Lionsgate has become the first significant Hollywood studio to go all-in on AI. The company today announced a “first-of-its-kind” partnership with AI research company Runway to create and train an exclusive new AI model based on its portfolio of film and tv content.

Lionsgate’s exclusive model will be used to generate what it calls “cinematic video” which can then be further iterated using Runway’s technology. The goal is to save money – “millions and millions of dollars” according to Lionsgate studio vice chairman Michael Burns – by having filmmakers and creators use its AI model to replace artists in production tasks such as storyboarding.

In corporate jargon terminology, Burns said that AI will be used to “develop cutting-edge, capital-efficient content creation opportunities.” He added that “several of our filmmakers are already excited about its potential applications to their pre-production and post-production process.”

  • soapyplasm
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    72 days ago

    It’s not like Lionsgate films were ever that good or interesting to begin with. A small loss imo

  • @[email protected]
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    82 days ago

    Hopefully the big studios doing shit like this leads to a resurgence of true indie cinema. I won’t hold my breath for it, but I’ll hope.

  • @TommySoda
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    1013 days ago

    Again, why are we having AI take over the creative jobs? Making music, art, writing, voice acting, etc. Let’s train AI to work retail so that burnout cashier can finally learn how to play guitar like they’ve been putting off because they have to work 50+ hours a week.

    • @VubDapple
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      263 days ago

      Clerks don’t cost as much as creatives. Eventually they’ll come for the clerks too.

    • @Fredselfish
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      3 days ago

      Exactly fuck AI companies. Seriously all fucking shit jobs that could be done by robots and yet instead they taking all the fun stuff and our hobbies and runing them.

      As a writer I guess just mark my books human written and people should only read, buy and watch content only made by humans and let AI die until corporations get the fucking hint.

      Go get a fucking robot to work the factory jobs and leave our creative work alone.

    • @[email protected]
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      3 days ago

      Because mistakes are less obvious, and when they do happen tend to be subjective and hard to “prove”. You can do a creative job poorly and it might be a while before anyone catches on, so AI gets to just sort of squat there while AI companies pretend LLMs are capable of genuine creative output.

      Any job that has an objectively correct result from the work being done will be screwed up by AI on day one, if not immediately.

      • @[email protected]
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        23 days ago

        Any job that has an objectively correct result from the work being done will be screwed up by AI on day one, if not immediately.

        See also: AI written code

    • @[email protected]
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      53 days ago

      Like learn how to play guitar in the street cause they lost their job and need new money now? Cause I don’t see how using AI forces a company to contribute anything at all in a funding of general basic income or how it’s called…

    • Great Blue Heron
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      43 days ago

      I get what you’re saying, and agree, but “cashier” is perhaps not the best example? Self check outs have been around for ages and Amazon (I think?) has those “just walk out” stores that are supposed to be AI powered. I seem to recall reading that the just walk out stores were actually powered by cheaper “cashiers”, in another country, but - it shows they’re working on it.

      • Flying Squid
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        83 days ago

        I believe Amazon doesn’t do the “just walk out” thing anymore because it didn’t work very well.

        • @[email protected]
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          3 days ago

          Yes, and it wasn’t AI powered. It was a ton of exploited outsourced workers working for nearly nothing watching the camera feeds.

  • @Xenny
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    3 days ago

    Every artist in every field just walk away right now let them let AI take over. They will be begging you to come back in due time and you should force them to give you a pay raise.

    • @iAvicennaM
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      133 days ago

      yea pretty much this, AI is doing some pretty impressive things and even though orders of magnitude faster than a human, no where near in quality as what a human can do as of now (and who knows maybe not even in the next ten years). So any company who treats their employers like “extra costs to be get rid off” deserves the whack of reality.

      • @batmaniam
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        42 days ago

        There are some really cool things. Summarizing meetings or emails (at the low low cost of the last shred of your privacy), doing low stakes drafting to solve the “blank doc” problem etc. Advances in medical imaging are crazy cool as well, but that’s been bubbling since mid 2000s and we just called it “machine learning”.

        Replacing creatives is utter insanity.

  • @[email protected]
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    283 days ago

    so it’s not enough that we’re getting a bunch of remakes of remakes. We’re now going to get the average of all of them.

  • Aielman15
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    773 days ago

    By design, AI is only able to regurgitate the info it’s been trained on in a slightly different pattern. So I’m not sure how this is supposed to work out.

    I have a better proposal for you, Lionsgate: cut the CEO and all their cronies. I’m pretty sure you’ll save a lot more money that way, while keeping the people who actually produce the stuff that makes you money.

    What a horrible timeline.

    • @ThunderWhiskers
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      53 days ago

      By design, AI is only able to regurgitate the info it’s been trained on in a slightly different pattern. So I’m not sure how this is supposed to work out.

      Just like any other Lionsgate film.

    • Great Blue Heron
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      33 days ago

      It seems most movies these days are just rehashing old content anyway - why not automate it?

  • NutWrenchM
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    183 days ago

    AI writes stories / storyboards. Hollywood continues to make trash. Nobody buys it. Hollywood: “Wow. Why didn’t THAT work?”

    It’s like watching someone hit themselves in the nuts with a mallet.

      • @[email protected]M
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        12 days ago

        Oh I’m sure it’ll be much more than that. But by all means. Do nothing and watch how this spreads to all…

        • @I_Has_A_Hat
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          01 day ago

          By all means, boycott them and see how that changes nothing…

  • @[email protected]
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    193 days ago

    Sure, a bunch of people are gonna lose their incomes and our product is going to get worse, but think of the savings!

    • @Etterra
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      143 days ago

      You mean all the money I’m gonna save by never watching their movies?

  • Flying Squid
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    3 days ago

    There are movies which are literally made by storyboard. As in they storyboard out the entire thing very carefully and deliberately over a significant period of time before they start shooting and stick to that storyboard religiously. And it makes for really good movies in terms of cinematography.

    You’re not going to get that with AI. That takes talking to an artist who understands what you’re saying and can make well-reasoned suggestions.

    Edit for example: Director Peter Yates was famous for that and got two best picture nominations for Breaking Away and The Dresser due to it. I grew up in the town where Breaking Away takes place in and was shot and, although I was far too young to remember anything about it, I know virtually every “making of” story out there because of friends and family. In the bike race scene the movie is well known for, Yates set up a big tent in the middle of the stadium and put the entire storyboard for those scenes inside the tent so he could refer to it for every shot.

  • Diplomjodler
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    283 days ago

    Reminds me of the magazine that fired all its copy editors when the first grammar checker came out. That was sometime in the early nineties and yes, it went predictably.

  • @ohwhatfollyisman
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    233 days ago

    wait, their boss is called M. Burns?!

    do they also have a H. Simpson on the rolls?

    • El Barto
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      43 days ago

      Don’t forget Smithers.

  • @SynonymousStoat
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    3 days ago

    It’ll probably be like anytime someone decides to outsource work to a less skilled worker. You’ll either end up with an inferior product or you’ll have to scrap what you got and redo it at the cost of more time and a higher price thus completely negating the whole reason for outsourcing in the first place. So many people making these decisions can’t see past the next quarter on the graph.