Hollywood is uncertain about how to handle AI

This is a segment of Sources by Alex Heath, a newsletter that covers AI and the tech sector, shared exclusively with The Verge subscribers weekly.

This week, I observed firsthand the substantial differences between Silicon Valley and Hollywood regarding their approach to AI.

Initially, at OpenAI DevDay, Sam Altman unveiled the new Sora application as a gift for content creators. He indicated that OpenAI was perhaps being too restrictive by not permitting a wider variety of AI videos.

“Overall, creators and rights holders are highly optimistic about the possibilities,” Altman remarked during a media Q&A I attended in San Francisco on Monday. “They think it will enhance engagement. It’s reminiscent of a new wave of fanfiction.”

The following day, I attended Bloomberg’s Screentime event in Los Angeles to gauge the sentiment of media executives, agents, and studio heads regarding AI, which seems to be an impending concern for them. Sora had just achieved 1 million downloads on the App Store and was on everyone’s radar. My impression was that the leaders in Hollywood are still unclear on how to address the threat posed by AI, and they risk being overwhelmed by technology advancing beyond their understanding.

I lost track of how often variations of the phrase “we prioritize copyright” were repeated at Screentime as if it were a mantra. Concurrently, no one present was inclined to confront the fact that OpenAI clearly utilized their intellectual property without authorization and released a product that, at least in its initial offering, boldly made that fact evident. The inability of Hollywood leaders to articulate a public stance on this matter, or more critically, their strategy to tackle it, should raise concerns for everyone in the industry.

While onstage, Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters completely sidestepped a question from Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw regarding Sora specifically, instead elaborating on the more mundane applications of AI across nearly every facet of production. Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison also opted to highlight the less contentious, utility aspect of AI, referring to it as a “new tool” for creativity. The sole executive I encountered who nearly acknowledged the pressing concerns was Warner Music CEO (and former YouTube executive) Robert Kyncl, who asserted that Warner’s content must be appropriately licensed for training, and there would be consequences for non-compliance.

It’s not unusual that the music sector possesses a more definitive outlook compared to the current indecisiveness about AI exhibited by major talent agencies. The labels are more ready to confront AI companies as a unified group that has previously dealt with a similar challenge during the emergence of music streaming. Kyncl even predicted that AI would ultimately benefit the music industry, akin to how YouTube eventually resolved its copyright challenges and evolved into a vital distribution platform for the entertainment sector.

He might be correct about music specifically, but the absence of collective initiative from the broader Hollywood community means that AI firms are likely to continue to operate under the premise of seeking forgiveness rather than permission. OpenAI’s choice to develop Sora in this way was a calculated decision, not a random occurrence, and it reflects a complete disregard for the ramifications of harvesting all available content to fuel its AI. Altman is merely adhering to the same strategy that the tech sector has historically employed in the past to secure dominance, so who can fault him this time?