Netflix goes ‘all in’ on generative AI as leisure trade stays divided

Because the leisure trade reckons with when and the best way to use generative AI in filmmaking, Netflix is leaning in. In its quarterly earnings report launched on Tuesday afternoon, Netflix wrote in its letter to traders that it’s “very properly positioned to successfully leverage ongoing advances in AI.”

Netflix isn’t planning to make use of generative AI because the spine of its content material however believes the know-how has potential as a instrument to make creatives extra environment friendly.

“It takes an amazing artist to make one thing nice,” Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos stated on Tuesday’s earnings name. “AI may give creatives higher instruments to reinforce their total TV/film expertise for our members, however it doesn’t mechanically make you an amazing storyteller when you’re not.”

Earlier this 12 months, Netflix stated it used generative AI in closing footage for the primary time within the Argentine present “The Eternaut” to create a scene of a constructing collapsing. Since then, the filmmakers behind “Blissful Gilmore 2” used generative AI to make characters look youthful within the movie’s opening scene, whereas the producers of “Billionaires’ Bunker” used the know-how as a pre-production instrument to check wardrobe and set design.

“We’re assured that AI goes to assist us and assist our artistic companions inform tales higher, quicker, and in new methods,” Sarandos stated. “We’re all in on that, however we’re not chasing novelty for novelty’s sake right here.”

AI has been a contentious matter within the leisure trade, as artists fear that LLM-powered instruments that nonconsensually used their work as coaching information have the potential to negatively affect their jobs.

With Netflix as a bellwether, plainly studios are extra doubtless to make use of generative AI for particular results slightly than to exchange the position of actors — even when an AI actor not too long ago brought about an uproar amongst Hollywood actors, regardless of not but reserving any gigs (that we all know of). These behind-the-scenes AI makes use of nonetheless have the potential to affect visible results jobs, nevertheless.

These debates not too long ago escalated when ChatGPT maker OpenAI unveiled its Sora 2 audio and video technology mannequin, which was launched with out guardrails that stop customers from producing movies of some actors and historic figures. Simply this week, the Hollywood commerce group SAG-AFTRA and actor Bryan Cranston urged OpenAI to institute stronger guardrails towards deepfaking actors like Cranston himself.

When an investor requested Sarandos in regards to the affect of Sora on Netflix, he stated that it “begins to make sense” that content material creators could possibly be impacted, however he’s much less frightened in regards to the film and TV enterprise — or so he tells traders.

“We’re not frightened about AI changing creativity,” he stated.

Netflix’s quarterly income grew 17% year-over-year to $11.5 billion, although this fell beneath the corporate’s forecast.