This Week in Gossip #29

AI nonsense, JK Rowling nonsense, franchise nonsense, and a whole lot of Baldwinitos. This one got heavy so my apologies for that!

AI nonsense, JK Rowling nonsense, franchise nonsense, and a whole lot of Baldwinitos. This one got heavy so my apologies for that!

Ugh, Really? Tribeca Film Festival to Screen Films “Made” by OpenAI

What time is it, you ask? It’s time for my regular rant about why generative AI sucks and why we should throw it into the sea before it further pollutes our culture. The tech bros desperately pushing AI as the future of creativity often seem to hate art, or at the very least they are wilfully ignorant to the purposes and joys of it beyond a method of making money. For all of the rhetoric about how stuff like ChatGPT and OpenAI will “disrupt” the process, all it seems eager to do is leave lots of people jobless as the creeps in charge replace humans with machines.

Things continued to get ridiculous as the Tribeca Festival announced that it would play host to Sora Shorts, a series of films "created" by OpenAI. According to Mashable, "the festival has tapped five filmmakers to make original films with the AI-based application that was announced way back in February and still has not been released." Tribeca Enterprises co-founder and CEO Jane Rosenthal said that this move was an exciting way to see what a group of filmmakers can do with this tech. Call me a Debbie Downer but I think this sucks.

What is actually being made here? It’s not cinema, which requires a far greater skill and intent than typing in a few prompts. Various AI tools have already been lambasted or actively sued for stealing copyrighted work to fuel their algorithms. Can you imagine watching one of these AI shorts and spotting all your own visuals being strip-mined for parts? In what world does the tech bro plagiarism bot fuel or encourage creativity, particularly since it's dependent on theft? This certainly doesn’t help filmmakers, whether they’re the ones doing the stealing or the ones being stolen from. Imagine screening your AI “movie” next to, you know, actual films.

Filmmaking isn’t easy. It’s not meant to be. The joy of making art is in the process and sometimes it sucks. It’s very telling how many pro-AI losers seem genuinely furious at those who put their time and effort into creation and improving their craft. They brag about not having to study or fail, positioning this as a way to rebalance the scales and democratize art. It’s stupid. They’re mad that they can’t or won’t create and think it’s both an admirable trait and profitable skill to learn how to steal.

This is one of the many reasons I’m fiercely anti-generative AI in the entertainment industry. We’ve already seen how studio heads are practically scrambling to integrate AI into writers rooms, not for any truly artistic reasons but to further malign already underpaid and financially unstable writers who had to strike for several months to receive basic labour rights. They’re interested in regurgitation, as evidenced by the endless push for reboots and IP expansions that nobody asked for and there’s no provable audience interest in. It’s a mindset that devalues art into a series of stock options, devoid of humanity and anything of true inspiration. If nothing else, it’s a ton of lawsuits waiting to happen, and it will only engender bad relations with actual filmmakers you’re hoping to court. Tribeca doesn’t need this, surely? How much money are they getting to make this happen? Bin it all.

Tom Burke Reveals He Asked for PR Training Ahead of Promoting Yet Another J.K. Rowling Adaptation

I try to limit how much time I write about J.K. Rowling’s ongoing descent into transphobic radicalism because it’s deeply depressing and often feels like an unhelpful way to expand the dialogue on trans liberation. She hogs all the oxygen in the room and all too frequently it seems like we spend out precious days accidentally amplifying her rather than those she hurts. But on the other hand, it’s also important to hold her to account because she’s a bully, a liar, and an all-too-powerful figure in British media, far more so than any LGBTQ+ person. She’s also still a major commodity. Warner Bros. is working on a Harry Potter TV show, because wizard nostalgia matters more than holding a woman engaging in transphobic Holocaust denialism to account.

There’s also the Cormoran Strike books, her crime series written under a male pseudonym which has been adapted into a BBC drama. The books have become increasingly unreadable and fuelled by her grievances more than plot, but they still sell because name recognition is a mighty beast. This also means that anyone vaguely associated with her creations has to spend a lot of time being asked questions about Rowling’s transphobia. Some deal with it better than others. Tom Burke, who plays Strike, recently admitted that he reached out to the BBC for help in dealing with this matter.