I love Dan's reasonableness with these types of issues. He doesn't post a knee-jerk reaction online; he researches the truth and draws conclusions from facts. Oh if the entirety of online discourse managed the same, the internet would be a better place. Keep up the good work, Dan!
Dan, will always be, the Man. And I mean that. To me a real "Man" is one who utilizes all his tools, all his human knowledge. Dan always takes in everything he can before speaking, and even if something comes up later, he takes that in and adjusts. Thank you Dan for being rational in an irrational world
This is a well made and researched video, but as someone who works with artists in the animation industry, I don't think it's fair to say that AI did not replace jobs on The Brutalist. I truly have no problem with respeecher here, I do audio editing to performances all the time myself as an editor, but the use of Midjourney to design some of the art at the end, even though it is a small amount of it for the overall runtime, means that A) A concept designer or architect was NOT hired to make those designs (probably a cost cutting measure but still) and B) Other actual architects work was scraped by Midjourney in order to create those designs. The fact that an artist then redrew them is beside the point. A human did not come up with those designs and the designs themselves are cumulatively taken from a larger data set. Now the ethics of this can be argued, but I think enough people see the moral dilemma with credit as far as this is concerned, especially considering this is a film ABOUT an architect. Seems sketchy to a lot of people to not hire an architect to make those designs. Just my 2 cents!
Also I was a fan of this movie, btw! I also liked Late Night With the Devil, but I won't lie and say that the use of Generative AI specifically hasn't soured the legacy of both films for me personally. This is something we're going to have to come to terms with quickly in this industry, and it's something that creative unions are currently fighting hard over. The next few years are going to be trippy when it comes to this kind of thing!
This is a genuinely valid point. $10m is certainly a very small budget and I'm sure it was stretched thin as is to get this film finished and out to the world, but it seems at least somewhat within reason that someone could have been hired for the concept art. It's a tough thing to criticize in this case specifically.
While I find your first point fair, the second isn't so relevant here in my opinion. If they hired a concept artist to create the designs from scratch, they would've likely taken inspiration from a row of real-life iconic brutalist designs, none of which would be credited either way. I think it's fair to talk about where the original data comes from, when the art in question is not inherently (and by very specific requirement) derivative. I think the task "create a design of building" is not the same in this sense as "create a design of a building that bears resemblence to iconic brutalist designs".
@@danieltatar7575completely understand, and I think this is the ethical debate around machine learning models generally. All art is inherently derivative, and I understand influence being a part of the creative process. The difference for me is a human artist can point to something and say I was influenced by this person where a ML model purposefully removes and obfuscates credit. Anyway it's a nuanced conversation that sort of falls outside the scope of this video, but that's where a lot of concept artists specifically take issue with generative AI.
This is exactly my thought process too. Generative AI steals from artists, it doesn't really matter if it's only a tiny little detail in a larger project. I don't think it means the movie should be disqualified but I think we should make it clear as artists that we don't approve of using Generative AI to replace real artists
It's far less important to punish this one film and those involved in it. But far more important to have clarity and regulations for how we approach AI in film in the future. This was one film with artists who understood the importance of maintaining human performance. But without rules 7 minutes may become more to any producers or artists who care more for faster and faster, rather than more personal.
@@r3dr4te963 it's to set a precedent. Nobody can deny knowing about the ai elements so it's crystal clear what a win for this movie means. If you're okay with it in this movie it will be used in more movies. More often. More brazenly.
I think most people are more afraid that if we give studios an inch, they'll take a mile. If we don't punish AI in it's smallest forms, studios will take that as evidence that they can get away with much worse.
Studios would replace /all/ actors yesterday if AI and cgi could. And it will happen sooner or later. One of the biggest costs of any production js labor. Maybe not in our lifetimes, but it’s an inevitability.
I understand that notion, but at the same time I view ai (the stuff created recently) like photoshop. Its not using which is bad, its the tech ceo etc idea of replacing everyone, And I think we should fight them more on that point. Using it as a tool to assist creative people is great. And honestly that what it looks like they did here. I mean sure maybe they could have hired a few vocal coaches, and spent months better learning the lanauge (likely more as its Hungarian). But for just some upped pronunciation on a few letters this saves them a lot of time. Which helps them all.
I see where you’re coming from, but it’s a futile effort. There is no public backlash that will stop this tech from changing our everyday lives. For better or worse.
@@ChrisMeadows92 I fundamentally disagree with this statement. Nuclear weapons are an 80+ year old technology that has been kept in check for that long bc there’s been wide spread resistance to it. Saying it’s just a part of life and shrugging shoulders is how other places have figured out gun control or universal healthcare while the US (in this instance) struggles. It’s an issue of actual collective will and it’s only inevitable bc we went from opposing AI just months back through the actors’ strike to “ehh, what are we gonna do about it.”
Thanks for putting this together, Dan! Just fyi, "Jancsó" is pronounced more like "yawn-chow" (just in case he wins the Oscar and you need to say his name again). Sincerely, a Hungarian fan of yours, who feels weird about this whole language controversy.
My main gripe with the use of AI in filmmaking is that, even when used ethically, it could lay the ground for others to use it in a much more unethical way.
exactly, you let them be seen as "small things" now then when its a bigger thing down the line then people want to reflect on how they should've been serious about back then we said this about blockbusters getting more prestige recognition and now every blockbuster is so afraid to be fun since the audience's expectations are too high for entertainment value and messaging which now make them the sole type of movie hollywood sees as worth making, threatening mid to smaller movies
I absolutely agree and I think there should be some sort of guidelines to know how much they can use AI and the reasoning so filmmakers cannot use it in an unethical way. As great as Brody and Jones are in this movie and I get the whole AI controversy, I don't think it's fair to say that they should be disqualified for a 10 minute scene and was to improve their Hungarian dialogue, not replacing them into something else. It's like using autotune for singers that have been either praised or even criticized
Where AI crosses the line is when it's used without people's consent e.g. actors. The Anthony Bourdain case is a perfect example of where the use of AI completely crosses the line into unethical. But that's the same with anything. AI is just another tool. It's possible to use any tool in the wrong way. For example using CGI in a documentary without informing the audience. Obviously wrong - but that doesn't mean we shouldn't use CGI generally
Yes, the answer is use the accents as best as the human can capture it. That way we can properly judge how good their performance is, including how they speak in other languages. Part of what made Waltz so impressive in Basterds was how well he spoke 4 languages. This whole “it’s only a little bit of AI” argument falls apart cause that’s why you don’t do it. If it’s such a minuscule amount, who cares if they don’t sound perfect? It’s just a little bit.
I know this part in the movie is brief, but I strongly believe that if we don’t criticize things like this & speak up, Hollywood will see that as an okay to use more & more AI in the future. It’s a slippery slope. Nonetheless, I enjoyed your video & the research you put into it! I learned a lot.
Hi Dan! Appreciate that you explained the situation in detail and for starting this discussion - I agree that this is an important discussion to be had and needs to be more nuanced. For context, I am a researcher who studies how AI / machine learning works. 1. Using AI Respeecher - There are three main components involved here. The source actor's voice recordings, the target voice recordings and the "set of models" (can be one or more models, we don't know) used to transform the voice from the source domain to the target domain. Looking into Respeecher's website, they train an AI model to transform the voice from source to target. This step only depends on the source and target voice recordings. From your exposition, it is clear that all actors' voices were used with their consent. Excellent! However, there is a catch! We don't know if Respeecher actually trained this model "from scratch" or if it is "built on top of an existing open source / propreitary model". If they build on an existing model, then the question is whether that model was trained with voices obtained with consent and sufficient remuneration to the participants. In my opinion, Respeecher does a lot of things right - they are quite open about their ethical commitments, if you take a look at their website. Some more openness regarding how and what existing models they use can bring a lot of clarity to the matter. Ideally, if they train a model "from scratch" based only on inputs (voice recordings, dialogues, etc) provided by creators involved in the project and no external models, this can be an excellent case for how AI tools can be used in an ethical manner. 2. When it comes to the generation of production ideas for buildings - isn't this known as concept art? It is known for a fact that Midjourney uses a lot of "stolen" art for it's training. One could always hire concept artists to perform this job. Using Midjourney to do this is lazy and a classic case of using art stolen from artists to also steal their jobs. Overall, the dicsussion of how AI tools are used needs to be nuanced. But, if we can agree that a specific AI tool is not ethical, it should be condmened and it doesn't matter if it is used for 1 minute in the movie or 1 hour in the movie. I also acknowledge that where we draw our ethics lines could vary based on our personal values. This is all the more reason to demand more transparency from such use of AI tools - to demand that they disclose as much information as possible - to facilitate the nuanced discussion around it.
As someone who knows more about the ins and outs of AI than I do, I have a genuine question for you. It's my understanding that generative AI will produce images based on the input that the program is given. I know that Midjourney has been criticized for sourcing from copyrighted images and art - but could the program have been given a set of images to generate from that were either cleared or free from copyright issues? Basically a limited set of data to use in order to generate an image, as they did with the Hungarian accents, using the actors' voices and the editor's voice as the template instead of pulling other Hungarian data? That wouldn't alleviate your feelings regarding using the program as a shortcut, but I feel that it would remove the issues around potentially stealing or co-opting work.
@@DanMurrellMovies Midjourney is a model that is trained using a specific dataset - if one has a problem with how that dataset was sourced, then one will have a problem with any application of that model. Midjourney does allow using a combination of images and text as prompts - I have not personally tried it though. But the output will still depend crtitically on the original dataset used for training the model. So, that will not address the copyright issues. Generating high-quality images is much harder than transforming one person's voice to another and typically requires a larger scale of data. Training on a limited dataset might produce average results - but maybe it is sufficient if it is only for concept art / inspiration. You can check out works of artist Sofia Crespo which are good examples of this - in one project she literally dived underwater to collect images, curated a set of images that resonate with what she wanted to express and then trained a model only on that data to then generate images (sofiacrespo.com/time-after-vessels/). Alternatively, if one wants art in a specific style, they could also reach out to specific artists and setup an agreement to use their art to train a model only for use in a movie's production with acceptable remuneration. This would be more reasonable and benefits artists whose works are being used.
@@DanMurrellMovies A limited set of images isn't enough for something like Midjourney to create useful output from. The way these systems work is by taking tens of thousands, or more likely, millions of inputs to "train" on. All this training creates a model that can then be used either directly or with the use of additional hints to hone down the output to more of what you want. It is very difficult, time-consuming, an expensive to start from scratch on something like this, so it's extremely unlikely that that was done in the case of this film. It's far more likely that they took an existing model (which means it's carrying along whatever baggage the initial creation of that model entailed) and then tweaked it using additional images (in this case, whatever brutalist architecture they could legally use). The time/cost/effort in training models and the millions of inputs they require mean you're almost certainly crossing ethics lines you'd rather not be crossing by using any of the existing tools currently available.
9:43 "At no point did this work supplant human involvement." I disagree. The film's editor said, "You can do this in ProTools yourself, but we had so much dialogue and Hungarian that we really needed to speed up the process." This is short-hand for "we did it this way to save resources, such as by not having to employ more people". I'm not arguing whether this is good or bad, but it did supplant human involvement; that's one of the selling points of AI. Now you might think that a movie on a tight budget is resource constrained anyway, in which case the only practical options might've been to use AI or settle for the shaky Hungarian dialogue. However, in a Capitalist system, every entity seeks to maximize profit--not just the cash-strapped ones. I'm concerned about a reality where the major studios never hire the dialogue coach because "AI can do that at lower cost" or never hire the illustrator because "Midjourney images are good enough". Dan says this slippery slope argument is just a "doom & gloom" scenario, but until there's a clear economic incentive for the business leaders in Hollywood **not** to do it, I see it as the most likely outcome.
Your argument doesn't really have any validity to it though. As Dan mentioned, it did not supplant human involvement. Unlike what you want to maliciously and falsely portray, no sentient computer program took people's jobs; rather, people who, are essentially data scientists, were brought on to the project in addition to those already working on it. Jobs were added not subtracted.
@@BH-2023 What the hell are you talking about. When people say "AI took people's jobs" they obviously don't mean a sentient AI is literally stealing jobs ("stealing jobs" is itself already a euphemism BTW...). They mean that the AI is doing work that a person would otherwise have (had) to do. I can honestly see the argument for the voice work that the "work" taken would have been ardurous and not any more "authentic" versus the Respeecher. But the point still stands that if they didn't use the AI, someone would have had to manually do the work in ProTools to achieve the same effect.
@@BH-2023maybe two jobs were added by bring on the A.I. data science BUT even more jobs could have been added if they hired the required number of people to do the work manually in protools OR push the release day and did the work manually with the people that they had. And I agree while being on the side that they shouldn’t be disqualified. However, it’s definitely a slippery slope. Because in the system/society we live in now very rich people have no benefit whatsoever NOT to cut cost and let A.I. do it. Like what’s stopping them from doing that even in cases where they have the money to hire the human beings?
Midjourney was trained on stolen art, period. If we allow it here for "less than a minute of screentime" it'll be less than five minutes next time, and it'll keep going from there. It's theft, it prevents people from being paid for work--even if it's "just" concept art--and it's wrong.
@imadudeokay still skipped the "pay someone to design it" step. Art will increasingly become an nonviable career as society continues to find workarounds to avoid ways to pay artists and designers, meaning the AI art that will do get will increasingly become even more homogenized by the lack of fresh talent to provide skilled input.
