The future of cinema is usually a hot topic during Oscars season, but this year it has stepped up a notch following revelations over the use of AI in the production of the multi-nominated film "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 that AI simply helped "speed up" a process that could be done manually by editors in post-production.

How is AI being used in films?
AI is most 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 those that are more visually or audibly obvious to viewers, such as the the de-ageing of Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in the upcoming movie "Here".

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

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.

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" 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", suggesting the perception of AI may be "shifting toward positive", said Hackread.

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".

"Oooh, that's a big one." So said US president Donald Trump, as, among his first-day flurry of executive orders, he withdrew America from the World Health Organization (WHO).

It's a move that may have flown "below the radar", given Trump's other headline-grabbing executive orders, but it's the "most momentous of all", said Lawrence O. Gostin, global-health law professor at Georgetown University – and a "cataclysmic presidential decision".

'Unfairly onerous payments'
Founded in 1948, the UN's global health agency supports countries in health crisis, and monitors emerging global health threats as part of its mission to "put science to work to build a healthier, safer world".

Monday's executive order declared the US was withdrawing "due to the organisation's mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic", also citing "inappropriate political influence of WHO member states". In 2020, Trump said the WHO for being too "China-centric" in its tackling of Covid-19, and the organisation has become a "target" of US conservatives who view its plans for a global pandemic treaty as a "threat to American sovereignty", said the The New York Times.

Pointedly, the order also stated that the WHO "continues to demand unfairly onerous payments from the United States, far out of proportion with other countries' assessed payments".  The US contributes about one-fifth of the WHO's total $6.8 billion (£5.5 billion) biennial budget.

'Political vacuum'
Without US funding, the WHO might have to curtail its worldwide public-health works, "pressuring the organisation to attract private funding, and providing an opening for other countries" to exert an influence, said The Guardian. A US withdrawal would leave "a political vacuum that only one country can fill – and that is China", Dr Ashish Jha, The White House Covid-19 response coordinator during the Biden administration, told CNN.

Right on cue, China's foreign ministry announced that the WHO's role in global health governance "should be strengthened, not weakened", said China Daily. "If your true concern is that WHO is captured by China, then removing the US from the equation just seals the deal", Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International, told the journal Science.

From classic sci-fi adaptations to original dystopian tales, "depicting chilling visions of things to come has long been a go-to for television producers", said Tim Glanfield in The Times.

Silo
The first season of "Silo" laid out some "captivating foundations", said Nicola Austin in Empire. Based on the best-selling trilogy of novels by Hugh Howey, it "charted the aftermath of an apocalyptic event" that saw thousands of people forced underground to live in a giant bunker. 

Severance
Following a "fantastically stylish, clever, trippy and compelling" first series, "Severance" is back on the small screen, and somehow it's even better than before, said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian.

Fallout
The "bouncy, eye-popping energy" of this "post-apocalyptic action-comedy" makes for "perfect bingeing", said Ed Power in The Telegraph. Based on the video game of the same name, "Fallout" is set in the year 2296, two centuries after the "downfall of humanity", in a post-war America "devastated by a nuclear conflagration".

The Man in the High Castle
"What if the Allies hadn't won the Second World War?" In this adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel, the series "explores an alternate history" in which a dystopian America is ruled by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, said Glanfield in The Times.

Black Mirror
Charlie Brooker's anthology series exploring dystopian futures and the dark side of technology is one that "revels in its twists", with few shows undergoing such "obsessive analysis" by fans, said Neil Armstrong on the BBC. 

The war on drugs needs a new tactic: shame
Stephen Bush in the Financial Times
When anyone buys cannabis from a dealer, the "path it has taken to be sold" is "studded with violence and exploitation", writes Stephen Bush. The "bloody consequences" of buying illegal drugs are that you are "financing violence, murder and criminality". Governments should be "ashamed" of a prohibition policy "that hasn't worked", and "drug users should be ashamed" of choosing something that they "know full well causes suffering and misery".

The vanity of hair transplants
Siam Goorwich in The Spectator
I used to believe that "one of the few things that men had over women was their lack of manifest vanity", writes Siam Goorwich, but that was before hair transplants. "Everywhere you look", there are once-bald men with "budding barnets" and "no shame whatsoever". I've "always preferred my men sans hair", because it's "cleaner, simpler, and you can't over-gel it". And I'm "troubled" that men are "choosing medical procedures" rather than "facing the challenges of ageing".

What the president did on his first day is nothing compared to what I'd do
Carol Midgley in The Times
Donald Trump has "signed a wad of executive orders" following his White House return, writes Carol Midgley, so "it's only fair that I get to sign mine". My first would be "an instant fine for anyone using the sickly phrase 'making memories'"; just say you're on holiday, "you soppy Instagram pillock". There would also be a "water cannon" for "people using their horoscope to excuse poor behaviour", and a "ban" on piccalilli because "it smells appalling".