Hollywood heavyweights Viola Davis and Spike Lee slammed the use of artificial intelligence for creative pursuits, such as making movies, and decried the technology as a profit-boosting tool for corporations.
The award-winning filmmakers were in San Francisco for Dreamforce, where they made an appearance on Thursday for a panel discussion about creativity and "ensuring AI benefits everyone" that was moderated by MSNBC reporter Stephanie Ruhle.
"This is the most exciting conversation to have now. It's because people who have been here for the last three days (were) drinking a whole lot of AI Kool-Aid," Ruhle said.
Salesforce billed its annual convention as "the largest and most magical AI event ever" and packed the three-day-long conference with wall-to-wall artificial intelligence programming.
"It's squarely about one thing: the AI opportunity," CEO Marc Benioff said during his keynote address on Monday.
On Day One, Benioff also hosted OpenAI CEO Sam Altman who sparked the current AI frenzy last year when OpenAI launched its image and text generators, DALLE-2 and ChatGPT.
However, Davis and Lee expressed concerns about the use AI in Hollywood and beyond.
"It's dangerous," Lee said. "Not to say that I'm a purist but I don't even like autotune, and we're getting this dangerous area where machines, technology is trying to replace human beings. Art. Our soul."
Lee won his first Oscar in 2019 for best adapted screenplay for "BlacKkKlansman." In 2017, Davis won her first Oscar for best supporting actress for portraying Rose Maxson in "Fences," and she recently produced and starred in "The Woman King."
"My fear is that people don't care about art. That's my fear," Davis said. "My fear is fast food, right? Fast food emotion. Fast food art. Fast food, fast food. You know, put something up there that really at the end of the day is about corporate greed, which is what is destroying us."
They also addressed the writers' and actors' strikes that have roiled the television and movie industries for months. The Writers Guild of America has been on strike since May, prompting Netflix to temporarily lay off production staff. A couple of months later, SAG-AFTRA followed with a strike that began in July.
One of the concerns raised by the WGA during contract negotiations has been the use of AI for TV and movie script writing. And the actors' union, SAG-AFTRA, has raised concerns about the studios wanting to pay performers for one job and then using their likeness in perpetuity.
"I don't think AI is one of the main things that's the strategy," Lee said. "It's an issue but it's not like a lot of things that are ahead of that."
Residuals, pay and work rules are other major points of contention in the strike negotiations, Davis said.
Are the studio executives dragging out contract negotiations, Ruhle asked, because they know they'll have access to AI tools soon?
Davis thinks their strategy is much more simple.
"I think they just want to keep their money," Davis said.
Hollywood is already a tough industry, especially for non-white artists, Davis said, and working actors will be among the most vulnerable to the deployment of AI in productions.
"The journey that we take as Black and brown people in this industry is absolutely biblical," Davis said. "There's a whole lot of obstacles in our path. Though if AI comes in and then bogarts work? Especially for journeyman actors. Those journeymen actors come on for two scenes, who are great by the way. So, if (they) bogart that, then we're really underwater as Black artists."
And when it comes to the creative process, you can't take shortcuts, but that's what AI is used for, Lee said.
"It's taking shortcuts, and the shortcut is taking out the human element," Lee said. "The life that these artists live is reflected in the work they do, and if you don't go through those things, you're not going to be able to achieve greatness … and excuse my language, a mother fucking machine can't do that."