So, where do you think real artists would have gotten inspiration from when tasked with creating brutalist style buildings for this movie (as an example)? Would they have sat in a white room with no connection to the outside world or would they have looked through dozens of books about brutalist architecture? Why aren't you accusing them of theft when they learned to design brutalist architecture by looking at pictures of brutalist architecture done by others?
The use of generative AI did remove a paid gig. Instead of commissioning a brutalist architect in coming up with building ideas, they just used AI. So saying it didn’t cost anyone their job is deeply disingenuous
and saved time, allowing for more productions that even if hire less people - still ends up being more work, also it added work to the creators of AI engines, research, maintenance etc
To me the fact that they could have done this without AI is more of a condemnation of this than if couldn’t have done this without AI. To me that just means the studio is cutting corners and not paying someone for the work to do this manually like they should be.
My sense is they were trying to make it so perfect for Hungarian locals, as a thank you. More like the use of interpreters in Frozen 2 being authentic, with the Disney money with a known property. But it worked well enough they got it done, without Disney money. Frankly, this is harmless autotune work. Watch out for AI being truly abused in future movies. The Brutalist seems like a really great movie, by all accounts.
It's crazy to me that the narrative centers almost entirely around The Brutalist when Emilia Perez used the same AI tools. I barely see Emilia Perez mentioned in the conversation at all... I wonder why that is?
Because the problems with Emilia Perez are that it insults both Queer people and Mexico, so we (queer latinos like myself) hate it in many more profound ways than the way AI was used. The fact that the songs in E.P. took the places of better songs on the Oscar nominations rs like The Wo Ild Robot is terrible, especially now that we know the used AI on the singing voices. Still Emilia Perez is 2024's Green Book, and by that, I mean it is highly offensive and exploitaive of minorities to make white people feel better. And it only wins awards because Trump bad. Just like Green Book.
@ the thing is, I’m sure they could have commissioned original work from a professional for probably 2-3 thousand dollars. Hell, a talented architecture student would probably do it for $500. Seems dumb to risk the reputation of your film and artists to save a few hundred dollars on a reported 10 million dollar budget. I honestly wonder if they just thought it was easier for the existing illustration staff to “re-draw” the AI generated buildings then to bother reaching out to a local university and hire 1 person on a single commission.
@@Dk._while I completely agree that ai should not have been used and they should have just hired an architect. I would assume you can just hire an architecture student for cheap because of the unions and guilds in Hollywood. That still doesn’t give anyone an excuse to use midjourney though.
@@ham_cheese28 good point! I wonder how that works out when they hire non-union contributors like professors as historical consultants, science advisers and such. I think Kelly Reichardt hired several local ceramics artists for her indie film “Showing Up” I’ve also always assumed that whenever you see a famous painting in a film or tv show that they’ve hired an artists or art students to recreate those. Painting “master copies” is a common way for students to make money and probably the most common way for anyone to obtain one. Now I’m very curious.
On the topic of making essential sound mixing edits to the accent, it’s fine. Like are we going to start saying we can’t have sound dialogue mixed by sound engineers? Your point that it’s just another tool for a sound editor is spot on. Where I tend to disagree is on the generative part. They could’ve hired someone to concept the architecture instead of just a final pass by an illustrator. Any time generative is mentioned it irks me because that means it’s replacing someone creating, not to mention it’s also in a form stealing other people’s work potentially by using available art to create some amalgamation. Appreciate you breaking things down for folks Dan! Cheers
I see everyone talking about how they built the model and the ethics of that, but not the climate impact of it. To train a model it’s the equivalent of 300 round-trip flights from NY to San Francisco. And that’s ONE AI model, basically what they needed for this film. One ChatGPT search uses about 500 ml of water to cool down the processor. Considering the absolute devastation in LA this month, the fires in Australia last year and all the natural disaster that keep getting worse, I cannot comprehend how we’re not putting some strict laws in place for AI to be used on very strict fields where it’s needed, like medical research, not because “we’d still be in post” for a film.
To use AI just to slightly tweak imperfections in about 7mins of footage in a 3hr film does seem grossly indulgent, energy footprint very much included. These aren't Hungarian actors. They're never expected to be spot on for pronunciations - and they don't need to be for the dramatic impact of the film. It's questionable on a number of levels. edit/ Also, under a Trump regime partly puppeteered by techbros, the regulations around AI could very easily get so much worse. So this is probably the tip of the environment mangling iceberg.
I agree with you but I hope you don't eat meat considering the water required for that too. California's biggest water usage is for animal agriculture.
I think it’s a non-issue as there are much more wasteful uses of energy that provide far less value. For example, all the energy of electronics being in standby mode
@@draftacriss Yes, training models like Midjourney or ChatGPT uses as much as 300 round-trip flights. Using ChatGPT at scale across the world has severe environmental impact. I agree that we need to be more thoughtful about how and when to use any resource intensive technology. All that said, using an existing model to edit a few mins of audio or training a new model on a small amount of actor voices is significantly cheap. I would argue that rendering a 2 hour movie with simple cuts and fade-in, fade-out effects in 4K resolution would be much more expensive. Of course, it is going to be bad if every movie starts using such tech to dub entire movies.
the big companies "commit" to clean energy or to start using it - if and when..who knows, but I understand they are looking into nuclear energy, hope so, because the cost to the environment at the moment is huge
As someone who is openly against generative AI and thinks it has no use in art, I have no problem with it being used this way. The ADR was not a situation where a computer came up with an original idea or replaced someone else's job (in fact, they literally had the actors do the work before resorting to this tool). This was done with the actors' complete consent and doesn't even affect their performance, just how they said certain words. As for the props, the argument could be made that using AI for the prop designs is the same as consulting dozens of designers to get the right idea. Since the prop makers didn't use any of the raw AI image and simply used it as a reference, I see no problem here. Both of these are what I consider to be the *only* appropriate uses for AI in art.
I would rather humans do all work as other have said but @howveyouben i think your analysis is a reasonable measure of allowable. Ai is not going anywhere but it doesn't mean we demand limits as much as possible.
@ Honestly, with my future productions, I’d rather limit myself with using little CGI and no AI whatsoever. I’d much rather rely on practical effects, stuntwork and miniatures.
My problem with this comes down to the fact it's setting a precedent. There's nothing wrong in terms of using AI de-aged someone, however the real issue comes down to performance in this case spoken dialogue.
I appreciate you so much Dan for actually taking time to investigate and research topics and presenting facts and evidence in your videos. I am passionately against generative AI to create art and media, but this case has been overblown and is an example of using AI tools in service of human performances and imagination, which we’ve already been doing for years with other digital tools. As someone anti-Gen AI, I feel that we weaken our cause and arguments when we conflate all use of AI into binary black and white, good and bad, moral judgements and not understand the difference in cases in which creative professionals are using AI to help in their work as opposed to companies using AI in place of and taking away work from them.
It's kinda funny how most people who criticized Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones saying that they should be disqualified are the ones who haven't even seen the movie when the actual movie really shows that Brody and Jones were close to perfect as they could get with the characters that they are working. They both deserve their second Oscar nomination for the work and it's unfair how people discrediting their work just because of misinformation
Auto tune, anybody?... if an actor wants to be perceived as flawless in an awards contest, then the fact they are not should surely go against their evaluation of performance.
nah fixing the accent is ok but nah making one photo using ai should disqualify it. it's no longer art, art made through tools once the tool is the one generating object it's no longer art it's just an object whether it's 1 second of generated art or the whole move, they should not used Ai. if you don't have the budget or the time just don't add these drawings if it only 1 minutes at the end it will literally not affect and not that important then why don't they just cut it. are We no longer have pride in our art and craft.
In my personal opinion, despite this whole situation that is very complicated, I don't think it's fair to discredit how great Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones were in The Brutalist and I don't think doing this is really stealing anyone's jobs when they're just tweaking some Hungarian dialogue for two minutes near the end of the movie as of which, was trying to perfected their words. Remember that this is solely to enhance pronunciation accuracy and did not alter the Brody and Jones' performances. No English dialogue was modified and that the actors' performances remained entirely their own and I think this is where AI was used in the right way. And this is just as comparable as actors winning awards for using fat suits when they could just hire a fat person I think Brody and Jones deserves the award nominations because they were great in capturing the emotions of their characters and delivered exactly what the story needs. I'm not the biggest expert in this type of stuff but I think the controversy is a bit exaggerated and kinda misinterpret at the same time. Seriously tho, people really think that Brody and Jones used AI for the entire movie when it's just a 2 minutes scene near the end and the excuse was to fix their Hungarian words, not their accent? 😂
@@pseudonymous9153 Here's the thing, there's not as many actors who can speak different language and as experienced as Adrien Brody. Even when Felicity Jones can only speak English, she's a very skilled actress with a solid amount of track record. Maybe Hungaria has a lot of great actors but how many are they as good, experienced and very well known as Brody and Jones? And can they be guaranteed to attract investors to help fund the movie? And keep in mind, most of the dialogue in The Brutality were spoken in English, they only used Hungarian language for less than 10 minutes, near the end of the movie. So even if there are great Hungarian actors, if they can't speak English fluently, that's a problem. In the movie, Jones' character said that she attended Oxford for college, that's why she spoke English fluently. So yeah, there's that They need to sell a movie, they need to fund a movie, A24 wasn't involved in the production making, just the release strategy after it's acclaim at the Venice Film Festival. Having A listers like Brody, Jones, and even Guy Pearce is enough to attract investors to fund the movie. Even when Brody has been lacking these days, he is still a very well known actor with an Oscar in his hand. There's a reason why the marketing highlight Brody and Jones' name quite a lot, it's because they can sell the movie and most people knew who they are 🤷
I generally agree with your comments here, but really struggle on 2 points. One is that this AI work does take away from the industry. It's use was specifically to save time, and therefore money because someone doing this work would have gotten paid for that work. If it took 40 hours to edit the Hungarian or generate the architectural drawings, that's a week of someone's salary they don't get now. This is a bigger problem than the Brutalist since if they had a bigger budget and more time, they probably wouldn't have used since the filmmakers are clearly passionate about keeping industry jobs (see Cord Jefferson's 2024 academy award speech). The second is this is absolutely a slippery slope in my eyes. Where does this stop? Sure, in this film it's a small fraction, but when does that start to matter? 25%? 50? 100? Starting to have these conversations on the ethics of this technology now is way better than further down the line. It absolutely sucks that this is going to drag the brualist down, but if we keep ignoring it, it's only going to get worse. As morbid as this sounds, I would rather this film is shut out of the conversation for the Oscars this year and drive the industry down the correct path than let it compete fairly and possibly win and have the AI conversation go under the rug even longer (note I don't believe these options are mutually exclusive, just a sacrifice I think should be made for the greater good of film; again totally unfairly against the Brutalist, but life isn't fair). What's ironic is that I don't feel this is an egregious problem for this film specifically, but really do understand where the uproar is coming from. It's unfortunate this is going to hurt Brody's chances in the lead actor race when I personally believe this technology will be as prevalent as ADR and color grading in the near future. Now the generation of essentially props via AI is more worrisome in my eyes. It's basically saying it's OK to use an idea generated by AI to start my screenplay, one of the ways it's been talked about being used that I'd be worried about.
Something that's notable, and not remarked upon by the writer of the original article in his "apology" is that the article was inaccurate to begin with to describe "Much of the film's dialogue is in Hungarian" which as Dan noted, is in about 5 minutes of the film. I think that wording alone helped to mislead people further who hadn't seen the film and thought like half of the film at least was in Hungarian which is not the case.
I’m seeing The Brutalist tonight, and I was hesitant to watch this video beforehand in case you persuaded me not to see it. You did the opposite, and now I’m even more excited to see this movie!
So you are supporting disgusting people who use ai that is burning up tour world to avoid paying human artists? People like you are why the world is burning
With the voice stuff, I don't think that was the biggest deal (though I do think it's reasonable for it to be a factor when it comes to awards comparing it to performances that didn't need that kind alteration). The big issue to me is buildings. It doesn't matter it's not every building, it doesn't matter that real artists touched it up, that use of generative ai is creatively bankrupt and not something I can support. The use of something like midjourney is unethical for two reasons: 1) The dataset it's trained on stole and steals from real artists, and 2) That kind of generative ai does take away jobs. There is an inherent lack of creativity and artistry because you can't control the output. It's essentially the act of commissioning an artist to do the work for you, without actually paying an artist.
In the movie one can easily tell how the images shown at the end of the movie started off from an AI concept bc they have none of the principles of what guides brutalist architecture. Neither does the ugly church monument throughout the movie
Also, Adrien Brody has said that generative AI was not used in the creation of the props, so that part is already completely debunked. I think that the interviewee probably misspoke in that regard.
I disagree that AI is NOT a slippery slope. No amount of union policies or discourse will be able to save the vast majority of film industry professionals from being replaced by AI. However, I do agree that the measured use of AI should not discredit the human artistry of any given project.
I think in the case of color grading, the big difference is that a human still had to use their talent and skills and artistry to create those color grades to enhance the visuals. But when *generative* AI is used, they’re eliminating the need for the talent and skills and artistry of a human being. AI tools that help a creator make something aren’t necessarily bad, but I can’t get behind it when the AI tool is actually making the thing.
Well done, Dan. You could not have broken this down better. I think another good analogy is when some films were shot and edited using digital technology while some were still shot on film and edited by hand. Yet both types were still nominated for best film editing. Go Noles.
