, if you use an AI in this process, you must let the consumer know.”
To hear Scott Z. Burn’s full interview, subscribe to filmmaker Toolkit podcast on AppleThe SpotifyOr your favorite podcast platform.
