The future is here, whether some like it or not, and artificial intelligence is already impacting the film industry. But just how far can, and should, it go?

Last year, Rachel Antell, an archival producer for documentary films, started noticing AI-generated images mixed in with authentic photos. There are always holes or limitations in an archive; in one case, film-makers got around a shortage of images for a barely photographed 19th-century woman by using AI to generate what looked like old photos. Which brought up the question: should they? And if they did, what sort of transparency is required? The capability and availability of generative AI – the type that can produce text, images and video – have changed so rapidly, and the conversations around it have been so fraught, that film-makers’ ability to use it far outpaces any consensus on how.

… So Antell and several colleagues formed the Archival Producers Alliance (APA), a volunteer group of about 300 documentary producers and researchers dedicated to, in part, developing best practices for use of generative AI in factual storytelling. “Instead of being, ‘the house is burning, we’ll never have jobs,’ it’s much more based around an affirmation of why we got into this in the first place,” said Stephanie Jenkins, a founding APA member. Experienced documentary film-makers have “really been wrestling with this”, in part because “there is so much out there about AI that is so confusing and so devastating or, alternatively, a lot of snake oil.” — Read More