Lumen Spring Summer 2023 - Flipbook - Page 39
A scene from I, Robot (2004)
with the development of advanced AI. And
Hollywood has run with this idea ever since,
starting with HAL’s large red ‘eye’ as the
personification of the ‘bad robot’.
AI has been widely embraced by the film
industry in other ways, which loops us
right back to the current strike action in
Hollywood.
“Digital de-ageing” first entered the
mainstream in 2019 with The Irishman
and Captain Marvel. Via this process,
older actors (Robert De Niro, Al Pacino
and Samuel L. Jackson) moved back and
forwards in time without younger actors
having to play them.
The first part of this year’s Indiana Jones
and the Dial of Destiny is an extended
flashback, set in 1944, in which Harrison
Ford was digitally de-aged to appear thirty
years younger. By deploying an AI system
that scanned unused reels of footage of
Ford from his Indiana Jones incarnations
of the 1980s to match his present-day
performance, audiences got two Fords for
the price of one; the “younger”, fitter Indy,
and the older, world-wearier version.
These de-ageing algorithms are highly
proficient at analysing vast amounts of
data, including images and videos, to learn
patterns and features associated
with different age groups.
By scrutinising facial structures, wrinkles,
and other ageing characteristics, these AI
tools can generate realistic representations
of a person at a younger age. It makes for a
powerfully emotional connection on screen,
but there are pitfalls. Some viewers complain
that the whole process is distracting and that
the hyper-real visual look of de-aged scenes
resembles a video game.
Even so, de-ageing in Hollywood cinema is
here to stay. Tom Hanks’s next film will use
AI-based generative technology to digitally
de-age him. In the midst of the current
industry uncertainty, it seems there is no
longer a statute of limitations on actors
returning to much-loved characters.
The next big ethical issue for the film
industry as it further embraces AI is whether
to resurrect deceased actors and cast them
in new movies. Some directors already
are imagining hooking up AI to streaming
platforms to create “new” films in which
we become the stars, interacting with longdead actors.
Rotwang created a robot replica of Maria
(hitherto a virtuous woman who becomes
a symbol of hope for the city’s oppressed
workers) to sow discord and chaos.
This new ‘false’ Maria is one of cinema’s
most enduring ‘bad robots’: in the film, she
becomes a seductive and manipulative figure
who almost leads to the city’s destruction. A
century later, those fears and anxieties about
the rise of the machines are still with us.
Dr Ben McCann SFHEA is Associate Professor
of French Studies – and an avid film scholar
and writer.
HAL 9000 from
2001: A Space
Odyssey (1968)
In a recent interview, Steven Spielberg
warned: “The human soul is unimaginable
and ineffable. It cannot be created by any
algorithm. This is something that exists only
in us. If we were to lose that because books,
films, music tracks are being created by the
machines we have made? Are we going to let
all this happen? It terrifies me.”
When the director of two intricately woven
films – Minority Report (2002) and AI:
Artificial Intelligence (2001) – that ask
unsettling questions about how synthetic
humans and computer systems might
interact with us in a not-too-distant future
reminds us to be careful what we wish for,
perhaps we should listen.
Film is reaching a pivotal point in its
relationship with AI. In Fritz Lang’s
Metropolis (1927), the mad scientist
LUMEN – SPRING/SUMMER 2023 39