Thank you so much for breaking this down. I've been trying to break it down for people and now don't have to! For me, AI has become a little bit of a scary buzzword. I have no issue with audio trickery in movies. It’s been around forever. From replacing entire dialogue in adr to pitch shifting voices in musicals to even replacing people’s voices ENTIRElY with different people- especially during the early days of sound (did no one watch Singing in the Rain?). The idea of them using it rarely to shift some vowels doesn’t bother me at all. Especially as it gets the performance more authentic to the accent. However if people want to debate if Adrian Brody should be nominated when tech is being used to enhance his performance., fine. That is fair enough conversation to have, but I don't think it changes the fact he gave one of the best performances of the year. Again, my issue with AI is not on the basis of an abstract blanket scary buzzword and more when it is taking jobs from real artists (especially when the programs are being trained ON their art with no compensation). That to me is technological plagiarism while also putting people out of work. Using AI as another tool for storytelling or enhancement doesn’t bother me whatsoever. Hell even most of us UA-camrs are using EQ, soft compression and dynamics to enhance OUR voices and audio in our videos. So where is the line?
Thank you for the measured, thoughtful breakdown of this situation. I haven’t seen The Brutalist but based on your analysis (I still need to research myself), it seems like AI was part of the plan in December 2022… meaning the filmmakers were wholesomely embracing emerging AI technology before the strikes. They probably saw AI as an opportunity to maximize production value on a limited budget. Which… yeah it does. As an independent filmmaker myself, I know firsthand how expensive production can be. In some cases, using AI in *small, limited* capacities in pre-production can help create, communicate, and expand your creative vision. Like it or not, AI is democratizing filmmaking for a lot of creatives on the lower end. Not everyone can afford/has access to concept artists, storyboard artists, or designers. For big studios with budgets, it should be strictly no AI whatsoever. For no budget/truly independent filmmakers… I think it’s worth having a productive conversation about.
The use of Midjourney is the only red flag for me as while it might not have taken someone's job creating the drawings, the only way Midjourney can create those drawings is by scraping similar drawings and art without any credit or compensation to the artists whose work they scraped. Architectural illustration is an interesting one because buildings might be considered public domain anyway.
Well done Dan. I like these kinds of industry related topics explaining what’s going on or making the headlines. Your insight is always valuable and gives a nice variety from the usual reviews & reactions spiel
Um, no. Suspension of disbelief is a thing. We all know Brody and Jones are not Hungarian. If the acting is great, and it is, the audience will accept their slightly accented Hungarian and go on the narrative journey. We know it is a movie. DUH. Starting this trend of "fixing" every "error" on screen is a dangerous path to go down. What's next ? Editors manipulating facial expressions in post to "perfect" an emotion ? This is not art.
Personally I have nothing against using AI for something like this in a movie. I just dont think the actors should be nominated. Once you start tweaking certain parts using AI it's no longer the actors original performance. It might make the movie better, but it's not how the actors performed it.
My take on generative AI has always been that the main issues surrounding it is more about how it's used rather then AI itself being problematic. Like if people are using it to plagiarize scripts, then that's one thing, but for stuff like this or for translation issues then the use of generative AI is perfectly fine.
THIS is why I sub to this channel. For the FACTS. I heard about this controversy and after this explanation it is CLEARLY overblown ;like most things are on socials. FANTASTIC job with this Dan.
I agree with most you have said, but not all. What was the purpose of creating architectural AI generated images? Artists took the already created images and made them look more real and less AI generated, or created art based on them. Isn't that exactly how AI should not have been used? Literally replacing human creativity and inspiration while reducing artists to "AI fixers"? Fixing the pronunciation of a few vowels and consonants here and there is a non issue. The part where inspiration is removed from the human brain and given to AI is a huge issue, not because of the its volume in this movie, but on principle.
I think it depends on the purpose. Adding CGI to make an actor look like an ogre or a zombie is not a problem. Making the actor's voice sound like a robot or a monster is not a problem. Making an actor sound Hungarian is a problem, since you could train longer with the existing actor or hire a Hungarian actor if the pronunciation is so important
To be fair, between make-up, lighting, ADR, sound mixing and editing you could argue that actors' performances are altered to a large degree from the getgo. You would have to go see live theatre to see an actual unaltered performance, and even then it's still enhanced by make-up and sometimes audio engineering if microphones are used.
generative ai and cgi are different, cgi is usually still crafted by artists, while generative ai creates a result based on others artists’ work that goes uncredited, i seriously think there should be zero tolerance for generative ai in award’s circuits
@@jeanbutinfrench you still need an art director and specific artists to know how to use the AI tools - we've all seen bad AI just as bad CGI - you need pros behind these tools.
I’m sorry but AI no matter how much is being used has zero place in the arts, we’ve had some of the most grand and lavish epics made without it so it’s no excuse.
Hey Dan! I want to thank you for making a video about this topic and tackling it so thoroughly and succinctly. I feel like there have been so many reactionary takes to this that have been quite dismissive and closed-minded without looking beyond the click-bait headlines, and I think you articulated exactly what I was thinking about this incredible accomplishment. Kudos!!
Using AI to manage continuity with language and pronunciation is the type of nitpicky stuff that, had it been done by an amateur editor who "fixes" movies on UA-cam, would've been praised for having more attention to detail than the actual filmmakers.
Even the use of AI to de-age the buildings…vfx artists would be able to create that too :/ it’s just stealing jobs from humans and that’s why it needs to be regulated.
Dan, as always, comes in with research and facts. I appreciate this so much. While the use of AI to help the actors achieve a certain dialect doesn't really bother me, especially since it is such a small portion of the film, the use of it for the buildings does give me some pause. For me, the issue is not the possibility of AI art being used to help the artists, it is that AI was trained on art without the artist's knowledge and permission. I know at this point, that is a bell that can't be un-rung. No AI company is going to scrap their programs to rebuild AI and train it ethically, and any lawsuit on behalf of those who were stolen will make these companies compensate for what they took. But I still have a problem with it being used. Also, Dan's argument that no artists lost out on employment from the use of AI is false. The production company could have gone to an architecture firm for ideas for the buildings at the end of the film. Then it would have been a group of architects (an art form in its own right) designing those buildings and not AI.
I see this as a tool and the controversy is blown out of proportion. However: It's not a tool where things are simply added or changed. It's a tool that draws on existing ressources (often by artists) to create something "new". That's the only problem I have with this. A.I. doesn't conjure up something out of thin air, it steals people's work without any traceability. As soon as you use it to "create" something, you basically steal a tiny bit of someone else's vision and sell it as your own. But that's probably an issue I have with the use of A.I. in general, not just in film.
Yes, and I will add that we have to add perspective and zooming out here, Dan sounds outraged by arguing that this was used on a small thing, just 7 minutes of 3 hours bla bla, but it can be the beggining or something so questionable and challenging to discuss, is good to start taking about this now, even if in that case is considered ethical
@ thats a false equivalent. the sources where the models where trained to create the content is undisclosed, and the sources doesn't get credit or paid. if a record label use your music as a sample you have a legal system to get credit/paid/sue
I rarely disagree with you, but I really didn't like your point about ai being a decent alternative to bad accents. And how you kinda portrayed it as a 2 solutions issue. When there's the really obvious answer of just hiring actors who speak both languages fluently if you really cared about authenticity.
That's a pretty naive way of looking at it. The assumption that they could find multiple actors that fit the roles and speak both languages fluently is a big ask to begin with. The majority of people who speak Hungarian don't speak a second language and it could be something other than English. The bigger problem is that's not how movies work. They don't cast the same people in everything for no reason. Financing can come down to getting known lead actors. Besides, Adrian Brody has a Hungarian background and may have been the best option they could find and he still couldn't get it perfect. Given he's known for going to insane lengths to get things as accurate as possible he probably did everything he could. That's not really what Dan said either. I don't recall anything about just using AI to cover bad accents.
There is not an actor as famous as Adrian Brody that can speak both languages. It's as simple as that. They have to sell the movie to audiences, and even Adrian Brody isn't that huge of a name anymore.
Here's the thing, there's not as many actors who can speak different language and as experienced as Adrien Brody. Even when Felicity Jones can only speak English, she's a very skilled actress with a solid amount of track record. Maybe Hungaria has a lot of great actors but how many are they as good, experienced and very well known as Brody and Jones? And can they be guaranteed to attract investors to help fund the movie? They need to sell a movie, they need to fund a movie, A24 wasn't involved in the production making, just the release strategy after it's acclaim at the Venice Film Festival. Having A listers like Brody, Jones, and even Guy Pearce is enough to attract investors to fund the movie. Even when Brody has been lacking these days, he is still a very well known actor with an Oscar in his hand
As a hungarian, the accent was still off and his english accent would be different too. The wording felt off too, not how normal hungarians talk, more english words said in hungarian to fit in those contexts instead of actual native terms. I doubt the AI changes were necessary like this, also cause often it messed with the sound design sounding like ADR
This sounds like one of the good uses of generative AI. It’s not being trained on stolen data and it’s not replacing creative work by a human with plagiarised work. Not for the voice tweaks anyway. Possibly for the architectural drawings though, unless it was trained on a set that had permissions.
As a software developer I'm so tired of every company trying to push AI. It can be a useful tool but every business is peddling it as a magical bullet right now and most of the current uses for the tech are just a waste of electricity. That being said this actually sounds like one of the exact scenarios where using AI makes sense.
I enjoy your work Dan but the editing example is a bit disingenuous. The use of best takes doesn't mean that a computer performed the lines that weren't flubbed, it's still the Actor's work and the editor and director chose the best version of *the Actor's* performance. As others have noted this is a slippery slope, the whole thing just stinks and I hope they don't get rewarded for it. Edit: As for the "fallacy" point, there are people out there trying to put guardrails around monopolies, surveillance capitalism and a number of other ills that plague us as a result of the tech industry. How effective are they right now, a hint for you: your President had his broligarchs at the his inauguration.
Dan, as a fellow artist, I frankly disagree wholehartedly with your dissmissiveness on this issue. The voiceover stuff I think is a slippery slope, but what I am really sad about (as a struggling sketch artist who's been trying to kickstart a career for years) are the buildings being "based" on AI generated content rather than thought up by actual human artists. "We didn't have the money to do it manually" translates to "we weren't able to hire the proper amount of artists". So, yes, the use of AI in this case, did, pretty straightforwardly, supplant human involvement. There is not a single concept artist in the world that would willingly give away the most fun part of the job, i.e. the actual conception of the piece. The only reason one would do it is because they are under enourmous financial or time constraints. All AI does is facilitate crunch culture for the benefit of the people financing these products. The excuse of "its just 5 minutes" is also pretty silly to me, because this is all about precedent. If you have an Oscar-nominated movie using gen-AI to generate 5 minutes of buildings, then that's the perfect excuse for the next movie to generate 10 minutes of buildings and so forth. I know you love this movie, but we have to draw the line somewhere. I don't want to live in a world where popular art has minimal human input. Also, no, I don't want american superstars butchering foreign languages OR soulless machines generating parts of performances. If a script calls for an actor who knows a butch of languages, studios should hire actors that can do exactly that. Lord knows there's enough struggling actors out there. Also also, the excuse that "other movies do it too" is not really an excuse. Just because everyone does it doesn't make it ok. AI could be used as a fun tool, but when you have some of the world's most powerful systems and individuals vying to use it as a way to completely supplant human involvement, I think it's better to be safe than sorry. I believe in ostracising its use almost universally. The price to pay (having one less fun tool to work with, in a world with, already, almost infinite digital tools) is pretty small compared to the danger. In my opinion, the powers that be will always try and ease us into worse and worse situations using incremental normalisation. It is our job to stay vigilant. Sorry for the long comment! I value your insights immensly and I think your work is absolutely incredible. Keep it up.
People aren't going to see a movie starring some nobody just because he speaks a bunch of languages. What are you even talking about? You know they have to sell the movie to the audience before they see it, right? That's why they hire who they hire. Sorry that some unknown actors are struggling, but they're not getting Adrian Brody's part whether AI exists or not.
@@byers31303 I am tired of hearing this type of argument. In a discussion about how we don't want studios to make the money-driven decision, stating the obvious (that the decisions are money-driven) adds nothing to the discussion. If you think we are wasting our time with discussions like these, I get it, but then what are you even doing here?
@chrisdemetrious8593 it was a long comment because it needed to be long and I agree with it wholeheartedly. Also, a lot of the problems with the changes in productions pipelines is that people are no longer able to move up and learn the more specialized jobs. There's a lot of specialized knowledge that artisans know and use now that run the risk of being lost if people get used to relying on technology to do it and AI only worsens that in an exponential degree. It seems like nothing being lost now, but these things add up. AI technology for foreign languages like respecher can pose a real risk to endangered languages, because as AI taints the records, it starts being remembered not as it is but as how AI recreates it. I'm very fascinated by clothing history, and there's a bunch of things we just don't know how to make anymore because the processes were lost, after some decision was made to stop doing, usually for comercial reasons. For example, the US ran a campaign for the use of cotton so destructive that now we have to cut and process linen fibers on the cotton machinery, as it is the only one that exists, and we get worse fabric for it, as the whole advantage of linen comes from its naturally longer fibers. And that's with something tangible, how can we even measure the effect AI is having in our ability to keep records? The art we make today will be reference for the future, it is imperative that we keep AI from poisoning it.
