Hollywood insiders report widespread off-the-books AI experimentation in studios, often hidden to avoid backlash, despite union contracts limiting AI use
“We can say, ‘Do it in anime, make it PG-13.’ Three hours later, I'll have the movie." — One recent evening on the Eastside of Los Angeles …
VultureLila Shapiro
Context & Ripple Effects
Hollywood’s AI debate had already split studios seeking broader production use from unions pursuing guardrails, following labor negotiations centered on limits for AI-produced material. This report suggests the conflict has moved beyond public bargaining into uneven, internal adoption.
Studios and production teams can test AI-assisted creative and production workflows without publicly committing to them, while union-covered workers face reduced visibility into where the tools are being tried.
Union AI limits become harder to monitor and enforce when experimentation is conducted outside formal, disclosed production processes.
Second-order effects
Labor representatives may press studios for clearer disclosure, audit rights, or more specific definitions of permitted AI use as contract language meets informal workflows.
Competing studios face pressure to experiment for speed and cost advantages, but must weigh that against backlash from creative talent and unions.
Third-order effects
If hidden experimentation persists, Hollywood’s AI governance may shift from broad contractual principles toward operational compliance rules covering disclosure, provenance, and workflow-level oversight.
The industry could develop a two-track adoption model: public commitments to human-led production alongside private AI use in lower-visibility tasks, unless labor agreements and enforcement narrow that gap.
The trend: This is one data point in AI content commercialization moving from headline-grabbing promises into contested, embedded production workflows.
There's no question that chatbots could credibly spit out profiles of ai boosters and no one would be the wiser. www.vulture.com/article/gene... [image]
“I've listened to execs say, ‘So we can load a season of scripts into AI and it can churn out a show in a day?’ And I'm just like, ‘Is that what you want?’” www.vulture.com/article/gene... @lilashapiro.bsky.social
perhaps it is time for a new indie film boom. please give me some nice talky low-budget films actually made by people who are passionate about what they—they themselves, not their plagiarism machines—are doing. please.
I'm sure there're smart uses for AI in e.g. f/x, but this is a truly bleak view of cinema. Not even pretending there is anything like an artistic vision. Just change the entire tone, style, and content of a movie in “three hours” and pump the pablum to the public... www.vulture…
I have to ask what the fuck is wrong with the film industry? You think this actually saves costs? Do you lack the basic ability to think about something and its long term consequences for more than five seconds. THIS IS GOING TO KILL THE FILM INDUSTRY, NOT SAVE IT
As many of us have been saying, the rise of AI will help the creator economy before it upends traditional Hollywood. Shrinking the gap between social media content creators and “professional” storytellers is the key. How much attention share might that steal from TV/film?
Lionsgate is exploring using AI to change their exisiting films into more kid-friendly or even animated: “Now we can say, ‘Do it in anime, make it PG-13.’ 3 hours later, I'll have the movie.”
Amongst the many hair-raising details in this piece is that ChatGPT etc is now basically in charge of performance appraising the government's IT workforce. Huh, I expect it awards extra points for being gung-ho about replacing everything else with algorithms too? — www.theguar…
'The novelist Ewan Morrison was alarmed, though amused, to discover he had written a book called Nine Inches Pleases a Lady....he had asked ChatGPT to give him the names of the 12 novels he had written. “I've only written nine,” he says. “Always eager to please, it decided to i…