AI companies are courting Hollywood. Do they come in peace?
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is meeting with entertainment industry players, including executives at talent agencies and film studios, to demonstrate and explain its latest technology, Sora, which conjures videos based on what users describe in text.
It’s a delicate dance for entertainment companies that want to harness powerful tools that could reduce costs and streamline their processes. They don’t want to get caught flat-footed at a time when the state of the industry is already tenuous because of pay-TV cord-cutting, streaming losses and other factors. At the same time, they want to avoid offending Hollywood actors, writers and legions of behind-the-scenes workers — such as animators and storyboard artists — who fear AI could kill their jobs.
“Nobody wants to be behind the eight ball,” said Daisy Stall, head of entertainment finance at California Bank & Trust. “If it’s going to be at your doorstep, you got to deal with it, right? It’s still so uncertain and people are just preparing, but they’re not sure the role that it’s actually going to play.”
