Justin Simien and Gareth Edwards Warn About the “Extremely Scary” Threat of AI Art

Artificial Intelligence has rapidly become an existential threat to the livelihood of artists and writers everywhere. With each passing day, programs like Midjourney and ChatGPT only seem to be growing more refined, and many companies are eager to start cutting out the human element to save money. No clearer is this threat right now in Hollywood thanks to the ongoing dual strike of SAG-AFTRA and the WGA. In addition to better pay, both writers and actors want language in their contracts that protects them from losing their jobs to AI, keeping art firmly where it should be — in the hands and minds of human beings. During the Directors on Directing panel hosted by Collider Editor-in-Chief Steve Weintraub, directors Justin Simien and Gareth Edwards emphasized why the fight against the use of AI is so important for the future of the industry and for art in general.

The topic of AI is particularly timely for Edwards whose upcoming film The Creator delves into the war between the human race and AI and one man’s race to kill the architect of the most advanced technology that could end humanity altogether. While all eyes immediately pointed to him, he kicked things off with a lighthearted crack at Simien’s upcoming Disney film. “I was gonna say, Justin, this is very appropriate for your film, the Haunted Mansion,” he said. “Yes, because AI, as we all know, was invented in the 1800s. Which is where the ghosts are from,” Simien joked.

Regarding the more serious dangers, Simien believes there’s a duality to AI as both a useful tool and a threat to upend the way artists create. The key for everyone is setting ground rules that protect individual workers. The Director’s Guild was able to get some of that language hammered into their recent deal, but Simien believes there are greater steps that need to be taken to protect art and prevent it from being misused by AI:

“No, I mean AI is extremely important, it is extremely scary too. I think that really where the heat you’re getting, you’re hearing from the actors and the writers and frankly, the directors as well, you know, the DGA was, we were able to actually get AI in the language which was a hard feat. And hopefully, we can expand upon it because it’s a world in which, like, you kinda feel like the artist can get squeezed out and especially, if you’re making work that maybe isn’t paying the bills, but it’s out there, AI doesn’t work without other human people making art, that it basically kinda steals and blends into other things.”

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Studios Have a Harmful Mindset When it Comes to AI and Art

One thing that particularly worries Simien about AI is how willing studios are to embrace it and how hard they’re willing to fight for it. When the WGA strike began, studios wholly refused to swear off using generative AI in the future. Actors, too, fear the possibility of technology generating acting performances with their likenesses, eliminating many of the jobs that are available today. Scarily enough, it’s already starting to leak into the industry. Marvel’s Secret Invasion features an opening credits sequence – one that could’ve been created by human beings with fresh ideas – generated by AI that’s cringey, uncanny, and frightening on many levels.

Simien hits on the general feeling of unease in the industry that many companies would waste no time replacing human artists altogether if the means are available, but also the sickening feeling of seeing something so intrinsically tied to human ideas and identity as art being taken over by machines:

“You kinda get this feeling that like, boy, if the guys at the top could just make these things without these pesky artists that they would. And that feeling isn’t out of nowhere, ok? It’s something that I think, if you go through the crucible of Hollywood, you feel that in a number of ways. So I think it’s important both to protect the artists whose work is getting pulled into all of these different AI models but also, you know, I just don’t think it’s as fun or as interesting as letting humans tell stories to other humans. I don’t know.”

Although the DGA has their deal secured, the last thing Edwards, Simien, and Louis Leterrier all wanted to hammer home was their support for their picketing colleagues in the WGA and SAG-AFTRA. “We’re all directors up here, I think we all agree with this that the first thing we do want to make clear is that we all stand with the writers and actors in getting a fair deal,” Edwards added. “We’re contractually obliged to promote our movies!”

Stay tuned here at Collider for more from the Directors on Directing panel with Edwards, Simien, and Leterrier.