@@chrisdemetriou8593 how can you just act like the financial aspect of this isn't significant? That's literally their business lol. Those movies don't exist otherwise. If you want to make the movie you suggest, then put your own millions on the line and be prepared to lose all of it.
Good video Dan, as always very thorough. These are mostly a PR issue. It is a fact that the unions are concerned about AI and there is no reason to knowingly rattle their cage. They are people with emotion. Studios and Unions should continue to understand each other and agree on how to use these tech and how to talk about it.
As a Ukrainian, I would like to note that I am very proud that this service is in such demand in Hollywood and makes the best films. I think you have to leave the actors alone because the movie goes through too much manipulation in the post-production. Respeecher is part of it.
I was not aware of this story prior to this so I am sure some of the outrage has misrepresented what happened but I can definitely understand the idea that if Ai is gonna start replacing human work in movies it would start with stuff like this. We were never gonna start with AI generated actors against everyone’s wishes. It was always gonna be “well it tightened up the process, kept us on schedule…” arguments at first.
One problem is that a lot of technologies that have in use for years have recently been rebranded as "AI". Stuff we used to be ok with is now suspect. Also, how much digital help did Rami Malek get for his Bohemian Rhapsody performance? I suspect a lot more than Brody did here. I also wonder how much help Chalamet got for his Dylan singing. Were there pitch correctors used? Probably.
I think it's still a sticking point for me, because a film gets nominated for an award precisely for getting these minute details right via human effort. I haven't seen the movie, but conceptually, it rubs me the wrong way.
I've now seen The Brutalist twice in IMAX and i don't care about them using AI because if you listen to how they used it and you're a reasonable person, it has ZERO impact on how phenomenal the film or actor's performances are. My first choice for Best Picture is Dune Part 2 but I understand it probably has no chance of actually winning so my next choice would absolutely be The Brutalist. Adrian Brody should be the favorite for Best Actor and Guy Pearce for Best Supporting Actor.
My wife is an artist and she uses photshop to put together elements of her picture before painting by hand on canvas. The detail of what the artists did for the buildings sounds similar, using AI to help visualise the composition before illustrating it by hand.
Today they enhance your accented performance to sound more “Authentic” and Tomorrow they “Enhance” your performance that beats out 100% Human Performances for Oscar and Emmy Awards smh
I have seen the movie and I still thinks it's a slippery slope. If the performances or production win awards then more creators will use AI next year and go further with it. The midjourney generative art that they copied will still be based on the work of real artists.
Here is a fun fact for you. When the "Intermission" started, 1/2 of the people there vanished! Quick run while the house lights are up. If they only knew the first part was the better part. I survived the Brutalist. But I now wish I had missed it all.
I appreciate your handling of this situation and the research done to cut through the noise of misinformation. That said, the filmmakers justified the use of AI to save time/money and that’s exactly why this snowball will eventually lead to an avalanche because studios will demand shorter production times and cost because the tools are there and they’ll just hire the people willing to use them.
But isn't my ability to perform the accent apart of what makes my performance great? If I'm AI enhanced to "fix" parts of it doesn't that mean my attempt to do the difficult accent is tainted?
I think it's a slippery slope, but we're already in it. I haven't seen the movie and I don't plan to see it soon, basically because I find 3 hr+ historical dramas very tiring. I don't think this should disqualify the actors, but I'm just sure that next year it will be used a bit more, and the next year a bit more, until we get to Secretariat featuring Bojack Horseman, where Bojack Horseman didn't set foot on set at any point :P The buildings in the final scene (again I have not seen the movie) bother me more. Basically because those are artistic decisions left to the robot. Someone's pronunciation of "köszönöm" is not really something that makes the movie, but there are so many movies where one frame just sticks to your head forever, and I really want those to be made by humans. Like the last frame of Oddity was for me probably the best scene of the year, but it would really break my heart if I found out that it was done with midjourny.
First of all I would like say thank you Dan for a great presentation. I agree with in that AI pitch toning is really a none issue if the performer has say in it. But on the Art generated AI wether is a minute or a hour.... generative AI are harvesting copyrighted art for its sampling model. The color grading color as a additive process is a great example but does not compare to generative AI that ignores the art eco system that it uses. Music that is sampled to make another song has legal obligation to credit and sometimes even pay royalty to create that song whether its a few seconds or a bass line for the whole song. As an illustrator this catch all generative AI is slippery slope when Art needs to take a short cut on the cheap. Like when Luc Besson (one of my favorite Directors) appropriated concept from John Carpenter. The lawsuit for uncreated concept art to create the world for 12 Monkeys. there was a way to hold those situation accountable and we can move on as artist. Generative AI art gives to plausible deniability if not held to a higher standard. BTW, a fan of this channel.
I think, especially with AI being the issue it is at present, that using it here isn’t worth it. If it’s so slight you won’t notice it, it’s not worth doing it, and if it’s enough to impact the movie, they shouldn’t have done it. Just let the accents have slight imperfections like most accents in film history.
I'll absolutely take those accent imperfections, just reminds me that I'm watching a human attempting a craft. I don't need a squeaky clean robot-processed voice.
They're not false claims. This movie was made using AI. If you're okay with that in small doses in an Oscar Winner then the studios will take it that you're okay with it in larger doses for mass market media going forward. Giving this any awards is tacitly signing off on all usage of AI going forward as long as the same argument used here can apply. There is a ton of human labor that can be argued to be replaceable without harming artistic integrity so think rationally when you sign off on these arguments. Is a human being animating CGI anymore important to artistic integrity than a human learning a dialect correctly? If not why shouldn't AI be able to take over that job since the real artistic vision is with the director, not the VFX worker? This argument will be stretched to its absolute limits if you accept it and you're naive as all get out if you don't realize that's exactly the plan. They could have done this manually, they want to set the precedent. You choose what to do accordingly. I won't be giving an inch to someone looking hungrily at all those employees taking their hard earned profit.
@@VirgilOvid I thought this same thing. What does the validation of this film indirectly say about ai use. People are definitely watching from that angle to determine their own steps in future filmmaking.
Thank you for all the detail. This lays everything out perfectly and I have zero issue with how AI was used in this movie. Now the Bourdain doc?? That's over the line on multiple levels.
Appreciated the discussion. Would also like to hear your thoughts on the Emilia Perez BP backlash; I know we got some in your Oscar nominations video, but hating the film seems to have gone viral.
Happy Monday Dan! Thank you for posting this video. I had not heard about this controversy. I haven't seen The Brutalist yet. Tried to this past weekend but couldn't fit it into my schedule. Did see Anora. Loved it. Thanks for recommending BTW! I really appreciate you explaining this whole story. Between the articles and rewatching the movie; this must have been a very time consuming video to put together. Again, really appreciate it. AI isn't going away and I'm sure there's going to be more stories like this soon. Keep being the amazing person you are!
I will say it is also very amusing to be that some of the people crying for Jones and Brody to be disqualified, are the same people who wanted Andy Serkis to be nominated for his Mocap performances, even though the animators of those performances admitted to changing his performance when needed.
Dan, I see your points, and I (for the most part) agree with you. However, the power and leverage studios have over the careers of actors, directors, and film crews can be utilized to have people agree to things like allowing the use of generative AI to "enhance," aspects of a film. If someone disagrees with the studio, and doesn't want to use AI? Then what's the likelihood of that person being hired in the industry again? Normalizing the use of generative AI in films won't stop, until studios feel the backlash financially.
I've noticed in a lot of your videos that you take the time to pronunciate (for you) foreign words. I really apreciate that, thanks for that extra work, it means a lot.
@@jeanbutinfrench I’m not sure I’m assuming it was humans and not AI , but my point is part of his auditory performance was altered electronically // it wasn’t 100% him and he was still eligible .
I think they need to compensate the artists whose work is used to train AI before it can be appropriately used for commercial purposes. As well, the issue of whether AI voice manipulation impacts perception of performances, and how much scale influences, is one on which reasonable people can disagree. In this case, it seems very minor.
I am shocked that people on the internet have taken this to 11 without thinking or reading first! Thanks, as always, to Dan, who is increasingly our collective voice of reason
I'm a generally a huge AI detractor, but I think I'm largely ok with the first use of it described here. The second though crosses a line for me. Humans should create art, not algorithms.
However I agree with Dan that neither of these things should disqualify the film from awards consideration. The latter merely disqualifies it from my respect.
The future of AI is feared in the same way automation has rendered humans redundant in other industries... it is becoming evident that movie companies want to cut out the middlemen(actors, designers, etc) in the creation of movies.
Wait..so they went to great lengths for the Hungarian to sound authentic even to native speakers, and they did not even try in Emilia Perez to come even close to what Mexican spanish..unbelievable
As someone who writes for a living, I hate seeing people use AI to write things for them or use it as the central basis for their ideas. It has stripped away creativity and worries me that we're going to hand over these jobs to our robot overlords. With that being said, I use AI like spellcheck and Grammarly daily. It is a useful tool and should be used as a tool. It seems like that's what has happened with The Brutalist. They didn't use AI to generate the movie, it was merely a means for minor edits. I'm okay with that, but we should be careful to not let it go beyond that sort of reach.
Spellcheck and Grammarly are pretty different beasts from the generative image/audio tools being talked about here. They're created in fundamentally different ways, such that the same ethics concerns really don't apply to those older tools.
Thanks for doing all that research and clearing things up, I feel like big name publishers are just going with the clickbaity headlines to get clicks while you on your own are doing more legit work
I feel like they should've left it as is. Part of what I like about film is those little imperfections and anachronistic features. One thing no one seems to compare it to is autotune. Our favorite singers rarely sound the same recorded and live, so why's this a huge issue?
While I can understand saying that the AI generated things don't appear for more than a minute in the movie therefore it shouldn't be disqualified from anything I also want to raise awareness for the fact that most of the stuff the art department comes up with don't get more than a few seconds of screen time as well. And it's important to know that, for those tiny seconds of screen time, there's a huge effort from many incredibly talented artists pouring their soul at what they're doing. And they are really really proud to see their work making it to the final product.
I wouldn't blanket condemn all AI use, but something that I'd need to know before deciding whether it's acceptable in the building drawings part is: what training data did the model use? If they used a model trained on stolen data like so many are, that's a problem. Otherwise I pretty much agree with Dan.
I appreciate your perspective on this Dan. Where I disagree is the amount and intention on perfection. Amount: While The Brutalist utilizes these AI tools for a tiny percent of the film, what number or threshold will the next film have to cross for us to start to condemn the usage? We are saying THIS use is fine because the tools aren't used overwhelmingly but we could be entering dangerous territory in the future. Intention on perfection: For me, this art form is about striving for perfection and how close we can get to it. Movies will never be perfect. The edit is compromised in moments. Exposure is not always nailed. On-set audio is sometimes unusable. Brody and Jones, I'm sure worked with dialect coaches and then everything else should be them working towards trying to be as perfect as possible. For me, manipulating their performances this way slightly cheapens the work on their language attempt. Same way Timmy is being praised for his Dylan performance, it is not a complete 1:1 but it is great enough for the attempt and source material. I would rather have a "flawed" accent/language attempt than a better one that was artificially manipulated. Great video as always. You have created such a great space for film lovers.
I love Dan's reasonableness with these types of issues. He doesn't post a knee-jerk reaction online; he researches the truth and draws conclusions from facts. Oh if the entirety of online discourse managed the same, the internet would be a better place. Keep up the good work, Dan!
Dan, will always be, the Man.
And I mean that. To me a real "Man" is one who utilizes all his tools, all his human knowledge.
Dan always takes in everything he can before speaking, and even if something comes up later, he takes that in and adjusts.
Thank you Dan for being rational in an irrational world
He truly is the best and I keep recommending his channel everywhere at every turn
He truly is the best, may not always agree with his review on movies and that's fine but in terms of searching the facts, he's definitely the best
It’s no wonder he kept winning movie fights 😁
the fact is they use ai. case closed.
This is a well made and researched video, but as someone who works with artists in the animation industry, I don't think it's fair to say that AI did not replace jobs on The Brutalist. I truly have no problem with respeecher here, I do audio editing to performances all the time myself as an editor, but the use of Midjourney to design some of the art at the end, even though it is a small amount of it for the overall runtime, means that
A) A concept designer or architect was NOT hired to make those designs (probably a cost cutting measure but still) and
B) Other actual architects work was scraped by Midjourney in order to create those designs.
The fact that an artist then redrew them is beside the point. A human did not come up with those designs and the designs themselves are cumulatively taken from a larger data set. Now the ethics of this can be argued, but I think enough people see the moral dilemma with credit as far as this is concerned, especially considering this is a film ABOUT an architect. Seems sketchy to a lot of people to not hire an architect to make those designs. Just my 2 cents!
Also I was a fan of this movie, btw! I also liked Late Night With the Devil, but I won't lie and say that the use of Generative AI specifically hasn't soured the legacy of both films for me personally. This is something we're going to have to come to terms with quickly in this industry, and it's something that creative unions are currently fighting hard over. The next few years are going to be trippy when it comes to this kind of thing!
This is a genuinely valid point. $10m is certainly a very small budget and I'm sure it was stretched thin as is to get this film finished and out to the world, but it seems at least somewhat within reason that someone could have been hired for the concept art. It's a tough thing to criticize in this case specifically.
While I find your first point fair, the second isn't so relevant here in my opinion.
If they hired a concept artist to create the designs from scratch, they would've likely taken inspiration from a row of real-life iconic brutalist designs, none of which would be credited either way.
