Michael Phillips: AI moviemaking software ‘so easy an alien could do it.’ But where do visual effects go from here?
CHICAGO — By 2023, artificial intelligence had seeped into enough corners of a nervous film industry — buoyed by Barbenheimer, but fully aware of an imminent 2024 shortage of new titles — to become a seriously effective tool of labor unrest. Last year’s Screen Actors Guild contract, achieved after a lengthy, costly staring contest with industry producers and streamer honchos, added some guardrails designed to protect actors’ collective livelihood, noting “the importance of human performance in motion pictures and (AI’s) potential impact on employment.”
Tye Sheridan knows about that impact. He’s an actor, having made a formidable screen debut in the 2011 Terrence Malick film “The Tree of Life.” He’s best known for Steven Spielberg’s “Ready Player One” and as Cyclops in the “X-Men” movies.
