Remember Wall-E? It’s a great film – one of Pixar’s best you could say. Maybe I’m in the minority, but not once did I think to myself when watching it ‘Wow I’d love to live like these humans are’.
It’s not a thought that crossed my mind once. Why would it? They make it painstakingly clear that it is not an ideal way to live. Even as a kid I understood it. It is literally the whole point of the movie.
Clearly, the messaging has gone over people’s heads, because it feels as though you can’t go a day without someone advocating for AI or someone doing something abhorrent with it.
For a medium which has a whole array of films talking about the dangers of AI, it makes you wonder how so many people have decided they want to alleviate human input.
It has been a taboo subject in the industry. Despite a few filmmakers actively championing the craft
The newest loser to cave into AI is director Darren Aranofsky. Yes, it is the one you’re thinking of. He will be adding to his collection of movies which consist of Requiem of a Dream, Mother! and Black Swan a ugly, emotionless mess which goes by the name of On This Day… 1776 – a series which uses AI to tell short narrative stories about the Revolutionary War.
Excited? Me neither. I’m not normally one to slag something off before I’ve sat through it, but the mere thought of giving this show even a minute of my time makes me want to be sick. Just writing about it makes me queasy. It’s horrendous. I’m so bored of it.
It’s hardly like Aranofsky was failing as a director either. Don’t get me wrong, The Whale and last year’s Caught Stealing were hardly the pinnacle of filmmaking, but they were still serviceable movies with good moments in them.
What frustrates me the most about AI isn’t how bad it looks. It’s not how lazy it is. It’s not even the inexcusable environmental impacts, although that in itself should be enough to bring the people using it on criminal charges. It’s the fact that is clamouring to use it, is doing it because of their own insecurity.
The amount of times you will hear the absolute drivel from someone saying “Well it’s going to happen no matter what so we better get used to it’ is a pain in the ears. The only reason that would ever be correct, is because you are all in a pissing contest with each other instead of taking the time to actually learn the craft.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying AI is useless. I’m sure the medical advances we can make with the use of it will be groundbreaking for many years to come and hopefully save many lives. But in the entertainment and creative fields? Come on. Let’s be serious.
I could not direct a film. I couldn’t act in one either. But you know what? That’s ok. That’s perfectly fine. Sometimes, we are not good at something and that is perfectly normal. Let’s leave it to the professionals, and not someone with a half-baked idea who thinks of themselves as a revolutionary just because they typed it into an AI software.
People can kid themselves all they like about how great their AI short film is, but one thing is for sure. AI won’t make me cry like John Crowley’s We Live In Time does; AI won’t make me laugh as much as John Goodman in The Big Lebowski; AI won’t make me be motivated like Sylvester Stallone does in Rocky; and it certainly won’t make me feel anything like Damien Chazelle’s La La Land does.
It can’t replicate the working hours, blood, sweat and tears that every person from the director to the runner puts in to make a movie. No matter how much these posers try to convince themselves.
Cave into your own insecurities as much as you like. Lie to yourself that you’re doing this for the good of people. Just know, when it comes down to it and AI is helping you remember how to turn on a TV, I’ll be there to remind you it was because you wanted to cosplay as a director without putting in any of the effort to be one.