I think it's fair to talk about where the original data comes from, when the art in question is not inherently (and by very specific requirement) derivative.
I think the task "create a design of building" is not the same in this sense as "create a design of a building that bears resemblence to iconic brutalist designs".
@@danieltatar7575completely understand, and I think this is the ethical debate around machine learning models generally. All art is inherently derivative, and I understand influence being a part of the creative process. The difference for me is a human artist can point to something and say I was influenced by this person where a ML model purposefully removes and obfuscates credit.
Anyway it's a nuanced conversation that sort of falls outside the scope of this video, but that's where a lot of concept artists specifically take issue with generative AI.
This is exactly my thought process too. Generative AI steals from artists, it doesn't really matter if it's only a tiny little detail in a larger project. I don't think it means the movie should be disqualified but I think we should make it clear as artists that we don't approve of using Generative AI to replace real artists
It's far less important to punish this one film and those involved in it. But far more important to have clarity and regulations for how we approach AI in film in the future. This was one film with artists who understood the importance of maintaining human performance. But without rules 7 minutes may become more to any producers or artists who care more for faster and faster, rather than more personal.
I agree - that’s why guidelines have to be set and followed.
If anything, their open mention about AI usage is for honesty and integrity, not to "brag".
@@r3dr4te963 it's to set a precedent. Nobody can deny knowing about the ai elements so it's crystal clear what a win for this movie means. If you're okay with it in this movie it will be used in more movies. More often. More brazenly.
I think most people are more afraid that if we give studios an inch, they'll take a mile.
If we don't punish AI in it's smallest forms, studios will take that as evidence that they can get away with much worse.
nothing wrong with ai though, games and nvidia uses it all the time and has many benefits
Studios would replace /all/ actors yesterday if AI and cgi could. And it will happen sooner or later. One of the biggest costs of any production js labor. Maybe not in our lifetimes, but it’s an inevitability.
I understand that notion, but at the same time I view ai (the stuff created recently) like photoshop. Its not using which is bad, its the tech ceo etc idea of replacing everyone, And I think we should fight them more on that point. Using it as a tool to assist creative people is great. And honestly that what it looks like they did here.
I mean sure maybe they could have hired a few vocal coaches, and spent months better learning the lanauge (likely more as its Hungarian). But for just some upped pronunciation on a few letters this saves them a lot of time. Which helps them all.
I see where you’re coming from, but it’s a futile effort. There is no public backlash that will stop this tech from changing our everyday lives. For better or worse.
@@ChrisMeadows92 I fundamentally disagree with this statement. Nuclear weapons are an 80+ year old technology that has been kept in check for that long bc there’s been wide spread resistance to it.
Saying it’s just a part of life and shrugging shoulders is how other places have figured out gun control or universal healthcare while the US (in this instance) struggles. It’s an issue of actual collective will and it’s only inevitable bc we went from opposing AI just months back through the actors’ strike to “ehh, what are we gonna do about it.”
Thanks for putting this together, Dan! Just fyi, "Jancsó" is pronounced more like "yawn-chow" (just in case he wins the Oscar and you need to say his name again). Sincerely, a Hungarian fan of yours, who feels weird about this whole language controversy.
Useful info! Magyarul is indeed HARD, very phonetically UNfriendly! 😂 Koszonom
Dan needs some AI help to pronounce Jancsó’s name 😜
My main gripe with the use of AI in filmmaking is that, even when used ethically, it could lay the ground for others to use it in a much more unethical way.
exactly, you let them be seen as "small things" now then when its a bigger thing down the line then people want to reflect on how they should've been serious about back then
we said this about blockbusters getting more prestige recognition and now every blockbuster is so afraid to be fun since the audience's expectations are too high for entertainment value and messaging which now make them the sole type of movie hollywood sees as worth making, threatening mid to smaller movies
I absolutely agree and I think there should be some sort of guidelines to know how much they can use AI and the reasoning so filmmakers cannot use it in an unethical way. As great as Brody and Jones are in this movie and I get the whole AI controversy, I don't think it's fair to say that they should be disqualified for a 10 minute scene and was to improve their Hungarian dialogue, not replacing them into something else. It's like using autotune for singers that have been either praised or even criticized
Where AI crosses the line is when it's used without people's consent e.g. actors.
The Anthony Bourdain case is a perfect example of where the use of AI completely crosses the line into unethical.
But that's the same with anything. AI is just another tool. It's possible to use any tool in the wrong way. For example using CGI in a documentary without informing the audience. Obviously wrong - but that doesn't mean we shouldn't use CGI generally
Yes, the answer is use the accents as best as the human can capture it. That way we can properly judge how good their performance is, including how they speak in other languages. Part of what made Waltz so impressive in Basterds was how well he spoke 4 languages.
This whole “it’s only a little bit of AI” argument falls apart cause that’s why you don’t do it. If it’s such a minuscule amount, who cares if they don’t sound perfect? It’s just a little bit.
I know this part in the movie is brief, but I strongly believe that if we don’t criticize things like this & speak up, Hollywood will see that as an okay to use more & more AI in the future. It’s a slippery slope. Nonetheless, I enjoyed your video & the research you put into it! I learned a lot.
Hi Dan! Appreciate that you explained the situation in detail and for starting this discussion - I agree that this is an important discussion to be had and needs to be more nuanced. For context, I am a researcher who studies how AI / machine learning works.
1. Using AI Respeecher - There are three main components involved here. The source actor's voice recordings, the target voice recordings and the "set of models" (can be one or more models, we don't know) used to transform the voice from the source domain to the target domain. Looking into Respeecher's website, they train an AI model to transform the voice from source to target. This step only depends on the source and target voice recordings. From your exposition, it is clear that all actors' voices were used with their consent. Excellent! However, there is a catch! We don't know if Respeecher actually trained this model "from scratch" or if it is "built on top of an existing open source / propreitary model". If they build on an existing model, then the question is whether that model was trained with voices obtained with consent and sufficient remuneration to the participants. In my opinion, Respeecher does a lot of things right - they are quite open about their ethical commitments, if you take a look at their website. Some more openness regarding how and what existing models they use can bring a lot of clarity to the matter. Ideally, if they train a model "from scratch" based only on inputs (voice recordings, dialogues, etc) provided by creators involved in the project and no external models, this can be an excellent case for how AI tools can be used in an ethical manner.
2. When it comes to the generation of production ideas for buildings - isn't this known as concept art? It is known for a fact that Midjourney uses a lot of "stolen" art for it's training. One could always hire concept artists to perform this job. Using Midjourney to do this is lazy and a classic case of using art stolen from artists to also steal their jobs.
Overall, the dicsussion of how AI tools are used needs to be nuanced. But, if we can agree that a specific AI tool is not ethical, it should be condmened and it doesn't matter if it is used for 1 minute in the movie or 1 hour in the movie.
I also acknowledge that where we draw our ethics lines could vary based on our personal values. This is all the more reason to demand more transparency from such use of AI tools - to demand that they disclose as much information as possible - to facilitate the nuanced discussion around it.
As someone who knows more about the ins and outs of AI than I do, I have a genuine question for you. It's my understanding that generative AI will produce images based on the input that the program is given. I know that Midjourney has been criticized for sourcing from copyrighted images and art - but could the program have been given a set of images to generate from that were either cleared or free from copyright issues? Basically a limited set of data to use in order to generate an image, as they did with the Hungarian accents, using the actors' voices and the editor's voice as the template instead of pulling other Hungarian data? That wouldn't alleviate your feelings regarding using the program as a shortcut, but I feel that it would remove the issues around potentially stealing or co-opting work.
@@DanMurrellMovies Midjourney is a model that is trained using a specific dataset - if one has a problem with how that dataset was sourced, then one will have a problem with any application of that model. Midjourney does allow using a combination of images and text as prompts - I have not personally tried it though. But the output will still depend crtitically on the original dataset used for training the model. So, that will not address the copyright issues.
Generating high-quality images is much harder than transforming one person's voice to another and typically requires a larger scale of data. Training on a limited dataset might produce average results - but maybe it is sufficient if it is only for concept art / inspiration. You can check out works of artist Sofia Crespo which are good examples of this - in one project she literally dived underwater to collect images, curated a set of images that resonate with what she wanted to express and then trained a model only on that data to then generate images (sofiacrespo.com/time-after-vessels/). Alternatively, if one wants art in a specific style, they could also reach out to specific artists and setup an agreement to use their art to train a model only for use in a movie's production with acceptable remuneration. This would be more reasonable and benefits artists whose works are being used.
@@DanMurrellMovies A limited set of images isn't enough for something like Midjourney to create useful output from. The way these systems work is by taking tens of thousands, or more likely, millions of inputs to "train" on. All this training creates a model that can then be used either directly or with the use of additional hints to hone down the output to more of what you want. It is very difficult, time-consuming, an expensive to start from scratch on something like this, so it's extremely unlikely that that was done in the case of this film. It's far more likely that they took an existing model (which means it's carrying along whatever baggage the initial creation of that model entailed) and then tweaked it using additional images (in this case, whatever brutalist architecture they could legally use). The time/cost/effort in training models and the millions of inputs they require mean you're almost certainly crossing ethics lines you'd rather not be crossing by using any of the existing tools currently available.
9:43 "At no point did this work supplant human involvement."
I disagree. The film's editor said, "You can do this in ProTools yourself, but we had so much dialogue and Hungarian that we really needed to speed up the process." This is short-hand for "we did it this way to save resources, such as by not having to employ more people".
I'm not arguing whether this is good or bad, but it did supplant human involvement; that's one of the selling points of AI.
Now you might think that a movie on a tight budget is resource constrained anyway, in which case the only practical options might've been to use AI or settle for the shaky Hungarian dialogue. However, in a Capitalist system, every entity seeks to maximize profit--not just the cash-strapped ones. I'm concerned about a reality where the major studios never hire the dialogue coach because "AI can do that at lower cost" or never hire the illustrator because "Midjourney images are good enough".
Dan says this slippery slope argument is just a "doom & gloom" scenario, but until there's a clear economic incentive for the business leaders in Hollywood **not** to do it, I see it as the most likely outcome.
Your argument doesn't really have any validity to it though. As Dan mentioned, it did not supplant human involvement. Unlike what you want to maliciously and falsely portray, no sentient computer program took people's jobs; rather, people who, are essentially data scientists, were brought on to the project in addition to those already working on it. Jobs were added not subtracted.
@@BH-2023 What the hell are you talking about. When people say "AI took people's jobs" they obviously don't mean a sentient AI is literally stealing jobs ("stealing jobs" is itself already a euphemism BTW...). They mean that the AI is doing work that a person would otherwise have (had) to do.
I can honestly see the argument for the voice work that the "work" taken would have been ardurous and not any more "authentic" versus the Respeecher. But the point still stands that if they didn't use the AI, someone would have had to manually do the work in ProTools to achieve the same effect.
@@BH-2023maybe two jobs were added by bring on the A.I. data science BUT even more jobs could have been added if they hired the required number of people to do the work manually in protools OR push the release day and did the work manually with the people that they had. And I agree while being on the side that they shouldn’t be disqualified. However, it’s definitely a slippery slope. Because in the system/society we live in now very rich people have no benefit whatsoever NOT to cut cost and let A.I. do it. Like what’s stopping them from doing that even in cases where they have the money to hire the human beings?
Midjourney was trained on stolen art, period. If we allow it here for "less than a minute of screentime" it'll be less than five minutes next time, and it'll keep going from there. It's theft, it prevents people from being paid for work--even if it's "just" concept art--and it's wrong.
but did they not redraw by hand after?
@imadudeokay still skipped the "pay someone to design it" step. Art will increasingly become an nonviable career as society continues to find workarounds to avoid ways to pay artists and designers, meaning the AI art that will do get will increasingly become even more homogenized by the lack of fresh talent to provide skilled input.
So, where do you think real artists would have gotten inspiration from when tasked with creating brutalist style buildings for this movie (as an example)?
Would they have sat in a white room with no connection to the outside world or would they have looked through dozens of books about brutalist architecture?
Why aren't you accusing them of theft when they learned to design brutalist architecture by looking at pictures of brutalist architecture done by others?
@@Tokru86Because you are paying for a book of reference art, or borrowing a book from a library which was paid for by the library.
@Tokru86 because they're not a literal machine being fed data to generate an output. They're people.
The use of generative AI did remove a paid gig. Instead of commissioning a brutalist architect in coming up with building ideas, they just used AI.
So saying it didn’t cost anyone their job is deeply disingenuous
and saved time, allowing for more productions that even if hire less people - still ends up being more work, also it added work to the creators of AI engines, research, maintenance etc
Thanks for always pushing forward nuanced, adult conversations.
To me the fact that they could have done this without AI is more of a condemnation of this than if couldn’t have done this without AI. To me that just means the studio is cutting corners and not paying someone for the work to do this manually like they should be.
My sense is they were trying to make it so perfect for Hungarian locals, as a thank you. More like the use of interpreters in Frozen 2 being authentic, with the Disney money with a known property. But it worked well enough they got it done, without Disney money. Frankly, this is harmless autotune work. Watch out for AI being truly abused in future movies. The Brutalist seems like a really great movie, by all accounts.
It's crazy to me that the narrative centers almost entirely around The Brutalist when Emilia Perez used the same AI tools. I barely see Emilia Perez mentioned in the conversation at all... I wonder why that is?
