LOS ANGELES: Striking actors in Hollywood fear that artificial intelligence is a threat to their jobs — but for many stunt performers, this dystopian threat is already there.
Cost-cutting studios have used computer-generated backdrop figures for fight sequences for a long time, from “Game of Thrones” to the most recent Marvel superhero films. Now that AI is becoming more prevalent, it’s possible to generate complex action scenes like vehicle chases and shootouts without using those pesky (and expensive) individuals.
Hollywood’s long-standing heritage of stunt work, which has appeared in everything from silent epics to Tom Cruise’s most recent “Mission Impossible,” is in danger of declining quickly.
Freddy Bouciegues, the stunt coordinator for movies like “Terminator: Dark Fate.” and “Free Guy” said, “The technology is exponentially getting faster and better. It’s a scary time right now.”
Studios already require stunt and background performers to participate in high-tech 3D “body scans” on set, and they are not told when and how the images will be used.
AI Use in Hollywood Industry
These likenesses might be utilized to create complex, surprisingly accurate “digital replicas,” which could carry out any desired actions or, say, any desired dialogue thanks to advancements in AI. Bouciegues is concerned that producers may substitute “nondescript” stunt actors, including those portraying pedestrians dodging oncoming cars, with these synthetic avatars.
Bouciegues said, “There could be a world where they said, ‘No, we don’t want to bring these ten guys in… we’ll just add them in later via effects and AI. Now those guys are out of the job.”
But director Neill Blomkamp, whose new film “Gran Turismo” hits theatres on August 25, believed that even that scenario only scratches the surface. He told AFP, “The role AI will soon play in generating images from scratch is “hard to compute.”
Most of the stunt drivers in “Gran Turismo” are real drivers on real racetracks, with some computer-generated effects added for one complicated and dangerous scene.
However, according to Blomkamp, AI will get to the point where it can produce photo-realistic imagery, such as fast crashes, in as little as six or twelve months. “At that point, you take all of your CG (computer graphics) and VFX (visual effects) computers and throw them out the window, and you get rid of stunts, and you get rid of cameras, and you don’t go to the racetrack. It’s that different,” he told AFP.
