The explosion of ChatGPT and other generative AI is causing many industries to rethink their future and the implementation of this technology. While some are reluctant to adopt it into their workflows, others believe it’s here to stay. One of them is Joe Russo, co-director of Avengers: Endgame and other movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, who said that soon we will see movies made by artificial intelligence.
In an interview with Collider, Russo described a future in which AI is capable of generating a movie. Unlike other filmmakers, who are terrified that technology can create art, the director has gone further. For Joe Russo, the integration of artificial intelligence in the cinema contemplates the entire processfrom the creation of the script to the performance.
“Potentially what you could do with it is use it to shape the storytelling and change it,” he said. “So you have an ever-evolving story, whether it’s in a video game, a movie or a TV show,” she said. Russo suggests that you could download the AI in your streaming platform and design a movie.
You could walk into your house and say, “Hey, I want a movie starring my photorealistic avatar and Marilyn Monroe’s photorealistic avatar. I want it to be a romantic comedy because I’ve had a hard day.” And it will offer a very competent story with dialogues that imitate your voice. Suddenly you will have a romantic comedy starring you that lasts 90 minutes.
joe russo
The picture that the director of Avengers: Endgame consider popular uses of AI, such as the ability to clone your voice or deepfakes that place your face on another body.
Joe Russo’s AI future is closer than you thought
Although Joe Russo anticipates a future that looks like a scene from Blade Runner: 2049, the truth is that it would not be very far from becoming a reality. Models like GPT-4 are advancing at an unstoppable speed and very soon we would see its application in more complex environments, such as creating dialogues for a movie. Added to that, other generative AIs do the same in sound synthesis and there are already alternatives to clone our voice.
Donald Mustard, creative director of Epic Games, noted in the same interview that we are not far from technology designing photorealistic versions of people. Mustard mentions that the Unreal Engine could render a near-perfect version of us, rendered at 60 frames per second. The latest version of the game engine has already shown what virtual actors can achieve in The Matrix Awakens.
The Epic executive anticipates that Samsung TVs have enough processing power to play these movies. “It’s like you can go back and watch some of your favorite movies, or say, ‘No, I want to see myself in the big battle,'” he said.
Artificial intelligence must overcome several obstacles
But as Uncle Ben said, “with great power comes great responsibility”, the advent of AI carries some risks. Joe Russo knows that the initial phase is critical, so rules must be defined so that the technology is not abused. The filmmaker believes that, whether we like it or not, artificial intelligence will be part of our lives.
According to Joe Russo’s calculations, in two years we could ask an AI to generate a movie. Although the prognosis is correct, there are several obstacles that this technology faces, starting with Hollywood. A number of old-school filmmakers and executives don’t take kindly to artificial intelligence, including Steven Spielberg, so there will be resistance.
The models driving generative AI they will also have to fight some fights in the legal field. The European Union and other countries are preparing a regulation that would define its future. Added to this, companies like OpenAI and Stability AI are facing lawsuits from artists and programmers who accuse them of violating copyrights by using their work to train ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion models.