Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos doesn’t think AI will ever replace the work of Hollywood’s best creative minds. But he does think using AI might help them beat their competition.
In an interview with the New York Times Sarandos said using AI will become a new industry standard and that those in the movie business who don’t keep up with the tech will get left behind.
“A.I. is not going to take your job,” Sarandos told the Times in an interview published Saturday. “The person who uses A.I. well might take your job.”
It’s an oft-repeated phrase from executives and career coaches across the business world. The idea is that while AI tools like ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini can’t completely replace a person, they can help those who know how to use them work more efficiently than those who don’t. Essentially being an AI expert will become a skill in and of itself.
Sarandos’ point was that the same thing would apply to the entertainment industry. Other big name executives like legendary mogul Barry Diller also downplayed AI’s effects in replacing creatives, calling it “over-hyped.” In Hollywood, generative AI took front seat during the writers- and-actors strikes that roiled the industry last summer.
The debate over the use of the technology became an almost existential question for some working writers and actors. Writers feared that much of their work would be turned over to AI that would crank out passable scripts. While actors feared that their likenesses would be scanned by AI and then used in perpetuity by studios. Eventually the unions won out, curbing the use of AI and ensuring it couldn’t be used as a credited writer or a means to supplant actors during filming.
Sarandos said AI was just the latest in a long list of innovations in technology that changed the business models of the movie business. “I think that A.I. is a natural kind of advancement of things that are happening in the creative space today, anyway,” he said.
He went on to cite examples such as computer-generated animation and rise of the home video market with VHS and DVD sales, as examples that the industry fought and fretted over, before embracing.
“Every advancement in technology in entertainment has been fought and then ultimately has turned out to grow the business,” Sarandos said. “I don’t know that this would be any different.”
That being said, Sarandos doesn’t think AI will be able to replace the best…
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