Recently, Marvel Cinematic Universe star Simu Liu weighed in on the increasing relevance of artificial intelligence (AI) in the film industry. AI is seen by some as a useful tool to optimize movie making, while others see its use as cutting corners.
Per Variety, investor Kevin O’Leary, who stars in the upcoming film Marty Supreme, suggested that AI could replace human extras as a measure to reduce movie budgets moving forward. The Shark Tank host explained:
“Almost every scene had as many as 150 extras. Now, those people have to stay awake for 18 hours, be completely dressed in the background. [They’re] not necessarily in the movie, but they’re necessary to be there moving around. And yet, it costs millions of dollars to do that,” O’Leary said. “Why couldn’t you simply put AI agents in their place? Because they’re not the main actors. They’re only in the story visually. [You could] save millions of dollars, so more movies could be made. The same director, instead of spending $90 million or whatever he spent, could’ve spent $35 million and made two movies.”
In response, Liu had no time for O’Leary’s cost-cutting attempts. The Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings star tweeted in response to the article: “Sure, blame the extras making 15–22 dollars an hour struggling to make a living and not above the line people making multiple millions.“
Liu is far from the first actor or industry figure to speak out against using AI to replace humans in the process of filmmaking. Iconic director Guillermo del Toro recently said he would “rather die” than use AI in his movies, likening the rapidly-evolving technology to Victor Frankenstein’s attempts to cheat death.
The reveal of AI performer Tilly Norwood has fanned these flames by providing a real threat to human actors. In response to their reveal, SAG-AFTRA released a statement stating that it “believes creativity is, and should remain, human-centered. The union is opposed to the replacement of human performers by synthetics.”
“To be clear, ‘Tilly Norwood’ is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers — without permission or compensation,” the statement continued. “It has no life experience to draw from, no emotion and, from what we’ve seen, audiences aren’t interested in watching computer-generated content untethered from the human experience. It doesn’t solve any ‘problem’— it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.”
Though Liu is more specifically talking about extras as opposed to actors portraying named characters, his sentiment towards O’Leary’s comments echoes that of SAG-AFTRA regarding Tilly Norwood. Protecting the income of below-the-line cast and crew in the AI age is complicated at best, but the right answer is not always the cheapest.
- Birthdate
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April 19, 1989
- Birthplace
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Harbin, Heilongjiang, China
- Height
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6 feet 0 inches