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Netflix CEO Gives Nonsense Answer About The Threat Of A.I.

By Andrew Sanford | Film | May 28, 2024 |

By Andrew Sanford | Film | May 28, 2024 |


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Some of the worst people you know are claiming that A.I.-generated slop will replace Hollywood. They think that derivative nonsense generated by someone who doesn’t have the time, talent, or patience to hone their craft will drive people back to theaters. In their minds, the toothpaste can’t go back into the tube, and everyone will just roll over and accept mediocre messes made by mediocre people. Unfortunately, in a way, they are right.

People who want to cut costs love A.I.-generated “art,” and those people currently run a lot of Hollywood. The same yacht-riding, stockholder-pleasing, union-hating haircuts in expensive suits want AI to take over as soon as possible. What’s an easier way to cut costs than to eliminate the human beings whose hard work and talent are integral to the film and TV business? Why pay a big-name creative who will bring years of experience and creativity to a project when you can pay peanuts to some jackoff who entered a couple of sentences into a generator?

Netflix’s CEO would like you to think differently, even though you have eyes, ears, and a functioning brain. Ted Sarandos sat down with the New York Times and explained why he thinks A.I. won’t take people’s jobs while also pretty much admitting that AI will take people’s jobs. “I have more faith in humans than that. I really do. I don’t believe that an A.I. program is going to write a better screenplay than a great writer, or is going to replace a great performance, or that we won’t be able to tell the difference,” Sarandos told the paper. “A.I. is not going to take your job. The person who uses A.I. well might take your job.” He’s saying the big studio equivalent of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”

How does one use A.I. “well,” Ted? Do they use it to punch up a script? Will they have ChatGPT create the characters and then form a story around them? Perhaps they’ll generate the story first, then smooth out the characters themselves? Shortcuts. Routes that real writers don’t use. All it takes are a few people to say that they can do what a Shonda Rhimes or a Damon Lindelof does but better and for cheaper because they are using A.I. “well” and people like Sarandos will slobber all over themselves trying to get to them first.

To defend his bulls*** take, Sarandos referred to uncreative A.I. gobbledygook as another technological advancement akin to home video. “A.I. is a natural kind of advancement of things that are happening in the creative space today, anyway,” he spat out. “Volume stages did not displace on-location shooting. Writers, directors, editors will use A.I. as a tool to do their jobs better and to do things more efficiently and more effectively,” Sarandos said. “And in the best case, to put things onscreen that would be impossible to do.”

The difference between A.I. and the things Sarandos compares it to is that no one is using A.I. in hopes of improving a piece of art. They want to replace it. They are seeking to create without actually creating. Sound stages still require creativity. That said, in the wrong hands, sound stages can be detrimental to the art being created. When Sarandos talks about writers and directors being more efficient with A.I., he means costing the studio, and therefore the shareholders, less money. The man could not give two s***s over whether what is being created is actually good.

“Remember how everybody fought home video? For several decades, the studios wouldn’t license movies to television,” he stated in an attempt to sound smart. “So every advancement in technology, in entertainment has been fought and then ultimately has turned out to grow the business. I don’t know that this would be any different.” This isn’t home video, Ted. A.I. creating or “polishing” scripts and movies is not equivocal to movies going on television. It’s an excuse for people like you to cut costs, and to pretend you don’t want to do that insults everyone’s intelligence.