HOLLYWOOD, : The Hollywood sign sits on Mount Lee in Hollywood, California, 29 October 2002. (Photo … [+]
Updated with additional commentary
While the Hollywood writer’s strike has reached and passed 100 days, a new report out says almost every entertainment and media company plans to boost generative AI spend. In fact, they are global leaders.
“Companies in the entertainment, technology and consumer products industries are frontrunners in plans to increase generative AI spending,” Lucidworks, a search and insights company that commissioned the report, says.
But the media companies aren’t alone.
Generative AI planned spend by country
As many as 96% of executives involved in AI decisions are prioritizing generative AI investments, and that means that most companies globally are investing. China leads with 100% of companies saying they are investing in generative AI, while 94% of U.K. and 95% of French companies say the same. In India, 98% of companies are also pouring resources into generative AI, while 92% of U.S. companies say they are as well.
(This data is based on what Lucidworks says is the largest global study of generative AI in business, involving 6,000 survey respondents at companies with more than 100 employees who are involved in decisions on AI investments.)
With numbers like these, virtually every industry is rushing headlong to build, use or buy generative AI technology.
That’s a key concern of Hollywood writers, of course, and Wired says they’re right to fear AI. An OpenAI study on the “labor market impact potential of large language models” published in March says that multiple categories of writers are up to 100% exposed to career and work impact from AI. That does not necessarily mean that AI will take their jobs—though in some cases it could—but it will almost certainly have some impact in how they do their jobs.
Generative AI job impact for writers: fully exposed.
“Generative AI is imposing massive change on global business, presenting unprecedented opportunities and challenges—and at a breakneck speed,” the Lucidworks report says. “This new technology can generate content, images, and even entire virtual environments autonomously, thereby disrupting various industries.”
That massive change at breakneck speed, of course, is what worries most people. AI is improving so quickly—including full video generation from text prompts—that a full movie might be generated from prompts in just a few years. (Note: no comment on the quality of that movie.)
One author has predicted that 90% of Hollywood content might be at least in part AI generated by 2025.
Based on the investment media and entertainment companies are making, that could be possible. According to the report, only consumer products companies, tech companies and construction and real estate companies are investing at similar levels.
Generative AI spend by industry, according to Lucidworks.
Even the relative laggards, however, are overwhelmingly planning large and fast generative AI deployments.
“Now is the time to understand the strategy and operational opportunities of generative AI,” Mike Sinoway, the CEO of Lucidworks, said in a statement. “The fundamental shift that is occurring is rapid, global, and highly impactful. This study confirms the emergence of generative AI industry leaders and laggards, and those that move swiftly to orient their practices can move ahead quickly.”
One way that might manifest for the actors of the SAG-AFTRA union who are also on strike alongside the writers is synthetic actors. We’ve been seeing synthetic models and still photography subjects for years now, but deepfakes of existing and past actors are now showing that AI-generated and enhanced “talent” is a real threat.
As entrepreneur, investor and analyst Jeremiah Owyang mentioned in response to this story, synthetic actors don’t strike, don’t ask for pay raises, never take sick days, and never age. Even more intriguing for studios but concerning for actors is that they can also be used in literally millions of very personally targeted ads.