Will AI Liberate or Limit the Human Soul?

The Economic, Creative & Ethical Crossroads of AI & Entertainment

David Tennant’s Hamlet vs. RoboQR7334.2-ly7's Hamlet

When I was a young actress and arts education advocate just out of the Yale School of Drama, I read bestselling non-fiction author Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind, and built a life philosophy around it: creativity is the future because you can’t automate the human soul. Was I wrong?

The fear of AI displacing the messy creativity of the human spirit sparked the central issue in the 2023 Writers Guild of America (WGA) and Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) strikes, where creatives pushed back against the unchecked use of AI in the entertainment industry, with signs aptly (and hilariously) bearing slogans such as, “Robots don’t have trauma.”

“They wanted to turn us into digital ghosts while calling it progress,” said Fran Drescher, actress and SAG-AFTRA President, referencing proposals to scan actors’ likenesses for indefinite AI use with minimal pay, even when it comes to legendary actors like Glenn Close. While the strikes ended in historic agreements, such as requiring actors’ consent for digital likeness usage and limiting AI’s role in writing, the fight for fair compensation continues.

The Coke Fiasco

Right now, the topic of AI replacing actors has the internet abuzz with condemnation for Coca-Cola’s AI reinvention of a 1995 Christmas commercial.   

It shows an attempt at cheerful “human beings” ringing in the holiday like automatons. Although I’m sure Coca-Cola saved a bundle by not paying actors, film crews, or editors, their commercial fell flat with audiences and consumers, because AI can’t yet recreate the inimitable twinkle in the eye of a joyful child at Christmas.

The Coke controversy coincides with an experience I had last week at WebSummit in Lisbon, Portugal.  

What the Best Minds in Entertainment are Saying

Technologists and creatives alike crowded into the MEO Arena to hear “The Power of People,” a chat between “Peaky Blinders” creator Steven Knight and Marco Bassetti, CEO of global media giant Banijay, with Deadline Magazine International Box Office Editor, Nancy Tartaglione, moderating. 

These are some of the best minds in the industry and what became immediately clear in their discussion is that they have absolutely no idea where this is going.  They merely expressed hopes that the industry would proceed ethically, protecting the sacred process of writers, actors, directors, production crews, and post-production teams, rather than just protecting the bottom line (good luck with that!). It also became clear that the entertainment industry really doesn’t understand tech and vice versa. 

Steven Knight, Peaky Blinders creator; Banijay CEO Marco Bassetti & Deadline editor, Nancy Tartaglione at Lisbon WebSummit last week

While AI offers unprecedented opportunities for efficiency and innovation, it also raises critical questions about economics, creativity, and ethics. As American filmmaker Ava DuVernay aptly said, “We are at a crossroads where technology meets humanity, and the decisions we make now will define the future of storytelling.”  

British director Christopher Nolan has drawn parallels between AI and the development of the atomic bomb, a topic he sensitively covered in his Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer.  He emphasizes the moral responsibility accompanying technological innovation: "When you innovate with technology, you have to maintain accountability." 

Nolan has also compared AI's potential to the impact of CGI in filmmaking, expressing optimism that, if used responsibly, these tools could enhance the cinematic experience and broaden opportunities without undermining the roles of creators and laborers. 

Let’s take a look at some of the opportunities and challenges facing the Entertainment Industry right now:

Opportunities

• AI is transforming entertainment production by automating labor-intensive tasks like visual effects (VFX), dubbing, and script editing. For smaller studios, this means leveling the playing field. Tools like Runway and D-ID have slashed costs and sped up workflows, enabling indie creators to produce at a scale once reserved for major players.

• For many, AI is a creative collaborator, not a competitor. Filmmakers have used AI to conceptualize stunning visual designs, such as those seen in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. 

• Musicians are experimenting with AI to compose symphonies or remix classics.

• AI’s adaptability opens doors for inclusivity. Dubbing powered by AI can make films accessible in dozens of languages, while AI-generated scripts can localize narratives to better resonate with global audiences.

“AI doesn’t erase creativity; it amplifies what we dream up—if we control the narrative,” says Deborah Anderson, an AI technologist and media consultant.

Challenges

The very efficiency AI promises, however, threatens jobs. Writers, animators, and VFX artists face potential displacement as studios eye AI-generated scripts, visuals, and even performances. “AI could give smaller studios a fighting chance by lowering costs—but at what human cost?” asks Cynthia Erivo, co-star of the new Wicked movie musical. 

• AI-generated content can fall into homogenization, producing formulaic stories that lack depth and originality. As Knight said at WebSummit last week, “The greatest ideas don’t come from a formula, they come from outer space.”

• More troubling, if AI models are trained on biased datasets, they perpetuate stereotypes or exclude marginalized voices, as evidenced in controversies currently embroiling some of the world’s biggest tech companies.

• In the WebSummit panel, Bassetti said that when you automate the tasks of an intern, you lose the trajectory of apprenticeship that many creatives and creative executives travel to get to the top of their field. Are we sacrificing the industry’s future leaders for short-term savings?

• Other ethical dilemmas abound. The use of deceased actors’ likenesses, such as James Dean’s planned AI recreation in Finding Jack, has sparked outrage about the degradation of artists’ legacies.

• Ownership and copyright issues further complicate the landscape. Visual artists have filed lawsuits against platforms like MidJourney and Stable Diffusion, arguing that their work was used to train AI models without permission.

“Our labor feeds AI, and yet we see none of the benefits,” says Aja Monet, poet and activist, echoing a sentiment shared by many creatives.

Famous quote on X from author Joanna Maciejewska

Balancing Innovation and Integrity

To ensure AI serves as a tool for progress rather than exploitation, I strongly believe the industry must legally codify clear ethical frameworks, starting with, but not limited to:

1. Transparency: Label AI-generated content.

2. Fair Compensation: Reward creatives whose work trains AI.

3. Regulation: Protect human labor and intellectual property.

4. Inclusivity: Ensure diverse representation of both technologists and creatives who will train AI models on diverse datasets to avoid bias.

Bending the Arc of the Creative Universe Toward Justice

I hope we can all agree that there’s a unique magic to the human soul, one that includes both our greatest attributes and deepest flaws, which no perfect machine can successfully duplicate.  At the same time, we must accept that AI learns and evolves much faster than we do. It’s here to stay.  The worlds of entertainment and technology will have to collaborate, virtually at the speed of light, to develop solutions that forge a way forward that factors in the creative, economic, human, and ethical implications of AI in entertainment, leveraging it as a means of supporting creativity, rather than as an end in itself. 

Tip of the Day: Teach your AI chatbot to “speak empathically” by the way you talk to it. Talk to it in “feeling” language, when possible, to help it learn to replicate human courtesy. It may not teach it how to feel, but there’s already too much bad behavior on the internet – you might be contributing to something better. If AI is the best student, let us be better teachers.