Peter Jackson defends the use of AI in movies: “I don’t dislike it at all”
Peter Jackson has admitted he “doesn’t dislike” the use of AI in films, but said that Andy Serkis doesn’t have “any hope for winning awards” for his performance as Gollum in Lord of the Rings because of it.
The acclaimed director was speaking as part of a masterclass held at the Cannes Film Festival, after he was awarded an honorary Palme d’Or for his unparalleled contribution to cinema.
However, Jackson may have stirred some controversy at the event after admitting that, although he deplores the use of AI in general society, when it comes to films, “I don’t dislike it at all”, according to Variety.
In a somewhat juxtaposing stance, the Lord of the Rings filmmaker was quick to say that AI is “going to destroy the world”, but in terms of cinema, in his view, “It’s no different from other special effects.”
Jackson pointed to the fact that this discredits actors like Serkis, who plays the monster Gollum in the fantasy epic with motion-capture technology, as “a lot of the current environment, everyone’s so worried about AI… I don’t think a Gollum-type character or a generated character has any hope for winning any awards.”
He said this “is a bit unfair, especially in the Andy Serkis case where it’s not an AI-generated performance, it’s a human-generated performance 100 per cent of the way.”
Jackson added that although it is “absolutely critical” for actors to be protected from their likenesses being used in AI without permission, “If you’re doing an AI duplicate of somebody, like Indiana Jones or anyone else, as long as you’ve licensed the rights off the person who you’re showing, I don’t see the issue.”
AI has been a hotly debated topic in the film industry at large for some time now, as well as the current Cannes Film Festival. It was brought into focus particularly on May 12th, when juror Demi Moore said fighting the technology is “a battle we will lose”.
She felt that finding a way to work with AI would be most “valuable”, before adding, “Truth is, there isn’t anything to fear, because what it can never replace is what true art comes from, which is not the physical. It comes from the soul.”
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