Industry forum sheds light on AI's role in filmmaking

Gong thinks AI will usher the film and television industry into a high-quality development phase fueled by technological innovation. He predicted that it is certain that machine intelligence will surpass humans, which will not even take a long time.

The founder of China's leading video streaming platform also pointed out that AI Generated Content (AIGC) technologies are a double-edged sword for young filmmakers. One the one hand, future young filmmakers may not be able to acquire mentoring from established directors, producers, and screenwriters because AI can replace them in writing scripts and storyboards. On the other hand, with the ever-powerful AI tools, fledgling filmmakers can also produce a complete work on a very small budget.

Huang, a veteran filmmaker credited with participating in 83 movies and producing 46 features within 45 years, agreed with Gong on that AI tools can democratize filmmaking and enabled the young to experiment. Viewing emerging AI such as Sora as digital extensions of humans' ability to express themselves, Huang advocated that we should embrace AI because technology has always been the backbone and driving force enabling film creativity throughout cinema history.

Chen said that AIGC has indeed exerted a huge impact on people's perception and cognition of truth and falsehood. The filmmaker predicted that AIGC can replace most of the simple, mediocre productions but it can hardly replace the best works and the industry's best creators. She also said AI can help the finest filmmakers push the boundaries of film production.

Chen also raised concern about the threat of AI to human beings. "It trains us all the time, not that it replaces us, but that we are becoming more and more like its way of thinking."

The forum was co-hosted by the organizing committee of the Beijing International Film Festival, China National Film Museum, and the Film Art Center of China Federation of Literary and Art Circles.