The Brutalist, AI and the future of cinema

The future of cinema is usually a hot topic during Oscars season but this year it has stepped up a notch with the revelations over the use of AI in the production of "The Brutalist".

Dávid Jancsó told RedShark News that Ukrainian AI company Respeecher had been used to "enhance" the Hungarian accents of actors Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones. Jancsó, from Hungary, argued it involved "mainly just replacing letters here and there" to perfect sounds that are "particularly hard to grasp", and that AI simply helped "speed up" a process that could be manually done by editors in post-production.

But it has "ignited a fresh conversation" over concerns about the use of "generative AI at the expense of filmmakers", said Mashable.

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How is AI being used in films?

AI is already "reshaping how movies are made and consumed", said Forbes. It is being used in almost every phase of production by some movie makers, from scriptwriting and pre-production through to visual effects and post-production, as well as distribution.

Director Paul Schrader, who wrote the scipt for "Taxi Driver", recently admitted on social media that he had used ChatGPT to help generate movie ideas and for script editing, claiming the machine's notes were "as good or better than I've ever received".

AI is more commonly used to speed up editing processes and it "significantly reduces the time and cost involved" in "tedious editing tasks, such as object removal and scene stabilisation", said Forbes.

The recent uses that have attracted the most backlash are more visually or audibly obvious to viewers: the de-ageing of Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in the upcoming movie "Here", the AI-generated title cards in the 2024 horror movie "Late Night with the Devil", or the synthetically created voice of late chef Anthony Bourdain in the 2021 documentary "Roadrunner".

The producers of another potential Oscar-nominee, "Emilia Pérez", have also admitted to using Respeecher in the movie to help "increase the range" of actor Karla Sofía Gascón's "vocal register", said The Guardian.

Why is it so controversial?

At a philosophical level, critics argue that it is the "human touch that makes something artistic", and AI algorithms "can't make judgements like a human can", said UnHerd.

In a real-world sense, artists are increasingly concerned about AI supplanting their livelihoods. It has already "rendered dubbing and translation work nearly obsolete", said The Guardian, and those working in pre-production and visual effects are now considering "whether to embrace the technology now, how to use it and where their craft is headed".

AI use was one of the key "instigating topics" of the Hollywood writer strikes in 2023, said Mashable. And while there were "tentative agreements" to start to regulate AI within the industry, there is still uncertainty around its future uses. That's why "those within the industry and even fans" are usually the quickest to "criticise films that have utilised AI", said ScreenRant.

What is the future of AI in cinema?

According to research, "48% of film professionals are already using artificial intelligence for help in scriptwriting, casting and editing", showing the perception of AI may be "shifting toward positive", said Hackread.

Even if that perception remained negative, however, the use of AI is "only going to grow in the coming years", said ScreenRant. Largely, its use is to make parts of the "filmmaking process easier", and by extension quicker and cheaper, but experimentation with AI-generated aspects of film will also continue until there is a "clear set of rules" around it.

It leaves the film industry at a "fluid, amorphous crossroads", said The Guardian. AI is in the ascendancy, "for better or for worse", but "how the human element will fare remains an open question". What is known is that "the industry will change as a result".