On a soundstage once home to silent film legends Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand, Hollywood’s elite—executives, actors, and filmmakers—mingled over cocktails, marveling at what some call the greatest leap since sound hit the screen: AI-generated video. Yet the jury’s still out on whether AI will save or sink cinema.
Just two years ago, actors and writers paralyzed Hollywood with strikes, demanding safeguards against AI. Now, the tech is quietly infiltrating TV, films, and video games, even powering two Oscar-winning movies. As a DJ spun ‘90s hip-hop, coders hobnobbed with stars and suits, hinting at a shift in the industry’s power dynamic.“AI in Hollywood is unavoidable,” said Bryn Mooser, the evening’s host and co-founder of Moonvalley, which built the AI video tool “Marey” by ethically sourcing footage from consenting filmmakers. Mooser admits AI remains a loaded term, but insists their approach is “clean” thanks to its payment model.“Artists need a seat at the table,” he argued, suggesting it’s smarter to craft tools with filmmakers in mind than to let “big tech steamroll everyone.”Hollywood has long cast AI as the bad guy—think “The Terminator,” where a military AI opts to wipe out humanity. But in reality, the heat’s on AI’s architects, not the tech itself. Companies scrape publicly available data, including copyrighted works posted online, to train their models, leaving creators crying foul over unpaid use.OpenAI, Google, and others face lawsuits from writers, actors, and news outlets claiming their work was hijacked to fuel AI without permission. Writers have pressed studios like Paramount, Disney, and Universal—guardians of vast film and TV copyrights—to sue as well, but so far, none have stepped up.
