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And once the reviews are written by AI and the views are generated by bots, we can get those pesky humans out of the loop completely! Eventually we won't even n

And once the reviews are written by AI and the views are generated by bots, we can get those pesky humans out of the loop completely! Eventually we won't even need to have movies, just an agreement between two AIs that one will make a theoretical movie and the other will theoretically review it and watch it a million times. Heck, no human will have any money to go to the movies or buy any merch anyway. The only humans left in Hollywood will be copyright lawyers!

echelon 3y ago
> those pesky humans out of the loop completely I don't know why you have such a bad outlook about this. I have wanted to direct epic fantasy films my entire life, and this is the first tangible shot I have at making something that might look like a "blockbuster". My chances of doing that without GenAI were slim to none. Hollywood is a steep pyramid. I don't know how you can't be excited. This is the dreams-come-true timeline.
- noduerme 3y ago
  Hm. We may have a difference of outlook. I don't mind a fantasy blockbuster once in awhile, but to me the most interesting films involve interhuman drama that speaks to my own emotional experience, and often just consist of a lot of people talking with occasional plot twists and unexpected bursts of action. I went to film school for a couple years and dropped out, because as much as I enjoyed lighting and directing, I saw that everyone around me was obsessed with good effects and had no interest in good writing. [edit: That and it was insanely expensive and unjustifiable unless I wanted to be a commercial DP when I got out... and I wanted to be a writer.] Yeah, I guess it would be awesome to just have an AI build your dream movie, but if you have a good script and a couple thousand bucks you can go out and find some actors and make something real right now. If it's good enough, you can get a shot at directing something massive where you actually have control over how your vision is executed, rather than sending your ideas into a "black box". There's also the problem that visual fx are already pretty cheap, and no longer a reason to go see a movie. No one can even count the number of Viking shows or Lost Starship movies on streaming services, or tell them apart. It's not like when the original Jurassic Park came out and everyone was like I HAVE TO SEE THESE DINOSAURS. (My best friend recently described Avatar 2 as "that movie with the flying blue turds"). So my point is that the market is already oversaturated... just like mobile gaming. Chasing cool graphics, even if you get a monentary viral hit, you just end up lost in the flood of noise when everyone else has access to the same technology. The pyramid is a good thing, actually, because it forces you to be imaginitive. The people at the top are less imaginative because they think their vast resources can compensate for bad writing. See: George Lucas. Without a compelling story, a movie is worse than watching someone else play a video game. And with a compelling story, it doesn't matter if it's set on Mars or in your basement. I think it's also why the best games aren't the ones with the best rendering engines, but the ones with the best story and mechanics.
  - kian 3y ago
    This sounds like the end-state is an increase in the relative value of extremely well-written films, as special effects and eye candy lose their luster as they become extremely common-place (see the Marvel universe of films, for an example of this happening already).
    - noduerme 3y ago
      I can definitely see Netflix having four or five rows of AI movies above a ghetto section of "human-made" films. I already have to skip all the Marvel garbage. I mean, it's free to watch Twitch.
  - dotancohen 3y ago
    > the most interesting films involve interhuman drama that speaks to my own emotional experience, and often just consist of a lot of people talking with occasional plot twists and unexpected bursts of action What was your opinion on Clerks? You pretty much described that movie to a tee. And, for that matter, the first few seasons of TNG.
    - noduerme 3y ago
      Clerks was / is one of my favorite movies of all time. (Far as Trek goes, I liked the original series.)
      - aspenmayer 3y ago
        Did you see Star Trek Continues? If so what did you think of it? As someone who didn't see TOS in its original run but appreciated it in occasional reruns, and as a huge fan of the original cast movies, it was... weird. But good weird, mostly, weird in a way that somehow captured the zaniness weirdness of TOS, and which was somewhat glossed over in the original movies when they made the jump to Hollywood production values. I'd check it out if you haven't, just to see what's out there. For that matter, I quite enjoyed Lower Decks, as the Star Trek universe really needed that kind of dedicated comedic outlet, but from a clearly fannish perspecitve that isn't afraid of making very niche in-universe inside-jokes but always from a place of kindness and respect to both the original source material and to the viewer.
- noduerme 3y ago
  Ah, I just clicked your profile and recognized that you're the person building the dream studio! Hah. It makes sense. And that's an amazing project idea. Maybe our views aren't entirely incompatible. I feel like an adjunct to your project would be a separate program / ML workflow that helped to hone screenplays and stories, tilting toward letting people express their experiences through these media in a way that broadened their ideas and expanded their potential audience before committing the ideas to images and pixels.
- squarefoot 3y ago
  > I don't know how you can't be excited. This is the dreams-come-true timeline. In theory yes, but imagine having to fight with another 8 billions directors to find someone who watches your movie. The day we can make our films at home (read as: everyone can make their films at home), is probably the day we'll need to create our own virtual audience as well, as the chances of being watched by some real person will be lower than winning a lottery.
  - thereisnospork 3y ago
    Sounds kind of like YouTube but with better production value? Afaik that arrangement works quite well by the standards of both the creatives and viewers (and presumably Google?)
  - noduerme 3y ago
    that was my absurdist point about AIs making theoretical movies that would theoretically be watched by other AIs
sidm83 3y ago
This reminds me of this quote from one of my all time favorite books, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency : <quote> The Electric Monk was a labor-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe. </quote>
- noduerme 3y ago
  hehehheh. I just re-read that book for the first time in ages a couple of months ago, so Douglas Adams has probably influenced my thinking about these things ;)
tambourine_man 3y ago
Copyright lawyers are a great target for AI automation. I bet they’ll go first

echelon 3y ago

> those pesky humans out of the loop completely I don't know why you have such a bad outlook about this. I have wanted to direct epic fantasy films my entire life, and this is the first tangible shot I have at making something that might look like a "blockbuster". My chances of doing that without GenAI were slim to none. Hollywood is a steep pyramid. I don't know how you can't be excited. This is the dreams-come-true timeline.

