EXCLUSIVE: AI is arguably one of the hottest topics on the lips of global entertainment industry figures at the moment. At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the industry was awash with buyers, sellers and festival heads chattering about how to come to grips with this new phase of technology that is increasingly encroaching on the traditional space.
But former OpenAI exec Zack Kass, who has advised organizations ranging from The White House to Coca-Cola to Morgan Stanley to help their businesses come to terms with the “transformative potential” of AI, believes there is a huge opportunity for content creators with respect to AI.
Having worked in the AI sector for more than 16 years, more recently as the Head of Go-To-Market for OpenAI, Kass admits he’s sat in rooms with major Hollywood studio heads as they grapple with what AI means for their business model. He stresses that while the technology will certainly be “disruptive” in the ways of creating value out of content and IP, “it’s not necessarily bad for the industry.”
Deadline sat down for a wide-ranging interview with the global AI advisor who shared his view on how the creative industries can best come to terms with the advancements in the tech space why the independent sector looks to benefit the most from the enhancements and how, with ethical and creative guardrails, AI can fuel innovation.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
DEADLINE: The creative businesses, film and TV, like many other industries, are somewhat starting to view AI as a tool but also still as a potential threat. Does the entertainment industry have a right to be wary of AI at this stage? What do you perceive as being the benefits and risks to the entertainment sector?
KASS: There is long list of benefits and risks, but could you classify what the industry is most concerned about? Because this has been somewhat challenging for me to understand. In the entertainment space, there seems to be this incredible sense of dread, like everything is going to break and it’s going to be bad. What I struggle to find is getting anyone to really pin down what they think specifically is going to go wrong.
DEADLINE: Well, at a fundamental level, people are concerned about job losses. I’m sure you may know, it’s a very tough business at the moment. The streamers have disrupted the theatrical market, the independent market is strained, and financing projects is tougher than ever. With the dual strikes of 2023, people in the industry are understandably bruised. There’s concern about protecting IP and, as you know, actors are obviously concerned about Deepfakes and their images being used illegally.
KASS: I guess celebrity status presents an issue with Deepfakes, which makes a lot of sense to me and the policies around Deepfakes seem sensible. Hollywood spends a tremendous amount of time, and has for some time now, telling the world how it needs to improve. In particular, Hollywood spends time at the Oscars, or wherever it can, sort of moral grandstanding and lambasting the rest of us that we need to do more for other people.
What is fascinating to me is that we are facing a moment when technology has an opportunity to do a tremendous amount of good for everyone else, and Hollywood is the first to stand up and say it’s bad, even though AI is going to lead to credible novel science breakthroughs. We are likely on the verge of having abundant energy and major quantum breakthroughs that will lead to improvements on things that have long been considered luxuries like clean water and abundant food, etc.
But of all the industries that are at risk, Hollywood seems to be the least at risk. The jobs that are going to be taken are not the ones in arts and culture – they are the ones in knowledge work. We’re seeing a new rise in offline activity with the number of people going to local theater, concerts and performing arts.
DEADLINE: But cinema attendance and box office numbers around the world are declining.
KASS: Hollywood studios have arguably been regurgitating the same storyline and created a world where the only thing that can succeed is a sequel to a Marvel film. I am talking about local, offline activity such as concerts, sporting events and local theater that are seeing a resurgence. There is an incredible new currency paid for offline experiences. I think performing arts will have an incredible place in the future where we automate a ton of stuff. People actually do still have an appreciation for the aesthetic.
This is an amazing moment in Hollywood. It’s a group of very politically active people who have had a cause for a long time and now the cause can be themselves. I don’t say this as provocation alone. It’s just amazing that we are on the verge of actually solving all these problems that Hollywood has been telling us that we need to solve for a long time.
DEADLINE: But this is a very vulnerable time for making movies and I agree the tide is turning and that the entertainment industry is starting to look at AI as a tool but there are still reservations. Aren’t people right to be wary?
KASS: I appreciate Deepfakes are an issue, especially for celebrities but let’s agree that celebrities make up a small percentage of what the industry has to deal with. Hollywood seems exceptionally well poised as a result of AI. It’s a world where CGI becomes much less expensive, where the cost of creating art and distributing it comes down.
Technology has proven to improve the ability for an indie filmmaker, in particular, to create value. And that is disruptive, but not necessarily bad for the industry. But is it bad for the big studios because it lowers the barrier to creating value? Probably. If anyone can now buy a decent camera to record a really beautiful image and if the cost of creating a story comes down, and the cost of VFX comes down, then these things do pose a threat to the studios, but I don’t think that they pose a threat to the industry and that it’s the end of the process of creating art.
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DEADLINE: You’ve sat in the room with these studio heads and advised some of them and, given you’re an expert on this subject, what are the kind of things you say to them? What do you say to relieve their fears?
KASS: Specifically for studio heads, I say that they need to enable storytelling in more ways and redefine what it means to create an exceptional movie. We have to acknowledge that there are more interesting ways to create stories and tell stories on screen. We are seeing this already with indie filmmakers as well as books, literature, computer science and novel sciences. This is expansion and it’s important to call out.
I was with the CEO of an oncological research company the other day who said he was pretty sure that they will cure cancer within the next 25 years, and that was a conservative estimation. We take for granted what the internet did for companies like Google, which was just enable a brilliant idea to come to life. Now, the hobbyist is going to have way more capacity. And this is true for Hollywood.
With actors who are worried, I remind them that humans have a very strong sense of aesthetics. Let’s take the Mona Lisa as an example. We’ve all seen a picture of this painting thousands of times but there is still the appeal to see it in person at the Louvre even if you’ve seen the image online. I try to soothe people’s concerns that AI is going to replace humans in the creation of art because I have no belief at this point that that is the direction we are headed.
DEADLINE: I’m curious about the speed of the tech. Is it moving quicker than you had anticipated?
KASS: We’re in a recursive training loop now, which is the faster things are improving, the faster things are improving. I’m very willing to entertain the point that it could get very weird. That’s not all lost on me.
We are seeing an increasing local rise in illiteracy and motor dysfunction. Young Gen Z appears to be the first generation in many that is not smarter than the last. But equally, Gen Z is presenting with a higher rate of geniuses than any generation prior. Savants are coming out of the woodwork, because for most of human history, if you wanted to be great at something, you had to go to a university and study with someone who was graded – now you can go online.
DEADLINE: It appears that creating guardrails across all aspects of the technology early on is going to be the best thing. But where is the best opportunity for Hollywood and the global film and television industries at this stage?
KASS: I think the opportunity here is for Hollywood to help us tell stories about how the world gets better. There are so many stories out there about how the world is going to be threatened by technology, particularly recently, because of AI. There aren’t many utopian films anymore – no one is interested in that. Yet every year there is a new blockbuster about how the world is ending, usually because of AI. And then we ask ourselves why we are so cynical? Because these stories are reinforcing it and that’s a real shame.
DEADLINE: That leads me to my final question. The creative industries are trying to take steps to be greener and there is a worry about the impact this technology is going to have on the planet due to the sheer amount of power it takes to run these systems. What are your thoughts on how this tech can fit in with environmental sustainability?
KASS: That’s a very good question. AI today is going to spend a lot more water and energy than we would like. But that does not have to be the rule. The number is coming down and the compression models and efficiency in the models is getting better all the time and that’s really exciting. But we do need to find new, alternative energy sources, ideally fusion. We need massive breakthroughs in nuclear power. AI, unlike anything else, presents the obvious opportunity to solve a lot of these climate issues.
