AI has entered the film industry - is this Enhancing Performances or Redefining Creativity?

Acting is an age old craft that takes passion, the ability to exert deep emotions on command, and often the study of life and of human behaviours that can take years.
​Do the thespians of Hollywood therefore have just cause to be outraged at AI's inclusion in their time honoured work?
​Or is AI just another form of art that we are yet to learn to accept?

Acting, at its heart - done in a timeless and often beautiful way - is fakery. It is to pretend to be someone else, to fake an accent, a history, a being, all for the rest of ours entertainment. It's glorious, and I love to watch it. But no matter how sucked in we get into that film, or how invested we are in the lives of the long running characters of our favourite TV show; when the end credits role, we must remind ourselves and accept the truth. It is fake. The characters are played and not real, the words they say are decided before hand, and the actions are created for our amusement. This should not take from the joy of watching an excellent play or enjoying an engrossing film. It's just the reality. Actors, directors and script writers use real emotions, and sometimes inspiration from real peoples stories, to present to us an entertaining display of fakery. 

Could we argue that AI too, more often than not, offers a similar brand of fakery that compliment film and TV creation?
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Or is the use of AI's additional fakery opportunities an unwanted interference in to the world of art?

​There have been stirs across Hollywood and it's enthusiasts of late due to director Brady Corbet, admitting to using AI in his latest film The Brutalist to alter the North American and British lead actors, Adrien Brody's and Felicity Jones' accents to sound more Hungarian. The use of AI in this way has prompted some to question whether the actors performances should still be considered viable for any of the prestigious academy awards that the film industry offers.

It certainly does not help matters that one of the key concerns discussed during the screen writers strikes of 2023, was the use of, and lack of regulation of AI in the film industry.

The controversy has prompted the films director to offer a statement to reassure the critics that there were still human involvement at all levels, and indeed to defend the integrity of his actors performances;

“Innovative Respeecher technology was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed. This was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production.
​The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft.”

There is first an important distinction to be made about AI enhancing vs AI creating.

As we've established, acting is an art that brings the unreal to life. However, films and TV shows have for quite a time now been assisted in their storytelling by further art forms such as CGI, visual effects and of course, animation. Each of these art forms and more pave the way for more engaging story telling techniques, enhancing and creating elements that benefit the whole picture. The use of AI in terms of the film The Brutalist has been used to alter a persons accent abilities. Sure, this is a new technique and way of using AI in creative projects... but can we really deem it creation? It would seem instead that the AI, in this case, has been used to enhance the performance that the actors were already giving - not to create a new one altogether. With technology supporting the story and helping to enhance the actions included in the piece of art being created for many years now, is it simply that AI is a new addition to these methods that we have just not yet normalised?

Or is the concern more deeply rooted in personhood - that it is the not the use of AI to alter a static object that is alarming, but the use of AI to alter a human beings speech, and therefore impact their performance itself? Perhaps we can only welcome AI as an art form if it acts as an enhancer of imagery and effects, and does not interfere with the actors direct performance itself.

​As AI continues to develop and methods of creating art continue to grow and be up for debate (as they should be) Hollywood and alike will need to develop a robust standards of how they would like to indeed reap the benefits, and also, wherein their line gets drawn of where AI can enhance, and where (if at all) it is welcomed to create art.

The concern of using AI to enhance an actors performance, and perhaps deeming any reward for such technology enabled acting to be a slightly unfair prize, may be a valid one. Though the acting as a whole could feasibly be considered different to the degree of accent altering, in this case. But I think that I will just stick to commenting on the technology side of things, and leave the performance judging to others! 

Perhaps the answer for addressing new developments and modern art forms, does not lie in measuring them by the awards and standards of the arts that came before them.

If we are to decide to welcome AI's capabilities in artistic creation, we must do so in a manner that;

1.  Respects and protects the integrity of the art that came before it.
2.  Does not pit the two against each other.

It would seem that we are entering into an era of artistic debate and discovery, where AI is playing the antagonist, the hero, and perhaps even the villain in the deliberations that are yet to come.

Whether enhancing or creating, it is clear AI and its evangelists still have some more auditioning to do if they want to make in Hollywood. ​