The new Oscar-nominated epic The Brutalist follows a visionary architect who flees the Holocaust and rebuilds his life in America. Its major themes concern creative integrity and the difficulty of making art. But the film’s use of AI, in the eyes of some critics and cinephiles, has undermined what could have been this year’s finest new release.
According to the film’s editor Dávid Jancsó in a recent interview, the production used an AI programme, Respeecher, in a two-minute segment to aid the Hungarian pronunciation of actors Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones. The purpose of this was to enhance authenticity, as Hungarian is an “extremely unique language” which is very hard for English speakers to master. Going further, generative AI was also used in a sequence depicting a series of architectural drawings and finished projects in the brutalist style of the fictional protagonist László Tóth.
The controversy sparked by The Brutalist reveals a wider anxiety among artists and audiences who feel that AI will be used to replace humans in the production process. The 2023 Hollywood writers’ strike was a good example of this.
The film industry has always latched onto the latest technological developments: Technicolor, digital cameras, CGI, motion-capture technology. All of these have allowed filmmakers to do novel things which were previously impossible or prohibitively expensive. From the animated opening sequence of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo in 1958 to more recent films such as Avatar which are almost wholly CGI, the film industry has been obsessed by the revolution in special effects for over 60 years. Lord of the Rings and Saving Private Ryan, for example, used CGI to represent respectively the supernatural and the drama of modern warfare in a more convincing manner than would have been possible under the technological limits of previous decades.
It is therefore inevitable that the industry would incorporate AI into its projects, especially to cut costs and save time. It’s quixotic to expect film studios and directors to abstain out of notions of artistic purity. The argument, then, is about how AI should be used in film, not whether it has a place at all.
If AI is used as a supplementary tool to polish off certain aspects of the editing process, such as sound design, then there is nothing egregious about it. It can even enhance the work while making the production process more efficient. AI machine learning was used to help create the face of Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. AI allows independent filmmakers already working under tight budgets to do things at a higher technical level, which would otherwise require budgets they don’t have.
But there is a major problem if, or maybe when, AI becomes the dominant tool in filmmaking — where the artist isn’t the master of this technology, but has instead been supplanted by it. In such a scenario, filmmaking will be degraded by corporations: art and entertainment will degenerate into mere “content”. Even worse, AI can be deployed by corporations to seize an artist’s idea or use an actor’s voice, image and likeness, then adapt it and use it in their films without having to pay them. Disney has already been caught scanning the likenesses of background actors without their consent so that they can use them as “digital extras” in the future. It is a horrible premonition of a less human, more exploitative world coming into existence.
Fundamental to the creative process is making choices and judgements in order to convey meaning. It is this human touch that makes something artistic. Algorithms can’t make judgements like a human can, which is why AI-generated films would be utterly bland and lead to a barren cinematic landscape. It doesn’t mean that there should be an allergy to AI in film. But in order for it to be effective, the film industry must understand that AI is a tool dependent on human influence rather than the other way round. For nothing, not even the most sophisticated form of artificial intelligence, can adequately replace the human eye — and certainly not the human imagination.
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SubscribeApologies for being off-topic here.
So no debate on the Southport girl-killer Axel Rudakubana. Are you still looking for a contributor? I have some starting ideas for you Unherd. Perhaps they can start to get the ball rolling.
Why the silence from his family?
Who helped him make ricin in his kitchen?
Did Prevent know he had an al-Qaeda training manual?
What is an al-Qaeda training manual?
How did he get an al-Qaeda training manual?
Is he a practising Muslim?
Why is Islam a taboo subject?
There you are Unherd! Lots of material for an article! How Unherd are you lot?
I look forward to commenting on this soon.
What on earth is “extremely unique”?
good point. Unique means ‘a one off’. you cant be ‘extremel’y One off.
AI would’ve fixed that oxymoron.
I was going to google ‘al-Qaeda training manual’ and then thought perhaps not.
Looks like you’re talking to yourself?
Please do!
No articles on the Southport killer. Just as if it had never happened. What does that remind you of? Oh yes. The Pakistani rape gangs. Does anyone else see a pattern here?