noduerme 3y ago
Hm. We may have a difference of outlook. I don't mind a fantasy blockbuster once in awhile, but to me the most interesting films involve interhuman drama that speaks to my own emotional experience, and often just consist of a lot of people talking with occasional plot twists and unexpected bursts of action. I went to film school for a couple years and dropped out, because as much as I enjoyed lighting and directing, I saw that everyone around me was obsessed with good effects and had no interest in good writing. [edit: That and it was insanely expensive and unjustifiable unless I wanted to be a commercial DP when I got out... and I wanted to be a writer.] Yeah, I guess it would be awesome to just have an AI build your dream movie, but if you have a good script and a couple thousand bucks you can go out and find some actors and make something real right now. If it's good enough, you can get a shot at directing something massive where you actually have control over how your vision is executed, rather than sending your ideas into a "black box". There's also the problem that visual fx are already pretty cheap, and no longer a reason to go see a movie. No one can even count the number of Viking shows or Lost Starship movies on streaming services, or tell them apart. It's not like when the original Jurassic Park came out and everyone was like I HAVE TO SEE THESE DINOSAURS. (My best friend recently described Avatar 2 as "that movie with the flying blue turds"). So my point is that the market is already oversaturated... just like mobile gaming. Chasing cool graphics, even if you get a monentary viral hit, you just end up lost in the flood of noise when everyone else has access to the same technology. The pyramid is a good thing, actually, because it forces you to be imaginitive. The people at the top are less imaginative because they think their vast resources can compensate for bad writing. See: George Lucas. Without a compelling story, a movie is worse than watching someone else play a video game. And with a compelling story, it doesn't matter if it's set on Mars or in your basement. I think it's also why the best games aren't the ones with the best rendering engines, but the ones with the best story and mechanics.
- kian 3y ago
  This sounds like the end-state is an increase in the relative value of extremely well-written films, as special effects and eye candy lose their luster as they become extremely common-place (see the Marvel universe of films, for an example of this happening already).
  - noduerme 3y ago
    I can definitely see Netflix having four or five rows of AI movies above a ghetto section of "human-made" films. I already have to skip all the Marvel garbage. I mean, it's free to watch Twitch.
- dotancohen 3y ago
  > the most interesting films involve interhuman drama that speaks to my own emotional experience, and often just consist of a lot of people talking with occasional plot twists and unexpected bursts of action What was your opinion on Clerks? You pretty much described that movie to a tee. And, for that matter, the first few seasons of TNG.
  - noduerme 3y ago
    Clerks was / is one of my favorite movies of all time. (Far as Trek goes, I liked the original series.)
    - aspenmayer 3y ago
      Did you see Star Trek Continues? If so what did you think of it? As someone who didn't see TOS in its original run but appreciated it in occasional reruns, and as a huge fan of the original cast movies, it was... weird. But good weird, mostly, weird in a way that somehow captured the zaniness weirdness of TOS, and which was somewhat glossed over in the original movies when they made the jump to Hollywood production values. I'd check it out if you haven't, just to see what's out there. For that matter, I quite enjoyed Lower Decks, as the Star Trek universe really needed that kind of dedicated comedic outlet, but from a clearly fannish perspecitve that isn't afraid of making very niche in-universe inside-jokes but always from a place of kindness and respect to both the original source material and to the viewer.
noduerme 3y ago
Ah, I just clicked your profile and recognized that you're the person building the dream studio! Hah. It makes sense. And that's an amazing project idea. Maybe our views aren't entirely incompatible. I feel like an adjunct to your project would be a separate program / ML workflow that helped to hone screenplays and stories, tilting toward letting people express their experiences through these media in a way that broadened their ideas and expanded their potential audience before committing the ideas to images and pixels.
squarefoot 3y ago
> I don't know how you can't be excited. This is the dreams-come-true timeline. In theory yes, but imagine having to fight with another 8 billions directors to find someone who watches your movie. The day we can make our films at home (read as: everyone can make their films at home), is probably the day we'll need to create our own virtual audience as well, as the chances of being watched by some real person will be lower than winning a lottery.
- thereisnospork 3y ago
  Sounds kind of like YouTube but with better production value? Afaik that arrangement works quite well by the standards of both the creatives and viewers (and presumably Google?)
- noduerme 3y ago
  that was my absurdist point about AIs making theoretical movies that would theoretically be watched by other AIs

sidm83 3y ago

This reminds me of this quote from one of my all time favorite books, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency : <quote> The Electric Monk was a labor-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe. </quote>

noduerme 3y ago
hehehheh. I just re-read that book for the first time in ages a couple of months ago, so Douglas Adams has probably influenced my thinking about these things ;)

tambourine_man 3y ago