The Sunday Daily: Hollywood’s A.I. Moment

From New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily on Sunday. We all knew TV was dead, but thought, why not squeeze in one last development meeting? We have This is a video, a kind of comedy sketch, produced by a company in The United Kingdom called Particle six. Now Particle six bills itself as the world's leading AI production studio. Commissioner said no. AI generated a 100 better ideas in minutes perfectly aligned to channel data, viewing figures, and optimized for the audience. The So everything in this video, the voices you're hearing, the words that they're saying, all of it was generated by artificial intelligence. And the star of this video is Tilly Norwood, 100 Tilly Norwood, an AI generated actress. Like if a Sunday roast went to drama school and got BAFTA optimized. But can she cry on Graham Norton? Of course, she can. And it'll be clipped, subtitled, and monetized on TikTok by lunchtime. It seemed like a clever one off. But a few months later, Particle six announced that miss Norwood was close to signing a deal to be represented by a major Hollywood talent agency, the kind of thing you'd expect from an actual human actress. And that news caused a sensation in Hollywood. Good lord. We're screwed. Actors howled in protest. The arts should be left to human beings. You know, you'll you're still gonna wanna have real people. The head of the largest actors union came out against it. She, it, is a synthetic creation garnered from ill gotten data. Even Whoopi Goldberg weighed in on The View. What this means is AI in the workplace, not just my workplace Yeah. But in every industry. All of this out cry over Tilly Norwood reflects a real anxiety in Hollywood about the role of AI in TV and movie making. Because AI is well on its way to remaking an industry we all love and rely upon, which is entertainment. And you, the viewer, you are not going to be able to escape this. And neither, for that matter, are the people who work in Hollywood. So let's try to understand it. It's Sunday, January 18. So let's get to it. Joining me are two of my colleagues from the Times who think a lot about how AI is impacting Hollywood. Brooks Barnes, a reporter covering Hollywood for the Times out in Los Angeles. Hey, Brooks. Hey there. And Alyssa Wilkinson, one of our film critics, who is here with me in the studio in New York. Alyssa, welcome. Good to have you. Thanks. It's good to be here. So I think we need to establish, Brooks, what we're talking about here. I think most of us intuitively understand that TV and filmmaking have used elaborate computer generated imagery for a very long time. Right? I mean, Avatar was a three hour orgy of CGI. Right. So what's actually new here? What are we actually talking about? So AI is an …