Would you make your book into an AI generated movie?

I foresee that it is likely within ten years to make AI generated movies (also depends a lot on many various factors, such as laws etc). So the question is, would you do it, if it becomes possible?

If I don't succeed the traditional way or through self-publishing, I might do it.

How could this possibly work?
-AI synthesized voices.
-AI images already exist, it's not a far leap before they become moving pictures.
-AI generated music score. AI can already generate music. Not a giant leap before it can create more intricate scores.
-AI could generate a ton of scenes which is then cut and pasted together by a human.

How about you? Would you do it?

 

I've already seen some AI animated images, but they're pretty poor. So far it just seems to be taking a still image and distorting it in stages to make it 'move'. Of course once animation AIs are develped it will get better ridiculously fast.

I think making an animated movie using AI could be like the way they help you write a story now. It would start by you inputting your story, maybe broken down into script format, or it would help you do that part. Then it would make rough sketches, or maybe first you'd work out the artistic style you want used, what you want the characters to look like etc. Then you guide it through refining the sketches until you have an artistic style worked out. It could get really detailed and sophisticated if the interface allows it. That would probably just be on the professional level though, and for the general public/free level we'd get garbage.

Then I think you'd work out something like a storyboard, to figure out the scenes and what 'camera angles' and cuts you want. Then that would be developed by stages, with your input all along the way, to make sure it doesn't just go off the rails. Then you'd have something like animation 'keyframes', which means like every 24th frame or so. This is how drawn animation is traditionally done, there's a 'key animator' who is highly experienced and draws the keyframes, and then you have assistants who fill in the 'in-between' drawings. Those are then checked and approved (or changes requested) and then you have the rough animation. This is then cleaned up and refined, inked, and painted. Each part with guidance by you at many points. I think these are the basic stages necessary for AI-assisted animation.

I could see many celebrities licensing their likeness/voice to be used in projects like this (for professional projects of course, probably not for amateur ones), but it wouldn't be cheap. I already heard there's some Insta girl who has created an AI version of herself to talk to, so her followers can 'be with her' all the time. This will be spreading, and depending on legality etc, there's no telling how far it could go. You could get Arnold and Sylvester up against Clint and Brando, each from their best period. Or create your own actors/characters of course. I'm just conjecturing here, having fun with it.

 

If all the skilled work is handled properly by the AI (shot composition, storyboarding, pacing, so on) then it will be a generic shake'n'bake movie. If those things are up to me, a complete amateur, well then it will be a bad film. Either way, I don't see a reason to put the thing out there if it's going to be in that kind of shape. And if many people have access to these tools, I'm just adding to the slush pile, contributing at the skill level of the other billion ground floor folks generating their own AI movies. Spiritually futile from my perspective.

 

Yes, I was thinking after writing my breakdown that it would be best to hire an artist to develop the visual elements (to interface with the AI), a cinematographer to design the shot list (the storyboard), a director to do most of it, and an experienced editor to make sure it all fits together properly. Oh, and a writer to come up with the idea in the first place. Or to have several years at least of training and practice in each of these skills yourself. But then that's generally the difference between a professional and amateur movie, that plus several hundred million dollars.

 

Yeah I suppose so. I just can't see B-movie cults being a thing with AI, even by accident or with an up-and-coming driving the machine helm. You'd never get magic like Bad Taste or Evil Dead IMO.

 

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that—are you saying the movies won't be as good becuse they're not made by human minds, or that they just won't be as gory and in-bad-taste? Probably both are true, But then again, I've heard many directors lament that there's no longer any way to make movies like those low-budget ones from that era anymore. The studio system just doesn't allow it anymore. Everything looks more like a blockbuster these days, and indie flicks are now backed by mega-studio money and also are made like big-budget flicks these days. The indie scene of the 70s and 80s is long gone.

It's true that AIs can't think or feel, but look at how amazing some of the art they make is (though it's arguable if it can really be called 'art'). If they can fix the monster-hands and mutant-feet problem and the occasional extra leg or arm, they'll be amazing. Already they make images far better in most regards than most artists ever could (if your aim is realism or certain kinds of very quantifiable styles). If animation AIs are developed I'll be very interested in seeing what they can do. It won't be like anything we're familiar with, it'll be it's own thing, like their visual imagery is.

Look at how far CGI has come. It took it a long time to find its footing, it was terrible for a decade or more, but once it locked in, it quickly became amazing (around the time of Gollum and King Kong), and now it's used in just about everything, often in subtle ways where we have no idea it's there. I think AI is going to do much the same, though obviosuly it will also bring certain problems with it. Hell, AI will probably link with CGI. The real Terminator won't be a robot, it'll be completely computer-generated, like Max Headroom.

Spoiler: Click it

 

You will see this in scams before theatrical releases. Faked or adjusted images of famous politicians, grand-children needing help, etc.

 

No. God, no.
I doubt I'll see an AI in my lifetime that can do anything good enough. Humans making computer generated images can already barely do a good enough job, let alone a computer telling another computer what a human looks like.

Honestly, I'd probably be slutty when it comes to getting my book turned into a movie, but I draw the line at AI. No matter how good it gets, it's never going to have passion.
Granted, the poor schmuck they'll force to do it for a quick buck probably won't either, but at least I can show them a very disappointed dad-look for screwing up.

 

Ai can do amazing things visually. It can create absolutely photorealistic art that you'd swear is real. And it can make it move smoothly (which I didn't realize until recently):



But it still feels robotic. There's no soul (by which I mean no humanity, no feeling). I think it will keep improving rapidly, but it's hard to imagine it ever being able to duplicate humanity in motion convinvingly. There's no way it can understand the proper microexpressions or subtleties of gesture.

 

There's a site callled ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com that posts a new AI generated face every two seconds. If you refresh the page as fast as you can you get a completley new face every time. And they're totally realistic, to an incredible degree.

Here's a little blurb about the site:

In February 2019, graphics hardware manufacturer NVIDIA released open-source code for their photorealistic face generation software StyleGAN. The software uses a generative adversarial network (GAN) approach, in which two neural networks play a game of cat and mouse, one attempting to generate artificial images indistinguishable from real photographs, the other attempting to tell the difference. The two networks train one another; after a few weeks, the image-creating network can produce images like the fakes on this website.


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Nah, just faces. Darnit!

 

See? AI is useless. ;o)