Streaming giant Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos says artificial intelligence (AI) will have a huge and largely positive impact on the film and TV industries in the near future.
Sarandos feels that AI will make it cheaper to produce our entertainment, but he also thinks it has the potential of making it better.
“We remain convinced that AI represents an incredible opportunity to help creators make films and series better, not just cheaper,” Sarandos said, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
“So this is real people doing real work with better tools. Our creators are already seeing the benefits in production through pre-visualization and shot planning work, and certainly visual effects,” he continued.
Sarandos is not exactly speaking speculatively because the streamer has already partnered with a sci fi series produced out of Argentina, entitled The Eternaut, that make extensive use of AI in its pre and post production phases.
The streaming CEO revealed that one sequence depicting a building collapse was powered by AI rendering in half the time that traditional VFX would have taken to create the scene.
“The creators were thrilled with the result. We were thrilled with the result, and more importantly the audience was thrilled with the result. So I think these tools are helping creators expand the possibilities of storytelling on screen, and that is endlessly exciting,” Sarandos explained.
AI, of course, was the main reason that Hollywood’s actors and writers went on strike in 2023 because they feared that AI would eliminate them in future films and TV projects.
The actors, in particular, went on strike for fear that they would be replaced by AI images, and they alleged that the studios were “unwilling to offer a fair deal on the key issues that are essential to SAG-AFTRA members.”
Video game employees have also hit the picket lines over the possibility that AI would eliminate programmers and voice actors in their industry.
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