Across the globe, scriptwriters are sweating. They fear for their jobs, and they may be right to do so. In 2023, the Screen Writers Guild of America stated that ChatGPT and other AI programmes like it would be allowed to write scripts in the future. AI is a credible threat, yet aside from potential mass unemployment, it also provides many benefits. These go far beyond just writing scripts, but involve personalizing entertainment. So what are the possible pitfalls and opportunities presented by it?
The Categorization of Large Content Libraries
Netflix, or any other streaming service, without efficient content categorization would be chaos. At the most basic level, it involves breaking shows down into movies or TV series, then putting them into neat genres. Yet with AI, a personalized journey takes place behind the scenes that has become so smooth it’s almost unnoticeable. Statistics crunch away, showing you not only the most popular shows but giving you personalized recommendations. The same applies to music platforms like Spotify.
This becomes even more important when operators are providing a multitude of services. The iGaming sector is a perfect example, where platforms offer varied products. On the surface, bingo providers could just host the classic numbers game and allow people to win prizes. Yet dig deeper, and you will see many online bingo UK sites also provide slot games and live casino titles. Using AI to sift through this data and bring quality recommendations presents a great opportunity for retaining players in a saturated, competitive field.
Not only this, but AI can vastly increase accessibility. This can make subtitles easier to add, create sign language models, and install audio descriptions. With text-to-speech, it can make movies more accessible around the globe, in different languages, to those with different needs. These can even be applied during live events, such as conferences and interviews.
AI as a Creator
When it comes to the topic of AI being a method of creation in the entertainment industry, things start to get heated. AI can be a great help in formatting scripts, editing, and automating. Yet it brings up many legal and creative implications. In some instances, major studios like Lionsgate have already begun to plough money into AI startups.
An experiment published by a reporter in the Guardian newspaper took a series of AI prompts and asked ChatGPT to respond. The first was a request to “Write the outline for a movie that will make billions of dollars theatrically”. It gave a pretty standard outline for a movie that was called The Last Hope, containing a batch of uncreative sci-fi tropes that were nothing out of the ordinary. The second prompt was to “Write me an Oscar-winning movie,” with the result being an equally formulaic plot about a woman who overcomes personal doubt to be a hit singer-songwriter.
This shows that AI is quite some way off from being able to write scripts, or ones that are imaginative. Yet in the music industry, the story is quite different. Spotify has long been accused of uploading AI artists to its roster. While it has not been found to have created any itself, there are bands on there wholly made with AI. Velvet Sundown gained 1 million streams and even had their own pictures before admitting the whole thing was done by AI.
AI for Predictive Analysis
Much more worrying for the creative process is that systems like Largo.Ai are using technology to predict commercial potential. When a script is uploaded, and this can be anything from an outline to a full script, it analyzes the key points. These include everything from casting to narrative tropes. It then scours a reserve bank of 400,000 movies from the past, and even gets AI chatbots to discuss them. All of this then makes a decision on whether the movie will be commercial or not.
Some models can even predict demand. They will look at release schedules, social media activity, genre trends, and decide when the best time to release a movie is.
The obvious danger here is that, using this process, some of Hollywood’s greatest movies would have never been given a budget. If AI had been around in the seventies, would it have greenlit a three-part science fiction space drama about rebellions and family feuds? Especially in a climate where science fiction movies were considered old-fashioned and out of date? It is highly unlikely.
Thus, AI has a range of uses and brings many potential issues in the entertainment industry. It will undoubtedly, and currently is, improving the way people can use and access entertainment. Yet it is in exactly how it will do this that the big question lies. Will it ever develop to a point where AI can mimic the true human experience to create something unique, or are we destined for a tidal wave of AI movies and music that litter the creative landscape for evermore?
