AI won’t dominate creative industries
Will AI replace existing jobs in creative industries? If so, why should we let this happen? Between AI triggering the writers’ strike while simultaneously becoming a threat to education, there are several factors to consider as to why this won’t happen. One factor that often gets brought up is that AI lacks a human brain, so it shouldn’t be relied on when making creative decisions. Current cases (starting from 2024 to now) such as Hayao Miyazaki (one of the directors at Studio Ghibli) responding to his workers pitching AI and The Last Screenwriter debut test this theory. People who aren’t involved nor care about the entertainment industry may have a different view on this take, but if you don’t care about who's working behind entertainment, you might run out of entertainment entirely. It’s important to keep an eye out for AI-generated work so that your favorite music, art, and shows still stand.
Continuing my point about AI lacking a human brain, this is shown by specific accounts on Instagram that cover news about AI. Accounts including @futuretech, @evolving.ai, and more all share the same type of content, where they post videos about anything AI-related (good or bad). Whether it’s an AI movie trailer or AI disrupting a situation, these pieces of media never fail to show the tone-deaf nature of AI when not used right. For instance, on @evolving.ai’s account, there was one post that talked about Studio Ghibli and how one of the directors, Hayao Miyazaki, responded to his workers pitching AI as he felt “Utterly disgusted, AI is an insult to life itself,” which was a pretty valid reaction. It’s crazy how his workers felt comfortable pitching such an idea, completely insulting the company’s legacy as a whole.
Another reason why AI can’t take over jobs in the entertainment industry is because of its inability to express emotion. Similar to it lacking a brain, it doesn’t know how to express emotion unless it’s programmed to. The secret formula behind creative work is emotion and depth, so how can AI be in charge of doing creative work when it doesn’t feel anything? For instance, let’s look at a situation where a movie that was set to be released was canceled due to the script being AI-generated.
Turning our attention to the U.K., specifically to London, where this type of situation happened, A not-for-profit movie titled The Last Screenwriter was due to debut sometime during June 2024 at a movie theater called London's Prince Charles Cinema. Right before its release, the showing was suddenly canceled because of endless complaints from the public. The director of this movie, Peter Luisi, stated how “The theater — (which reportedly received over 200 complaints in total) — reached out to him on Tuesday, explaining that "overnight they had another 160 people complaining, so they had to cancel the screening." Later, it was revealed that the complaints consisted of people living in London who weren't interested in a film that credited Chat-GPT-4 as its writer. In response, Peter Luisi was "Totally surprised" and "Didn't expect that," showing how little he cared about the criticisms that came with him trying to release this movie. He truly believed that what he was doing was something extraordinary here.
A final argument that can be made against AI’s potential to take over roles in creative industries is that it’s not built for cultural sensitivity and understanding of context. Art, music, and film can sometimes be influenced by different cultures and social nuances that AI may not fully grasp. Echoing off of my argument about how AI doesn’t have a brain, which causes it to lack emotion, trying to make AI represent a culture or societal issue won’t end well because it’s never experienced anything like that before. Creative industries that try to replace people with AI often find themselves suffering financially as a result.
To conclude my point about this issue (reflecting on AI’s presence in pitches and movies), it’s clear that the answer to this problem is still up in the air, but I still suspect that it won’t happen due to the backlash that tends to come with it. Nowadays, AI is very easy to detect for people who watch movies, listen to music, and draw, as they’ll often point out when AI is being used in these areas. As long as they continue doing so, the possibility of AI taking jobs in the entertainment industry is slim to none.
