Among Hollywood’s creative class, AI is a sort of bogeyman right now. In a film and television market where less is being made and actors, writers, and directors are finding it harder and harder to get consistent work, executives’ talk about the potential of AI is not exactly landing well.
So some were initially surprised to see Natasha Lyonne, the actor and writer known for Russian Doll and Orange Is the New Black, launch an AI company. But she thinks that it’s better for creatives to figure out how to use AI in a way that benefits them, rather than be left behind.
Her company is called Asteria Film Co.; it uses AI tools to create “ambitious and visually rich films on independent budgets.” It relies on the AI model Moonvalley, which was built for filmmaking and cinematography.
Lyonne came to Fortune’s Brainstorm AI conference in San Francisco this week, where she talked with my colleague and Term Sheet author Allie Garfinkle about this new endeavor. She said she got interested in technology and science fiction when she was making Russian Doll (for those who haven’t watched the Netflix show, it involves time loops).
“It does seem that there’s some real rarefied air of sort of C-suite versus the rest,” she said of tension over AI in Hollywood. “And I’m deeply concerned, at least in my business, I’m someone who’s been doing this since I’m 4. … I really care about crews, cast, [the union] IATSE, Teamsters, all of us—writers, directors, people that have made their own work as artists.”
She says she’s not worried about some of the recent AI stories that have roiled the industry. “I’m not sweating Tilly Norwood,” she said of the AI-generated “actress.” “I’ve heard her name. Haven’t met her, not convinced she’s real or super important, might just be a distraction, a little fear tactic, chaos.”
To those in creative fields who pride themselves on avoiding AI entirely, she advises to look at the structures around them. “It’s very easy to say, ‘I made my album with no AI,’ but your marketing department did not,” she said. “So what do we really mean when we say AI?”
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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PARTING WORDS
"You get burned enough times to know that we’re safer together."
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