Artificial intelligence has been a major topic of discussion in many different fields, especially the arts. After this year’s Best Picture nominees for the Oscars were announced and many films were accused of using AI, the Motion Picture Academy started discussing the idea of having it be mandatory that films disclose the use of AI in their production.
When the Academy announced their picks for the Best Picture nominees at the 97th Academy Awards, many people started talking about how several of the films used artificial intelligence. The films accused were The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Dune: Part Two, and Emilia Pérez.
The use of AI in movies has been a very divisive issue in the industry, especially during the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in 2023 where writers and actors wanted the film studios to provide their jobs better protection from AI that threatens their jobs.
After the accusations against this year’s nominees arose, the Motion Picture Academy who oversees the Oscars and decides who gets nominated for awards at the event began talking about potentially changing their rules to make disclosing the use of AI in films mandatory. Up until now disclosing AI usage was optional, but if the Academy decides to make it mandatory the rule will be published in April and go into effect for the 2026 Academy Awards.
This controversy sparked a debate about which AI tools are the most harmful to the industry and should be disclosed and which tools don’t pose a threat to jobs in film production and don’t require such drastic measures. Brady Corbet’s film The Brutalist used the artificial intelligence tool Respeecher to perfect the film’s Hungarian dialogue and make certain sounds more accurate which doesn’t alter the dialogue or performances in the film. A similar tool was used in Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez along with an additional tool AudioShake to isolate vocals in a 1960s recording of opera singer Maria Callas. Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two used the tool CopyCat to quickly replicate the same blue eye effect on the Fremen actors in the film, a task which would have taken much longer to do manually.
Other films over the years have also used AI. Baz Lurman’s Elvis used AI to put Austin Butler’s Elvis Presley into old archival footage of the real Elvis Presley in order to make the process more efficient. George Miller’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga used a similar AI tool to transition between the child Furiosa played by Alyla Browne and adult Furiosa played by Anya Taylor Joy. The film also used another tool to replicate the likeness of the late Richard Carter onto actor Lee Perry for the character Bullet Farmer returning from the 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Road. Robert Zemeckis’ Here used an AI tool to digitally age and de-age actors Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in the film. Other popular films like Marvel’s Deadpool & Wolverine and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 were also accused of using AI for their visual effects.
The most worrying forms of artificial intelligence are generative AI tools that can create their own scripts, visuals, sound effects, performances, and music with a simple prompt. Generative AI poses a very real threat to artists in the industry who have poured their hearts and souls into their work for years and now fear that their positions will be replaced by AI.
Recently Disney was under fire for using generative AI in the intro sequence for the Marvel Studios show Secret Invasion on their streaming platform Disney+. Generative AI is the most prominent and well-known form of artificial intelligence, but it’s the other tools that this year’s Academy Awards nominees used that were stated earlier that are a bit more divisive.
Some see the use of these tools as innovation and embracement of the latest technology at a filmmaker’s disposal, while others see them as a danger to the art of cinema that shouldn’t be used whatsoever. The debate over which tools can be used to streamline certain tasks and make them more efficient to allow human artists more time to work on other things and which tools are being used to completely replace human artists entirely has divided film enthusiasts. The Academy’s ruling on whether or not future nominees will be forced to disclose their usage of AI will certainly divide them even more.
No matter their stance on the use of AI, movie fans are still very excited for this year’s Oscars ceremony hosted by Conan O’Brien which will be on ABC and streamed live on Hulu on Sunday, March 2, 6 p.m. CST.
