'Top Gun' producer Jerry Bruckheimer sees the overall benefit of artificial intelligence. 'Anything that makes our lives easier that doesn’t take jobs away from people that we work with every day is good for everybody. It gives them a better movie experience. We can make things look more real and things like that,' he told Fox News Digital. However, he didn’t see the technology eliminating important jobs in the industry. 'We’e certainly not going to replace actors.
Bruckheimer’s comments came after a report from The Hollywood Reporter that many in the industry are quietly using AI behind the scenes. David Stripinis, a VFX professional who has worked on films like 'Avatar,' 'Man of Steel' and several Marvel titles, told the outlet, 'There are tons of people who are using AI, but they can’t admit it publicly because you still need artists for a lot of work. And they’re going to turn against you.
In a statement to Variety, they said, 'In conjunction with our amazing graphics and production design team, all of whom worked tirelessly to give this film the '70s aesthetic we had always imagined, we experimented with AI for three still images which we edited further and ultimately appear as very brief interstitials in the film. 'We feel incredibly fortunate to have had such a talented and passionate cast, crew and producing team go above and beyond to help bring this film to life.
In the official production notes for the film, Visual Effects Supervisor Paul Lambert explained they created 'a machine learning model, an algorithm trained from those ‘Dune’ shots to find human eyes in an image, which would then give us a matte for the different parts of the eye. 'We then used this multi-part matte to tint the eyes blue. Some worked better than others. Those others we did by hand.
Taylor-Joy acknowledged the concerns many have about AI replacing not only actors and writers, but behind-the-scenes artists as well. 'There’s a reason that our industry went on strike,' she said. 'It is something that is frightening. And I think if you’re going to use it, you have to be honest about it, and it always has to be consensual. It’s the lack of consent in anything in life that is the scary thing.