Because the problems with Emilia Perez are that it insults both Queer people and Mexico, so we (queer latinos like myself) hate it in many more profound ways than the way AI was used. The fact that the songs in E.P. took the places of better songs on the Oscar nominations rs like The Wo
Ild Robot is terrible, especially now that we know the used AI on the singing voices. Still Emilia Perez is 2024's Green Book, and by that, I mean it is highly offensive and exploitaive of minorities to make white people feel better. And it only wins awards because Trump bad. Just like Green Book.
I hadn’t heard about that at all, where did EP use AI?
Dan, mentions it in the video@@joneau261
@@joneau261 AI was used to adjust Gascon’s voice so they could finesse her higher pitch when singing. Kind of like a cleaner autotune of sorts
Emilia Perez already has much bigger controversies.
It's the thin end of the wedge, which is why I think people within the industry are concerned.
7:13 I’m honestly astonished that they didn’t just hire an architect to draw the building sketches.
lazy fools
AI has made the process cheaper... that is the bottom line, sadly.
@ the thing is, I’m sure they could have commissioned original work from a professional for probably 2-3 thousand dollars. Hell, a talented architecture student would probably do it for $500. Seems dumb to risk the reputation of your film and artists to save a few hundred dollars on a reported 10 million dollar budget.
I honestly wonder if they just thought it was easier for the existing illustration staff to “re-draw” the AI generated buildings then to bother reaching out to a local university and hire 1 person on a single commission.
@@Dk._while I completely agree that ai should not have been used and they should have just hired an architect. I would assume you can just hire an architecture student for cheap because of the unions and guilds in Hollywood. That still doesn’t give anyone an excuse to use midjourney though.
@@ham_cheese28 good point! I wonder how that works out when they hire non-union contributors like professors as historical consultants, science advisers and such. I think Kelly Reichardt hired several local ceramics artists for her indie film “Showing Up”
I’ve also always assumed that whenever you see a famous painting in a film or tv show that they’ve hired an artists or art students to recreate those. Painting “master copies” is a common way for students to make money and probably the most common way for anyone to obtain one.
Now I’m very curious.
On the topic of making essential sound mixing edits to the accent, it’s fine. Like are we going to start saying we can’t have sound dialogue mixed by sound engineers? Your point that it’s just another tool for a sound editor is spot on.
Where I tend to disagree is on the generative part. They could’ve hired someone to concept the architecture instead of just a final pass by an illustrator. Any time generative is mentioned it irks me because that means it’s replacing someone creating, not to mention it’s also in a form stealing other people’s work potentially by using available art to create some amalgamation.
Appreciate you breaking things down for folks Dan! Cheers
I see everyone talking about how they built the model and the ethics of that, but not the climate impact of it. To train a model it’s the equivalent of 300 round-trip flights from NY to San Francisco. And that’s ONE AI model, basically what they needed for this film. One ChatGPT search uses about 500 ml of water to cool down the processor. Considering the absolute devastation in LA this month, the fires in Australia last year and all the natural disaster that keep getting worse, I cannot comprehend how we’re not putting some strict laws in place for AI to be used on very strict fields where it’s needed, like medical research, not because “we’d still be in post” for a film.
To use AI just to slightly tweak imperfections in about 7mins of footage in a 3hr film does seem grossly indulgent, energy footprint very much included.
These aren't Hungarian actors. They're never expected to be spot on for pronunciations - and they don't need to be for the dramatic impact of the film. It's questionable on a number of levels.
edit/ Also, under a Trump regime partly puppeteered by techbros, the regulations around AI could very easily get so much worse. So this is probably the tip of the environment mangling iceberg.
I agree with you but I hope you don't eat meat considering the water required for that too. California's biggest water usage is for animal agriculture.
I think it’s a non-issue as there are much more wasteful uses of energy that provide far less value. For example, all the energy of electronics being in standby mode
@@draftacriss Yes, training models like Midjourney or ChatGPT uses as much as 300 round-trip flights. Using ChatGPT at scale across the world has severe environmental impact. I agree that we need to be more thoughtful about how and when to use any resource intensive technology. All that said, using an existing model to edit a few mins of audio or training a new model on a small amount of actor voices is significantly cheap. I would argue that rendering a 2 hour movie with simple cuts and fade-in, fade-out effects in 4K resolution would be much more expensive. Of course, it is going to be bad if every movie starts using such tech to dub entire movies.
the big companies "commit" to clean energy or to start using it - if and when..who knows, but I understand they are looking into nuclear energy, hope so, because the cost to the environment at the moment is huge
As someone who is openly against generative AI and thinks it has no use in art, I have no problem with it being used this way. The ADR was not a situation where a computer came up with an original idea or replaced someone else's job (in fact, they literally had the actors do the work before resorting to this tool). This was done with the actors' complete consent and doesn't even affect their performance, just how they said certain words.
As for the props, the argument could be made that using AI for the prop designs is the same as consulting dozens of designers to get the right idea. Since the prop makers didn't use any of the raw AI image and simply used it as a reference, I see no problem here. Both of these are what I consider to be the *only* appropriate uses for AI in art.
I’d still rather have humans do all the production and prop design for films.
I agree
Well said 👏 👌🏼
I would rather humans do all work as other have said but @howveyouben i think your analysis is a reasonable measure of allowable. Ai is not going anywhere but it doesn't mean we demand limits as much as possible.
@ Honestly, with my future productions, I’d rather limit myself with using little CGI and no AI whatsoever. I’d much rather rely on practical effects, stuntwork and miniatures.
My problem with this comes down to the fact it's setting a precedent.
There's nothing wrong in terms of using AI de-aged someone, however the real issue comes down to performance in this case spoken dialogue.
I appreciate you so much Dan for actually taking time to investigate and research topics and presenting facts and evidence in your videos. I am passionately against generative AI to create art and media, but this case has been overblown and is an example of using AI tools in service of human performances and imagination, which we’ve already been doing for years with other digital tools. As someone anti-Gen AI, I feel that we weaken our cause and arguments when we conflate all use of AI into binary black and white, good and bad, moral judgements and not understand the difference in cases in which creative professionals are using AI to help in their work as opposed to companies using AI in place of and taking away work from them.
It's kinda funny how most people who criticized Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones saying that they should be disqualified are the ones who haven't even seen the movie when the actual movie really shows that Brody and Jones were close to perfect as they could get with the characters that they are working. They both deserve their second Oscar nomination for the work and it's unfair how people discrediting their work just because of misinformation
Auto tune, anybody?... if an actor wants to be perceived as flawless in an awards contest, then the fact they are not should surely go against their evaluation of performance.
nah fixing the accent is ok but nah making one photo using ai should disqualify it. it's no longer art, art made through tools once the tool is the one generating object it's no longer art it's just an object
whether it's 1 second of generated art or the whole move, they should not used Ai. if you don't have the budget or the time just don't add these drawings if it only 1 minutes at the end it will literally not affect and not that important then why don't they just cut it.
are We no longer have pride in our art and craft.
In my personal opinion, despite this whole situation that is very complicated, I don't think it's fair to discredit how great Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones were in The Brutalist and I don't think doing this is really stealing anyone's jobs when they're just tweaking some Hungarian dialogue for two minutes near the end of the movie as of which, was trying to perfected their words. Remember that this is solely to enhance pronunciation accuracy and did not alter the Brody and Jones' performances. No English dialogue was modified and that the actors' performances remained entirely their own and I think this is where AI was used in the right way. And this is just as comparable as actors winning awards for using fat suits when they could just hire a fat person
I think Brody and Jones deserves the award nominations because they were great in capturing the emotions of their characters and delivered exactly what the story needs. I'm not the biggest expert in this type of stuff but I think the controversy is a bit exaggerated and kinda misinterpret at the same time. Seriously tho, people really think that Brody and Jones used AI for the entire movie when it's just a 2 minutes scene near the end and the excuse was to fix their Hungarian words, not their accent? 😂
For the record, I'm team hire fat actors and don't use fat suits, lol
@@pseudonymous9153 Here's the thing, there's not as many actors who can speak different language and as experienced as Adrien Brody. Even when Felicity Jones can only speak English, she's a very skilled actress with a solid amount of track record. Maybe Hungaria has a lot of great actors but how many are they as good, experienced and very well known as Brody and Jones? And can they be guaranteed to attract investors to help fund the movie? And keep in mind, most of the dialogue in The Brutality were spoken in English, they only used Hungarian language for less than 10 minutes, near the end of the movie. So even if there are great Hungarian actors, if they can't speak English fluently, that's a problem. In the movie, Jones' character said that she attended Oxford for college, that's why she spoke English fluently. So yeah, there's that
They need to sell a movie, they need to fund a movie, A24 wasn't involved in the production making, just the release strategy after it's acclaim at the Venice Film Festival. Having A listers like Brody, Jones, and even Guy Pearce is enough to attract investors to fund the movie. Even when Brody has been lacking these days, he is still a very well known actor with an Oscar in his hand. There's a reason why the marketing highlight Brody and Jones' name quite a lot, it's because they can sell the movie and most people knew who they are 🤷
10:30 YES YES YES YESSSS. I will ALWAYS prefer a flawed piece of art over “perfect” ai generated slop.
I generally agree with your comments here, but really struggle on 2 points.
One is that this AI work does take away from the industry. It's use was specifically to save time, and therefore money because someone doing this work would have gotten paid for that work. If it took 40 hours to edit the Hungarian or generate the architectural drawings, that's a week of someone's salary they don't get now. This is a bigger problem than the Brutalist since if they had a bigger budget and more time, they probably wouldn't have used since the filmmakers are clearly passionate about keeping industry jobs (see Cord Jefferson's 2024 academy award speech).
The second is this is absolutely a slippery slope in my eyes. Where does this stop? Sure, in this film it's a small fraction, but when does that start to matter? 25%? 50? 100? Starting to have these conversations on the ethics of this technology now is way better than further down the line. It absolutely sucks that this is going to drag the brualist down, but if we keep ignoring it, it's only going to get worse. As morbid as this sounds, I would rather this film is shut out of the conversation for the Oscars this year and drive the industry down the correct path than let it compete fairly and possibly win and have the AI conversation go under the rug even longer (note I don't believe these options are mutually exclusive, just a sacrifice I think should be made for the greater good of film; again totally unfairly against the Brutalist, but life isn't fair).
What's ironic is that I don't feel this is an egregious problem for this film specifically, but really do understand where the uproar is coming from. It's unfortunate this is going to hurt Brody's chances in the lead actor race when I personally believe this technology will be as prevalent as ADR and color grading in the near future. Now the generation of essentially props via AI is more worrisome in my eyes. It's basically saying it's OK to use an idea generated by AI to start my screenplay, one of the ways it's been talked about being used that I'd be worried about.
But still we're not going to talk how destructive AI is for the environment? How unethical it is to use it just for the amount of energy it uses?
Something that's notable, and not remarked upon by the writer of the original article in his "apology" is that the article was inaccurate to begin with to describe "Much of the film's dialogue is in Hungarian" which as Dan noted, is in about 5 minutes of the film. I think that wording alone helped to mislead people further who hadn't seen the film and thought like half of the film at least was in Hungarian which is not the case.
I’m seeing The Brutalist tonight, and I was hesitant to watch this video beforehand in case you persuaded me not to see it. You did the opposite, and now I’m even more excited to see this movie!
So you are supporting disgusting people who use ai that is burning up tour world to avoid paying human artists? People like you are why the world is burning
With the voice stuff, I don't think that was the biggest deal (though I do think it's reasonable for it to be a factor when it comes to awards comparing it to performances that didn't need that kind alteration). The big issue to me is buildings. It doesn't matter it's not every building, it doesn't matter that real artists touched it up, that use of generative ai is creatively bankrupt and not something I can support. The use of something like midjourney is unethical for two reasons: 1) The dataset it's trained on stole and steals from real artists, and 2) That kind of generative ai does take away jobs. There is an inherent lack of creativity and artistry because you can't control the output. It's essentially the act of commissioning an artist to do the work for you, without actually paying an artist.
In the movie one can easily tell how the images shown at the end of the movie started off from an AI concept bc they have none of the principles of what guides brutalist architecture. Neither does the ugly church monument throughout the movie
Also, Adrien Brody has said that generative AI was not used in the creation of the props, so that part is already completely debunked. I think that the interviewee probably misspoke in that regard.
*Brady Corbet
I disagree that AI is NOT a slippery slope. No amount of union policies or discourse will be able to save the vast majority of film industry professionals from being replaced by AI. However, I do agree that the measured use of AI should not discredit the human artistry of any given project.
I think in the case of color grading, the big difference is that a human still had to use their talent and skills and artistry to create those color grades to enhance the visuals. But when *generative* AI is used, they’re eliminating the need for the talent and skills and artistry of a human being. AI tools that help a creator make something aren’t necessarily bad, but I can’t get behind it when the AI tool is actually making the thing.
Well done, Dan. You could not have broken this down better. I think another good analogy is when some films were shot and edited using digital technology while some were still shot on film and edited by hand. Yet both types were still nominated for best film editing.
Go Noles.
Thank you so much for breaking this down. I've been trying to break it down for people and now don't have to! For me, AI has become a little bit of a scary buzzword. I have no issue with audio trickery in movies. It’s been around forever. From replacing entire dialogue in adr to pitch shifting voices in musicals to even replacing people’s voices ENTIRElY with different people- especially during the early days of sound (did no one watch Singing in the Rain?). The idea of them using it rarely to shift some vowels doesn’t bother me at all. Especially as it gets the performance more authentic to the accent. However if people want to debate if Adrian Brody should be nominated when tech is being used to enhance his performance., fine. That is fair enough conversation to have, but I don't think it changes the fact he gave one of the best performances of the year.