Not every article has to be political in nature. Just f**k off and leave the rest of us in peace
Re-read this article Richard. It does contain some subtle hints on the Southport killer, albeit these are expressed via the rhetorical mode of allegory.
Dear Benedict I would be grateful if you could explain to this simple working class person what “the rhetorical mode allegory” means
Allegory – a system of symbols elaborated in story, poetic or visual form, producing a subtextual meaning not readily apparent in a superficial reading.
Rhetoric – the art of writing or persuasion, of which allegory is a sub-set
Mode – The way or style in which something is done
Unherd you are a disgrace. Change your stupid name and rewrite your mission statement. If you want to be just another digital tabloid saying nothing and toeing the government line then just declare that’s what you are. I would unsubscribe before you got to the end of this comment.
Don’t pretend to be something you are not and don’t advertise a lie. That is fraud. Unherd is a fraud.
The author is, of course, correct in his assertion that AI will never be able to replace the human individual in the creative act. He’s also on the right lines when suggesting that the place for AI in creative enterprises (i.e. those requiring a collaborative effort) would be to enhance the pace and availability of certain aspects of production rather than acting as the prime mover.
When i read that “artists should fear AI” my reaction is to think: in that case, you’re not an artist. An artisan, possibly, which is something entirely different.
A bigger worry though is that an increasing number of productions are simply churned out ad nauseam by AI because it’s cheaper, and genuine pieces are squeezed out or starved of funding.
We’ve already seen the damage social media can do to the media landscape by completely destroying local newspapers, it would be a shame if the arts became just as bland because there was no funding for anything creative
Whilst true, funding of the arts is a perennial issue. State funding (e.g. the Arts Council) always leans towards a progressive programme which therefore excludes artists (and there are plenty, in all media) who don’t follow that agenda, including those who’re apolitical.
The same probably applies to corporate funding, which follows what it thinks is good for business. That leaves private funding. Freelance artists have always had to fight for their careers and if for instance, painters or sculptors can’t attract the interest of private collectors that would have nothing to do with AI, which would be unlikely to interest many in the private sphere due to issues around provenance and reputation which depends on an individual human being as the creator.
It may end up like digital photography: when everyone and their dog is doing it cheaply and proliferating it everywhere, people will basically lose interest because it’s so mundane and commonplace.
In 1984, the book, feeling anything was very dangerous for Winston. There were cameras everywhere and his own face could betray him.
What’s going on in England? Does anyone know?
Don’t say anything. Don’t feel anything. Is that it?
Are we already there? Just shame and fear deep down. Along with the lies.
Come to think of it that nicely sums up Starmer’s act today. Shame, fear and lies.
Hopefully AI will be able to create bespoke films for individuals based upon its detailed understanding of their tastes, preferences and affective responses. This will be an even better experience if un virtual reality. Human artists and creatos have no chance against this although no doubt they will squawk loudly as they enter economic oblivion
I must play the Devil’s Advocate here.
The audience, blockheads all, will passively, submissively allow whatever drek the producers manage to get made, to become the new standard. Think of the difference between contemporary animation films and the classic Disney ones of the not too distant past. The undeniable magic in the old method is gone, but modern audiences don’t know or don’t care.
Modern audiences are dwindling.
AI is a gift to film-makers. It will really democratise an excessively expensive medium.
All the hand wringing over how AI will destroy the creative process sounds very much like what painters said in the 19th cent when photography emerged. But if anything photography liberated painters from the constraining ideals of a certain kind of representationalism. And now we have painters and photographers alike being creative in new and fascinating ways. We lost the ‘academy’ painter and the schools that focused on naturalism as a craft — but we gained an awful lot more. AI will do something similar I would bet.
Laszlo Toth was a Hungarian-Australian geologist with a Messiah complex who travelled to Italy and took a rock hammer to Michelangelo’s Pieta.
Thereafter, his name was a popular pseudonym in Australia, especially with self-styled iconoclasts.
That was written by me from memory, although AI might’ve come up with something similar.