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bazoom42 • today at 5:27 PM • 1 reply • view on HN

But why is Hollywood screwed then? Same thing was said when cameras became cheap, when editing became cheep, and when internet made it possible for anyone to distribute movies: Now the movie industry is screwed because anyone with talent and an iphone can make and distribute a movie.

Turns out there is more to it than that.

Replies

ben_w • today at 7:46 PM

Like I said, "Writing it is a separate problem". From what I've seen while experimenting with "creative" writing, I think they'd struggle with writing an episode of a kids TV show with a short running time in length (anything over about 9 minutes); and even then I would also doubt it would write correctly for a specific audience based on my experience while experimenting with writing myself educational apps (in my case to help me learn German, I'm extrapolating from that to not overburdening kids with too-complex vocabulary).

But do also consider that when cameras became cheap, *painting* is what became somewhat less valuable, and cinema became possible in the first place.

And consider that when cinema got sound, live musicians in theatres went away:

  The time is coming fast when the only living thing around a motion picture house will be the person who sells you your ticket. Everything else will be mechanical. Canned drama, canned music, canned vaudeville. We think the public will tire of mechanical music and will want the real thing. We are not against scientific development of any kind, but it must not come at the expense of art. We are not opposing industrial progress. We are not even opposing mechanical music except where it is used as a profiteering instrument for artistic debasement.
- 2012 reporting on 1927, even the reporting well before AI could do any of this at an interesting level; https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/musicians-wage-war-ag...

If the AI could write… it can, but the degree to which it can is not enough; if the AI could make coherent videos… it can, but the degree to which it can is not enough.

"If". It's a matter of degree, but functionally the answer *today* is "no", because today when some humans make a video with AI, they need to put in a lot of effort to throw out the rubbish attempts by the AI.

When it stops being "no", and not before, is when Hollywood is screwed.