Given the ethos of “The Human Perimeter” as I seek to defend our species from synthetic personas (and redefine our place in the world in the wake of AI), some might wonder why I’m serving as judge at the Seattle AI Film Festival next month.
Here are my three reasons (excuses):
Better the devil you know: I’d like to see how storytellers are using the latest tools to potentially create state-of-the-art content, assessing their creative value to the world. So, let’s file this under “Educational.”
The festival organizer is a long-time friend and used to teach in the graduate program I once led. File under “Relational.”
I want to gauge if there’s any distinction between using AI to create art, vs. say, a start-up like Pixar leveraging computer-generated animation over the traditional hand-drawn approach. File under “Existential.”
Resolving that last point might be the most revelatory. I believe that artistic creativity is a uniquely human endeavor: it’s how we make sense of our existence and our relationship with the world around us. Artificial intelligence by itself cannot be artistic because as a non-sentient platform, it has no need to question its place in the universe — AGI be damned. However, the first point speaks to the tactical use of AI as if it were any other creative tool to engage in that necessary form of expression.
Festival head John Gauntt has supplied a most excellent rubric for us judges to evaluate the entries from around the globe. I pledge to adhere to it. But even as I watch the films, this storytelling veteran is looking for two other proof points to be reflected in my comments:
(1) How much did the story move me to the point of revealing some sort of emotional truth about the character(s)?
(2) How did the technology facilitate an otherwise unattainable level of artistry beyond merely mimicking well-established filmmaking tropes?
Personally and professionally, I see no need to apply these new tools in my existing film work — especially given that it’s a documentary, especially because of the human-first subject matter.
Still, my initial sense is that creatives will ultimately find the sense of possibility alluring.
The unknown: will the public look past the uncanny valley of silicon verisimilitude if they’re sold on the story?
Meanwhile, just a few miles south from my home studio, at Amazon HQ…
CNBC reports that the online giant “is requiring that third-party sellers label any product images or videos that contain ‘AI-generated people’ after New York recently passed a law mandating greater transparency around ‘synthetic performers’ in ads.
The New York law, which took effect last month, requires companies to disclose if ‘synthetic performers’ are used in place of human actors in advertising. The legislation applies to ‘digitally-created media that appear as a real person.’ Governor Kathy Hochul described it as a ‘first-in-the-nation’ law.
‘Without notice that the content the public is viewing is not real, AI-generated synthetic performers and manipulated media can undermine one’s ability to accurately distill fact from fiction,’ Hochul’s office said in a release.
Amazon clarified in its announcement that the requirement doesn’t apply to content featuring TV, video game and movie characters, or content that includes real people, even if they’ve been altered using AI.”