Again, my issue with AI is not on the basis of an abstract blanket scary buzzword and more when it is taking jobs from real artists (especially when the programs are being trained ON their art with no compensation). That to me is technological plagiarism while also putting people out of work. Using AI as another tool for storytelling or enhancement doesn’t bother me whatsoever. Hell even most of us UA-camrs are using EQ, soft compression and dynamics to enhance OUR voices and audio in our videos. So where is the line?
Thank you for the measured, thoughtful breakdown of this situation. I haven’t seen The Brutalist but based on your analysis (I still need to research myself), it seems like AI was part of the plan in December 2022… meaning the filmmakers were wholesomely embracing emerging AI technology before the strikes. They probably saw AI as an opportunity to maximize production value on a limited budget. Which… yeah it does.
As an independent filmmaker myself, I know firsthand how expensive production can be. In some cases, using AI in *small, limited* capacities in pre-production can help create, communicate, and expand your creative vision. Like it or not, AI is democratizing filmmaking for a lot of creatives on the lower end. Not everyone can afford/has access to concept artists, storyboard artists, or designers.
For big studios with budgets, it should be strictly no AI whatsoever. For no budget/truly independent filmmakers… I think it’s worth having a productive conversation about.
The use of Midjourney is the only red flag for me as while it might not have taken someone's job creating the drawings, the only way Midjourney can create those drawings is by scraping similar drawings and art without any credit or compensation to the artists whose work they scraped. Architectural illustration is an interesting one because buildings might be considered public domain anyway.
Well done Dan. I like these kinds of industry related topics explaining what’s going on or making the headlines. Your insight is always valuable and gives a nice variety from the usual reviews & reactions spiel
I hate this controversy. This is how AI SHOULD be used. People love to drown in glasses of water
It's used well in this particular case, but it *really* isn't in our best interests to give the corporate film industry permission.
@@jeffreyberman8426 I think that's the crux of it. If you give an inch, they'll take a mile.
Um, no. Suspension of disbelief is a thing. We all know Brody and Jones are not Hungarian. If the acting is great, and it is, the audience will accept their slightly accented Hungarian and go on the narrative journey. We know it is a movie. DUH. Starting this trend of "fixing" every "error" on screen is a dangerous path to go down. What's next ? Editors manipulating facial expressions in post to "perfect" an emotion ? This is not art.
Personally I have nothing against using AI for something like this in a movie. I just dont think the actors should be nominated. Once you start tweaking certain parts using AI it's no longer the actors original performance. It might make the movie better, but it's not how the actors performed it.
My take on generative AI has always been that the main issues surrounding it is more about how it's used rather then AI itself being problematic. Like if people are using it to plagiarize scripts, then that's one thing, but for stuff like this or for translation issues then the use of generative AI is perfectly fine.
THIS is why I sub to this channel. For the FACTS. I heard about this controversy and after this explanation it is CLEARLY overblown ;like most things are on socials. FANTASTIC job with this Dan.
I agree with most you have said, but not all. What was the purpose of creating architectural AI generated images? Artists took the already created images and made them look more real and less AI generated, or created art based on them. Isn't that exactly how AI should not have been used? Literally replacing human creativity and inspiration while reducing artists to "AI fixers"?
Fixing the pronunciation of a few vowels and consonants here and there is a non issue. The part where inspiration is removed from the human brain and given to AI is a huge issue, not because of the its volume in this movie, but on principle.
What percentage of a performance of an actor can be altered by AI or CGI before it should be disqualified?
I think it depends on the purpose. Adding CGI to make an actor look like an ogre or a zombie is not a problem. Making the actor's voice sound like a robot or a monster is not a problem. Making an actor sound Hungarian is a problem, since you could train longer with the existing actor or hire a Hungarian actor if the pronunciation is so important
To be fair, between make-up, lighting, ADR, sound mixing and editing you could argue that actors' performances are altered to a large degree from the getgo. You would have to go see live theatre to see an actual unaltered performance, and even then it's still enhanced by make-up and sometimes audio engineering if microphones are used.
generative ai and cgi are different, cgi is usually still crafted by artists, while generative ai creates a result based on others artists’ work that goes uncredited, i seriously think there should be zero tolerance for generative ai in award’s circuits
@@jeanbutinfrench you still need an art director and specific artists to know how to use the AI tools - we've all seen bad AI just as bad CGI - you need pros behind these tools.
I’m sorry but AI no matter how much is being used has zero place in the arts, we’ve had some of the most grand and lavish epics made without it so it’s no excuse.
Great take on the subject matter Dan. Thanks a lot!
Hey Dan! I want to thank you for making a video about this topic and tackling it so thoroughly and succinctly. I feel like there have been so many reactionary takes to this that have been quite dismissive and closed-minded without looking beyond the click-bait headlines, and I think you articulated exactly what I was thinking about this incredible accomplishment. Kudos!!
Using AI to manage continuity with language and pronunciation is the type of nitpicky stuff that, had it been done by an amateur editor who "fixes" movies on UA-cam, would've been praised for having more attention to detail than the actual filmmakers.
Even the use of AI to de-age the buildings…vfx artists would be able to create that too :/ it’s just stealing jobs from humans and that’s why it needs to be regulated.
Dan, as always, comes in with research and facts. I appreciate this so much.
While the use of AI to help the actors achieve a certain dialect doesn't really bother me, especially since it is such a small portion of the film, the use of it for the buildings does give me some pause. For me, the issue is not the possibility of AI art being used to help the artists, it is that AI was trained on art without the artist's knowledge and permission. I know at this point, that is a bell that can't be un-rung. No AI company is going to scrap their programs to rebuild AI and train it ethically, and any lawsuit on behalf of those who were stolen will make these companies compensate for what they took. But I still have a problem with it being used.
Also, Dan's argument that no artists lost out on employment from the use of AI is false. The production company could have gone to an architecture firm for ideas for the buildings at the end of the film. Then it would have been a group of architects (an art form in its own right) designing those buildings and not AI.
I see this as a tool and the controversy is blown out of proportion. However: It's not a tool where things are simply added or changed. It's a tool that draws on existing ressources (often by artists) to create something "new". That's the only problem I have with this. A.I. doesn't conjure up something out of thin air, it steals people's work without any traceability. As soon as you use it to "create" something, you basically steal a tiny bit of someone else's vision and sell it as your own. But that's probably an issue I have with the use of A.I. in general, not just in film.
Yes, and I will add that we have to add perspective and zooming out here, Dan sounds outraged by arguing that this was used on a small thing, just 7 minutes of 3 hours bla bla, but it can be the beggining or something so questionable and challenging to discuss, is good to start taking about this now, even if in that case is considered ethical
Is sampling music stealing? Cause it seems like sampling in music is very similar to generative AI in many respects.
@ thats a false equivalent. the sources where the models where trained to create the content is undisclosed, and the sources doesn't get credit or paid.
if a record label use your music as a sample you have a legal system to get credit/paid/sue
I rarely disagree with you, but I really didn't like your point about ai being a decent alternative to bad accents.
And how you kinda portrayed it as a 2 solutions issue.
When there's the really obvious answer of just hiring actors who speak both languages fluently if you really cared about authenticity.
That's a pretty naive way of looking at it. The assumption that they could find multiple actors that fit the roles and speak both languages fluently is a big ask to begin with. The majority of people who speak Hungarian don't speak a second language and it could be something other than English. The bigger problem is that's not how movies work. They don't cast the same people in everything for no reason. Financing can come down to getting known lead actors. Besides, Adrian Brody has a Hungarian background and may have been the best option they could find and he still couldn't get it perfect. Given he's known for going to insane lengths to get things as accurate as possible he probably did everything he could.
That's not really what Dan said either. I don't recall anything about just using AI to cover bad accents.
There is not an actor as famous as Adrian Brody that can speak both languages. It's as simple as that.
They have to sell the movie to audiences, and even Adrian Brody isn't that huge of a name anymore.
Here's the thing, there's not as many actors who can speak different language and as experienced as Adrien Brody. Even when Felicity Jones can only speak English, she's a very skilled actress with a solid amount of track record. Maybe Hungaria has a lot of great actors but how many are they as good, experienced and very well known as Brody and Jones? And can they be guaranteed to attract investors to help fund the movie?
They need to sell a movie, they need to fund a movie, A24 wasn't involved in the production making, just the release strategy after it's acclaim at the Venice Film Festival. Having A listers like Brody, Jones, and even Guy Pearce is enough to attract investors to fund the movie. Even when Brody has been lacking these days, he is still a very well known actor with an Oscar in his hand
As a hungarian, the accent was still off and his english accent would be different too. The wording felt off too, not how normal hungarians talk, more english words said in hungarian to fit in those contexts instead of actual native terms. I doubt the AI changes were necessary like this, also cause often it messed with the sound design sounding like ADR
This sounds like one of the good uses of generative AI. It’s not being trained on stolen data and it’s not replacing creative work by a human with plagiarised work. Not for the voice tweaks anyway. Possibly for the architectural drawings though, unless it was trained on a set that had permissions.
As a software developer I'm so tired of every company trying to push AI. It can be a useful tool but every business is peddling it as a magical bullet right now and most of the current uses for the tech are just a waste of electricity. That being said this actually sounds like one of the exact scenarios where using AI makes sense.
I enjoy your work Dan but the editing example is a bit disingenuous. The use of best takes doesn't mean that a computer performed the lines that weren't flubbed, it's still the Actor's work and the editor and director chose the best version of *the Actor's* performance. As others have noted this is a slippery slope, the whole thing just stinks and I hope they don't get rewarded for it.
Edit: As for the "fallacy" point, there are people out there trying to put guardrails around monopolies, surveillance capitalism and a number of other ills that plague us as a result of the tech industry. How effective are they right now, a hint for you: your President had his broligarchs at the his inauguration.
Thanks for this- I'm waking after watching it last night. I loved it and always adored and admired Adrien Brody on screen.
I feel like there's little difference to using Respeech vs something like Pitch Correction
Dan, as a fellow artist, I frankly disagree wholehartedly with your dissmissiveness on this issue. The voiceover stuff I think is a slippery slope, but what I am really sad about (as a struggling sketch artist who's been trying to kickstart a career for years) are the buildings being "based" on AI generated content rather than thought up by actual human artists. "We didn't have the money to do it manually" translates to "we weren't able to hire the proper amount of artists". So, yes, the use of AI in this case, did, pretty straightforwardly, supplant human involvement. There is not a single concept artist in the world that would willingly give away the most fun part of the job, i.e. the actual conception of the piece. The only reason one would do it is because they are under enourmous financial or time constraints. All AI does is facilitate crunch culture for the benefit of the people financing these products. The excuse of "its just 5 minutes" is also pretty silly to me, because this is all about precedent. If you have an Oscar-nominated movie using gen-AI to generate 5 minutes of buildings, then that's the perfect excuse for the next movie to generate 10 minutes of buildings and so forth. I know you love this movie, but we have to draw the line somewhere. I don't want to live in a world where popular art has minimal human input.
Also, no, I don't want american superstars butchering foreign languages OR soulless machines generating parts of performances. If a script calls for an actor who knows a butch of languages, studios should hire actors that can do exactly that. Lord knows there's enough struggling actors out there.
Also also, the excuse that "other movies do it too" is not really an excuse. Just because everyone does it doesn't make it ok.
AI could be used as a fun tool, but when you have some of the world's most powerful systems and individuals vying to use it as a way to completely supplant human involvement, I think it's better to be safe than sorry. I believe in ostracising its use almost universally. The price to pay (having one less fun tool to work with, in a world with, already, almost infinite digital tools) is pretty small compared to the danger. In my opinion, the powers that be will always try and ease us into worse and worse situations using incremental normalisation. It is our job to stay vigilant.
Sorry for the long comment! I value your insights immensly and I think your work is absolutely incredible. Keep it up.
People aren't going to see a movie starring some nobody just because he speaks a bunch of languages. What are you even talking about?
You know they have to sell the movie to the audience before they see it, right? That's why they hire who they hire.
Sorry that some unknown actors are struggling, but they're not getting Adrian Brody's part whether AI exists or not.
@@byers31303 I am tired of hearing this type of argument. In a discussion about how we don't want studios to make the money-driven decision, stating the obvious (that the decisions are money-driven) adds nothing to the discussion. If you think we are wasting our time with discussions like these, I get it, but then what are you even doing here?
@chrisdemetrious8593 it was a long comment because it needed to be long and I agree with it wholeheartedly.
Also, a lot of the problems with the changes in productions pipelines is that people are no longer able to move up and learn the more specialized jobs. There's a lot of specialized knowledge that artisans know and use now that run the risk of being lost if people get used to relying on technology to do it and AI only worsens that in an exponential degree. It seems like nothing being lost now, but these things add up. AI technology for foreign languages like respecher can pose a real risk to endangered languages, because as AI taints the records, it starts being remembered not as it is but as how AI recreates it.
