Now that Project Hail Mary has grossed $400 million worldwide and still going strong, two points have been proven.

#1 – Ryan Gosling is one of our last remaining and enduring movie stars under 50.  I mean, anyone who can headline a film opposite a literal rock and build a humanistic relationship with a faceless voice in an offscreen booth that makes us laugh, cry and send us into existential thought while looking dreamy, has to be anointed our 21^st century Cary Grant.

AND –

#2 – It is still possible to make a movie in a timely fashion without artificial intelligence that people all over the world will see. 

Again and Again.

And again.

(Note: Project Hail Mary famously avoided AI in favor of real sets, practical effects and, well, actual people, puppets and physical…rocks!)

The possibility that this could continue to any sort of financial and/or creative advantage is not what the internet, corporate rich folk or your basic industry pundit would have you or I believe.

What so many would like us to think is that the end of the alive talents in the industry as we know it is coming courtesy of AI and that every movie in the 2100s will feature a movie star with some not so distant relation to Tilly Norwood.

Though I hate to give her/IT any additional publicity, if you must, click here:

Many of my students work as interns at various Hollywood companies, and more than a handful have recounted stories in the last few months about a person or persons obsessed with talking about, dealing with, or having them deal with AI. 

These tend NOT to be top tier people but rather those who dream the shortcuts technology might offer are a substitute for the hard work and creativity it takes to make something audiences will want to pay to consume en masse that is memorable — or even any good.

When the subject comes up of teaching young writers AI tools my response is usually something like this – we don’t teach them to type, even though that is a much needed technical skill for screenwriters and cuts down on time. Instead, we teach them to think and dream and sweat out the stories they want to tell by studying, watching and using their imaginations to bring their projects to realization. 

Bit by bit.  Day by day. And month by month.

Or, as one of the GOAT writing professors of all-time, Anne Lamott once wrote:

I came across an article in the Hollywood Reporter this week that claimed to survey more than a dozen assistants in the industry who are being asked, or in some cases, encouraged, ahem, to use AI in order to do their jobs. Presumably quicker.

Some companies are absolutely anti AI and others are open or inclined to have support staff use it.  But as one former assistant noted, no one has given any thought to the fact that when you post a movie star or executive’s schedule or contract paperwork onto an AI tool to write a cohesive memo you are in essence opening that information up to public digital tools.

So even though, as another assistant mentioned, it helps when you have to send a bottle of wine to a remote movie set location, and need to figure out the fastest way to get it there, it begs the question of how easy it will be for so many others to infiltrate that location for whatever disruptive or juicy tabloid fodder they may attempt to come up with.

Or have AI come up with.

You see what I mean.

Nevertheless, The Hollywood Reporter will this month release an entire special issue devoted to AI, so we have that to look forward to.  As well as so many follow-ups too numerous to count from ad infinitum sources.

Now before the hissing and booing gets too loud from the peanut gallery, let’s agree that no one is saying that advancements in technologies can’t be beneficial in some areas.

Namely, if AI can take all the science ever published and come up with a cure for cancer, we’re ALL all-in. 

That is, as long as it’s checked out and confirmed by actual human clinical studies before it goes on the market.

This is where technology can shine and will shine.

However, when it’s used as a cost-cutting method to further dumb down the world to an even lower common denominator, or bore us to death or even down further into our isolated psychological shells with mediocrity, count the majority of us out.

I don’t know about you, but I’m already beginning to read emails and press releases that I’d bet $100 bucks are AI generated. 

So jolly, so glib, so vacant of anything approaching a real point of view that might offend or truly inform anyone in a more recognizably alive, humanistic way.

And don’t get this flower child started on the driverless Waymo car that seems everywhere in Los Angeles. 

Not getting in one, and never want to drive behind one. 

For one thing, they literally will NEVER think to continue that left turn through the yellow light!  Which literally means.  PROCEED, with caution.

That’s what I say about AI.

Proceed if you dare.

But think about the consequences of your actions for your future. 

And for ours.

Aretha Franklin – “Think”