There’s a hell of a lot in it to unpack for a fifteen minute video, but I really need to direct everyone to this gem by Steve Shives. In it, Shives starts to explore the use AI in making films, and the implications that may have for human creativity. He says he’s not absolutely opposed to artificial intelligence, but I think the issues he flags up are certainly worthy of consideration. Film has always been man-made: it has always had a personal, human element, be that via the input of directors, writers, actors or whatever. AI has now seemingly removed the need for that input: you can now just bung a set of prompts into an app and it churns out something resembling a film. As technically wondrous as that may be, the concern is that it removes something vital at the heart of film. Chris Keathley tells the story that early cinema-goers were enamoured with film not because of what was happening in the foreground of the shot, but because they saw the wind stirring the trees in the background: it made what they were watching seem real. I doubt AI could generate the same effect; but without such reality, film is just a series of meaningless pictures.