AI and Entertainment of the Future

Artificial Intelligence is often spoken of as something we know exists, or will have a far greater influence in the future, without actually seeing it. Computers gathering data about us, processing that as part of an algorithm in order to get us to vote certain ways, buy more stuff, or be motivated in ways we previously weren’t.?

I’m not going to refute that. Nor will I question for a second that AI will be far more ubiquitous in the future than we assume today. In fact, it’s here in ways we don’t even think of. It’s more and more frequent a question of are we humans utilizing it in the best manner.

Forty years ago now Carl Reiner made a film called Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, starring Steve Martin, Rachel Ward…and a whole slew of classic movie starts from the past. Humprhey Bogart, Alan Ladd, Barbara Stanwick, Burt Lancaster and many others. The trick was is the way the film was edited. Scenes from classic films of the past those great actors starred in, were inter-cut with newly shot footage with Martin and Ward. It was quite clever, and a neat way to bring these great talents from the past back to life so to speak.?

I’m expecting something Reiner, Martin and the others never could have imagined. Computers could soon make what they did more and more commonplace.?

I recently caught a cold that caused my voice to sound really harsh and scratchy. I used AI to capture an imprint of that voice, and save it for future use. Say, if I make a short documentary about the wild west, this voice (which is quite convincing) could be used for the voice over.?

Thus, if one thinks about this reality, AI has the ability to take almost any recorded voice from history and re-create it. This opens up un-tapped opportunities not mentioned. For example, the estates of great voices from the past: Henry Fonda, Don La Fontaine, Rod Serling, Lauren Bacall, Orson Wells, Howard Cosell, etc,?We have the ability to convert the voices from those people to AI and bring them back to life in a sense. The estates who control the rights to these individuals could license their voices if they sought, which would be very easy to do. Imagine, say, the late Henry Fonda narrating the next Ken Burns documentary. Sounds like a perfect match to me!?

This could also of course be done by great voice over artists of today who are aging, or just want to retire, but would like their legacy, their work, to continue. Peter Coyote and Martin Sheen are now over 80, David Attenboro, and James Earl Jones are now in their 90’s.

Is the AI so perfect you can’t tell the difference? No. Well, not yet, is a much better answer. A highly professional voice over talent has extremely refined skills over every inflection, every pause in their voice. Coyote once mentioned it took him a very long time, and a tremendous amount of work, to get his voice as refined as it was for voice over work. I’m not implying that AI would just replace any and all work he would still like to do before fully retiring. More like, it could supplement it now, or soon, or in the future, if he wished.?

In some ways AI has already surpassed the capabilities of the human mind, but not many. And these subtitles are not one of them. It’s going to be a work in process. But it’s close. It’s closer than you think. And like much AI of today, many tasks (or jobs if you will) aren’t first being truly replaced by AI, but by AI assist. A situation where the human and AI work together to achieve perfection neither could alone. I’ve already experienced this working with the AI version of my scratchy voice. I have to convert the voice, then toy with it a little in audio editing, to get the passes the way I like. Even then, it’s not perfect. But this is like an AI toddler I’m working with. In a matter of short years this toddler will grow, and continue to grow, at an ever increasing pace, and not stop growing. A fact that most people acknowledge upon reflection, but don’t actively do so, possessing a natural cognitive default that things in life and society will pretty much continue to be the same way they are now.?

But why stop at audio? It's also only a matter of time before this happens with imagery. In fact it’s already here too.?

Back in 2004 Ford debuted a commercial for it’s then new Mustang featuring a digitally re-created version of Steven McQueen, a movie star icon who had been gone for nearly 25 years. The version of McQueen wasn’t entirely created in AI but a digital amalgam from scanned imagery from his film Bullit, a bit similar to what was done with Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, but highly effective, and a very creative endeavor. McQueen, er, the digital version of him, did not speak in the commercial.?

It wasn’t soon after that computer power was able to re-create human beings, moving, expressing, acting. Nine years ago the film Oblivion used a total AI version of Tom Cruise for a couple scenes. It was done by Cruise going into a studio and having 4k, 360 cameras record him in many ways, many expressions. Cruise actually holds onto the files these created, anticipating the future. Carrie Fisher was young again, and Peter Cushing brought back to life in the Star Wars film Rogue One.?As a perfect example of the aforementioned AI assist, in 2017 Sean Young went into a studio for the film Blade Runner 2049. She stood on set, read all her lines on camera. The footage of her was put into a computer, and morphed into a re-creation of her from 1981’s original Blade Runner.?

So, what’s stopping us? Certainly not the onslaught of technology. That wave is coming whether we like it or not, or choose to harness it. At this point only a mix of licensing, ethics, and audiences accepting it, before we see films and other forms of entertainment with greats from the past appearing in them. In fact, while Cushing’s estate approved of his coming back for Rogue One, The Huffington Post?review of the film called it, “a giant breach of respect for the dead,” and?The Guardian?described it as “a digital indignity.” But this is entirely predicated on what we will accept. Even if critics loathe it, enough people will embrace it soon enough. This has been the case throughout history in almost anything new. Modern social philosopher Eric Hoffer once wrote a book on this very topic called The Ordeal Of Change. How even the simplest of change in one’s life, or one’s expectations, can often be met with harsh internal recoil, rejection, to the point of ordeal.?

But this will move forward, which I am certain of. With commercial values far greater than Steve McQueen driving a modern Mustang. Imagine a new movie starring Clark Gabel and Scarlet Johansson. Marilyn Monroe and Johnny Depp. Spencer Tracy and Kristen Stewart...at the same age. It’s possible, and almost passable, today.?

In fact, in our lifetimes we’re going to reach a point where almost nothing can’t be done in creative entertainment, or creative anything, and the limits will only be in our imagination. One could argue we’ve crossed that threshold by the time you’re done reading this.?

Phil Anderson?

June, 2022