Tyler Perry has paused an $800m (£630m) expansion of his Atlanta studio complex after the release of OpenAI’s video generator Sora, saying “many jobs” in the film industry could be replaced by artificial intelligence. warned that it would be lost.
The American film and television mogul had plans to add 12 soundstages to his studio, but after seeing a demonstration of Sora and its “shocking” capabilities, he put those plans on hold indefinitely. He said it was cancelled.
“All of that is on hold right now and indefinitely because of what Sora and I are looking at,” Perry said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “I’ve been hearing about this for about a year now, but I didn’t know until recently when I saw a demonstration of how it would work. It’s shocking to me.”
The AI tool was launched on February 15, with access limited to a small number of researchers and video creators, but caused widespread consternation with its ability to create one minute of realistic footage from a simple text prompt. I did.
Perry, who has had success with movies such as the Madea series, said Sola’s work eliminated the need to go to locations or build sets. It’s shocking to me.”
A demo published by OpenAI, developer of the groundbreaking ChatGPT chatbot, asks for shots of people walking through a “beautiful snowy Tokyo city, with gorgeous cherry blossom petals flying in the wind along with snowflakes.” Photorealistic scenes appear in response to prompts such as. ”.
Perry said the breakthroughs brought about by Sola will impact a variety of jobs across the film industry, including actors, editors, sound specialists and transport crews.
He said: “I’m very concerned that there will be a lot of job losses in the near future. I really, really feel that.”
Perry cited a direct example of this as construction crews and contractors refusing to work on a planned studio expansion because “there was no need to do it.” He added that he had used AI in two of his recent films, and the technology was used to age his face and avoid sitting in the makeup chair for hours.
Concerns about the impact of AI on jobs have been a feature of recent strikes by Hollywood actors and writers, and the peace agreements that ended these conflicts both include guardrails against the use of the technology. I did.
But Perry told The Hollywood Reporter that a “whole-of-industry” approach is still needed to protect jobs.
“It’s not possible for one union to fight for all the contracts every two or three years. The industry is rapidly changing before our eyes, so it’s not possible for one union to fight for every contract every two or three years. I think everyone needs to be involved,” he said.