I'm very fascinated by clothing history, and there's a bunch of things we just don't know how to make anymore because the processes were lost, after some decision was made to stop doing, usually for comercial reasons. For example, the US ran a campaign for the use of cotton so destructive that now we have to cut and process linen fibers on the cotton machinery, as it is the only one that exists, and we get worse fabric for it, as the whole advantage of linen comes from its naturally longer fibers. And that's with something tangible, how can we even measure the effect AI is having in our ability to keep records? The art we make today will be reference for the future, it is imperative that we keep AI from poisoning it.
@@byers31303The movie can exist, but it shouldn't get nominated for awards because AI is filling in for deficiencies in his performance.
@@chrisdemetriou8593 how can you just act like the financial aspect of this isn't significant? That's literally their business lol. Those movies don't exist otherwise.
If you want to make the movie you suggest, then put your own millions on the line and be prepared to lose all of it.
Good video Dan, as always very thorough. These are mostly a PR issue. It is a fact that the unions are concerned about AI and there is no reason to knowingly rattle their cage. They are people with emotion. Studios and Unions should continue to understand each other and agree on how to use these tech and how to talk about it.
As a Ukrainian, I would like to note that I am very proud that this service is in such demand in Hollywood and makes the best films.
I think you have to leave the actors alone because the movie goes through too much manipulation in the post-production. Respeecher is part of it.
I was not aware of this story prior to this so I am sure some of the outrage has misrepresented what happened but I can definitely understand the idea that if Ai is gonna start replacing human work in movies it would start with stuff like this. We were never gonna start with AI generated actors against everyone’s wishes. It was always gonna be “well it tightened up the process, kept us on schedule…” arguments at first.
One problem is that a lot of technologies that have in use for years have recently been rebranded as "AI". Stuff we used to be ok with is now suspect.
Also, how much digital help did Rami Malek get for his Bohemian Rhapsody performance? I suspect a lot more than Brody did here. I also wonder how much help Chalamet got for his Dylan singing. Were there pitch correctors used? Probably.
Thank you for clearing this up for me. This is probably my favorite film of the year!
Me too!
I think it's still a sticking point for me, because a film gets nominated for an award precisely for getting these minute details right via human effort. I haven't seen the movie, but conceptually, it rubs me the wrong way.
Have you watched the movie yet?
@giopalermo5080 Haven't gotten around to it - I'm hospitalized right now, will probably check it once I'm back outside.
Great essay, Dan - thank you! I completely agree.
I've now seen The Brutalist twice in IMAX and i don't care about them using AI because if you listen to how they used it and you're a reasonable person, it has ZERO impact on how phenomenal the film or actor's performances are. My first choice for Best Picture is Dune Part 2 but I understand it probably has no chance of actually winning so my next choice would absolutely be The Brutalist. Adrian Brody should be the favorite for Best Actor and Guy Pearce for Best Supporting Actor.
My wife is an artist and she uses photshop to put together elements of her picture before painting by hand on canvas. The detail of what the artists did for the buildings sounds similar, using AI to help visualise the composition before illustrating it by hand.
Today they enhance your accented performance to sound more “Authentic” and Tomorrow they “Enhance” your performance that beats out 100% Human Performances for Oscar and Emmy Awards smh
I have seen the movie and I still thinks it's a slippery slope. If the performances or production win awards then more creators will use AI next year and go further with it. The midjourney generative art that they copied will still be based on the work of real artists.
This was excellent Dan as was your videos on the Lively/Baldoni mess🎉💐🎉💐🎉💐🎉 I am now a member. Thank you 🌟🌟🌟🌟
Here is a fun fact for you. When the "Intermission" started, 1/2 of the people there vanished! Quick run while the house lights are up. If they only knew the first part was the better part. I survived the Brutalist. But I now wish I had missed it all.
I appreciate your handling of this situation and the research done to cut through the noise of misinformation. That said, the filmmakers justified the use of AI to save time/money and that’s exactly why this snowball will eventually lead to an avalanche because studios will demand shorter production times and cost because the tools are there and they’ll just hire the people willing to use them.
But isn't my ability to perform the accent apart of what makes my performance great? If I'm AI enhanced to "fix" parts of it doesn't that mean my attempt to do the difficult accent is tainted?
Stunt personnel, body doubles- it seems similar to me.
I think it's a slippery slope, but we're already in it. I haven't seen the movie and I don't plan to see it soon, basically because I find 3 hr+ historical dramas very tiring. I don't think this should disqualify the actors, but I'm just sure that next year it will be used a bit more, and the next year a bit more, until we get to Secretariat featuring Bojack Horseman, where Bojack Horseman didn't set foot on set at any point :P
The buildings in the final scene (again I have not seen the movie) bother me more. Basically because those are artistic decisions left to the robot. Someone's pronunciation of "köszönöm" is not really something that makes the movie, but there are so many movies where one frame just sticks to your head forever, and I really want those to be made by humans. Like the last frame of Oddity was for me probably the best scene of the year, but it would really break my heart if I found out that it was done with midjourny.
There are frames from The Brutalist that will be in my head forever, and none of them involved AI.
Thank you Dan, this video essay clearly delivered and quite informative. 🙂👍
First of all I would like say thank you Dan for a great presentation. I agree with in that AI pitch toning is really a none issue if the performer has say in it. But on the Art generated AI wether is a minute or a hour.... generative AI are harvesting copyrighted art for its sampling model. The color grading color as a additive process is a great example but does not compare to generative AI that ignores the art eco system that it uses. Music that is sampled to make another song has legal obligation to credit and sometimes even pay royalty to create that song whether its a few seconds or a bass line for the whole song. As an illustrator this catch all generative AI is slippery slope when Art needs to take a short cut on the cheap. Like when Luc Besson (one of my favorite Directors) appropriated concept from John Carpenter. The lawsuit for uncreated concept art to create the world for 12 Monkeys. there was a way to hold those situation accountable and we can move on as artist. Generative AI art gives to plausible deniability if not held to a higher standard. BTW, a fan of this channel.
I think, especially with AI being the issue it is at present, that using it here isn’t worth it. If it’s so slight you won’t notice it, it’s not worth doing it, and if it’s enough to impact the movie, they shouldn’t have done it. Just let the accents have slight imperfections like most accents in film history.
exactly! this is my point...if it was only going to be 1-2 images, why even have them?
I'll absolutely take those accent imperfections, just reminds me that I'm watching a human attempting a craft. I don't need a squeaky clean robot-processed voice.
AI is always used in the music industry too, is
something inevitable
Always love the nuanced view, Dan
Having AI next to the movies name even in false claims will really hurt its chances at the oscars
❤❤❤Oscars for A Complete Unknown and it's cast and director!
This is sad and a little disturbing. It is up to Hollyweird to make rules about AI use.
They're not false claims. This movie was made using AI. If you're okay with that in small doses in an Oscar Winner then the studios will take it that you're okay with it in larger doses for mass market media going forward. Giving this any awards is tacitly signing off on all usage of AI going forward as long as the same argument used here can apply. There is a ton of human labor that can be argued to be replaceable without harming artistic integrity so think rationally when you sign off on these arguments. Is a human being animating CGI anymore important to artistic integrity than a human learning a dialect correctly? If not why shouldn't AI be able to take over that job since the real artistic vision is with the director, not the VFX worker?
This argument will be stretched to its absolute limits if you accept it and you're naive as all get out if you don't realize that's exactly the plan. They could have done this manually, they want to set the precedent. You choose what to do accordingly. I won't be giving an inch to someone looking hungrily at all those employees taking their hard earned profit.
Definitely
@@VirgilOvid I thought this same thing. What does the validation of this film indirectly say about ai use. People are definitely watching from that angle to determine their own steps in future filmmaking.
Thank you for all the detail. This lays everything out perfectly and I have zero issue with how AI was used in this movie. Now the Bourdain doc?? That's over the line on multiple levels.
Appreciated the discussion. Would also like to hear your thoughts on the Emilia Perez BP backlash; I know we got some in your Oscar nominations video, but hating the film seems to have gone viral.
Happy Monday Dan! Thank you for posting this video. I had not heard about this controversy. I haven't seen The Brutalist yet. Tried to this past weekend but couldn't fit it into my schedule. Did see Anora. Loved it. Thanks for recommending BTW! I really appreciate you explaining this whole story. Between the articles and rewatching the movie; this must have been a very time consuming video to put together. Again, really appreciate it. AI isn't going away and I'm sure there's going to be more stories like this soon. Keep being the amazing person you are!
I will say it is also very amusing to be that some of the people crying for Jones and Brody to be disqualified, are the same people who wanted Andy Serkis to be nominated for his Mocap performances, even though the animators of those performances admitted to changing his performance when needed.
Dan, I see your points, and I (for the most part) agree with you. However, the power and leverage studios have over the careers of actors, directors, and film crews can be utilized to have people agree to things like allowing the use of generative AI to "enhance," aspects of a film. If someone disagrees with the studio, and doesn't want to use AI? Then what's the likelihood of that person being hired in the industry again? Normalizing the use of generative AI in films won't stop, until studios feel the backlash financially.
I've noticed in a lot of your videos that you take the time to pronunciate (for you) foreign words. I really apreciate that, thanks for that extra work, it means a lot.
This seems like some Reddit type silliness. Looking forward to seeing the Brutalist.
So its like auto tune but for accents instead of tones? Interesting.
This is like saying you can’t give Austin Butler the Oscar for Elvis because they mixed some of Presley’s real voice in at some points .
Or Rami Malek who lip sync throughout the entire Bohemian Rhapsody
Well they didn't give him the Oscar so that might have been a factor. Who knows?🤷
@@bolder2009 lolol
did an ai model mix elvis’s voice in the movie or a human being?
@@jeanbutinfrench I’m not sure I’m assuming it was humans and not AI , but my point is part of his auditory performance was altered electronically // it wasn’t 100% him and he was still eligible .
Thx Dan! Best to do it
I think they need to compensate the artists whose work is used to train AI before it can be appropriately used for commercial purposes. As well, the issue of whether AI voice manipulation impacts perception of performances, and how much scale influences, is one on which reasonable people can disagree. In this case, it seems very minor.
I am shocked that people on the internet have taken this to 11 without thinking or reading first! Thanks, as always, to Dan, who is increasingly our collective voice of reason
I'm a generally a huge AI detractor, but I think I'm largely ok with the first use of it described here. The second though crosses a line for me. Humans should create art, not algorithms.
However I agree with Dan that neither of these things should disqualify the film from awards consideration. The latter merely disqualifies it from my respect.
The future of AI is feared in the same way automation has rendered humans redundant in other industries... it is becoming evident that movie companies want to cut out the middlemen(actors, designers, etc) in the creation of movies.
Wait..so they went to great lengths for the Hungarian to sound authentic even to native speakers, and they did not even try in Emilia Perez to come even close to what Mexican spanish..unbelievable
Well they didn't use AI :)
They only used Respeecher just to fix Karla Sofia Gascon's singing, not Selena's accent nor Spanish pronouncation which is kinda weird lol
Awesome vintage ‘X-Men: The Animated Series’ t-shirt, Dan!
As someone who writes for a living, I hate seeing people use AI to write things for them or use it as the central basis for their ideas. It has stripped away creativity and worries me that we're going to hand over these jobs to our robot overlords. With that being said, I use AI like spellcheck and Grammarly daily. It is a useful tool and should be used as a tool. It seems like that's what has happened with The Brutalist. They didn't use AI to generate the movie, it was merely a means for minor edits. I'm okay with that, but we should be careful to not let it go beyond that sort of reach.
Spellcheck and Grammarly are pretty different beasts from the generative image/audio tools being talked about here. They're created in fundamentally different ways, such that the same ethics concerns really don't apply to those older tools.
Thanks for doing all that research and clearing things up, I feel like big name publishers are just going with the clickbaity headlines to get clicks while you on your own are doing more legit work
I feel like they should've left it as is. Part of what I like about film is those little imperfections and anachronistic features. One thing no one seems to compare it to is autotune. Our favorite singers rarely sound the same recorded and live, so why's this a huge issue?
While I can understand saying that the AI generated things don't appear for more than a minute in the movie therefore it shouldn't be disqualified from anything I also want to raise awareness for the fact that most of the stuff the art department comes up with don't get more than a few seconds of screen time as well. And it's important to know that, for those tiny seconds of screen time, there's a huge effort from many incredibly talented artists pouring their soul at what they're doing. And they are really really proud to see their work making it to the final product.
I wouldn't blanket condemn all AI use, but something that I'd need to know before deciding whether it's acceptable in the building drawings part is: what training data did the model use? If they used a model trained on stolen data like so many are, that's a problem. Otherwise I pretty much agree with Dan.
I appreciate your perspective on this Dan. Where I disagree is the amount and intention on perfection.
Amount: While The Brutalist utilizes these AI tools for a tiny percent of the film, what number or threshold will the next film have to cross for us to start to condemn the usage? We are saying THIS use is fine because the tools aren't used overwhelmingly but we could be entering dangerous territory in the future.
Intention on perfection: For me, this art form is about striving for perfection and how close we can get to it. Movies will never be perfect. The edit is compromised in moments. Exposure is not always nailed. On-set audio is sometimes unusable. Brody and Jones, I'm sure worked with dialect coaches and then everything else should be them working towards trying to be as perfect as possible. For me, manipulating their performances this way slightly cheapens the work on their language attempt. Same way Timmy is being praised for his Dylan performance, it is not a complete 1:1 but it is great enough for the attempt and source material. I would rather have a "flawed" accent/language attempt than a better one that was artificially manipulated.
Great video as always. You have created such a great space for film lovers.