A License To Believe: AI & The Individual Voice

In 2024, Martin Scorsese spoke on the emergence of AI in filmmaking, “Don’t become a slave to the technology - let us control the technology and put it in the right direction.”. The “it” he refers to is the ‘individual voice’. In a time where many creatives are being persuaded to disassociate from a perspective that Artificial Intelligence in the arts is cataclysmic snake oil for creative spaces, what does it mean to effectively create and convey the individual voice? For a branding expert or a marketer, it’s working backwards from campaign to consumer. Similarly, for a filmmaker on the press circuit, it’s a balance of curating a quintessential style of storytelling and subsequently urging their audience to engage with a set of values presented through dynamic characters. For a musician, well, as Mark Ronson described Amy Winehouse, “When she wrote, there was no editing. It came out, like, this is the truth and this is how it’s gonna stay.“.

So, how do we still award people a license to believe - in a system that doesn’t just store artefacts, but imitates our sensory patterns to produce vivid, sophisticated results? 

In our embrace of Artificial Intelligence, rather than viewing it as armageddon, we must be reminded that the surface of reason is rational. For entertainment and creatives, this preserves the basic idea that the art we create relies on shared beliefs, human experience and any kind of intrinsic force of living - even as the creation of art in some spheres becomes an increasingly individual and fragmented experience (rest in peace, MTV). 

We’re now comfortably using AI for our workflows, our storyboards, our data audits, and as our teacher. It’s GREAT. It’s an ally of selective and comprehensive learning. Choosing to believe that we’re in an ‘interim’ of adapting to large language models - as if this is some tunnel that has another end - is widely accepted as an inaccurate way of envisioning the future. 

We also battle with AI. Whether it’s because we fear licensing issues, it poses profound risks (concerning privacy, discrimination and biases), or because we must protest it as creatives. That is, we believe it simply can’t outdo the idiosyncrasy of human nature. Regardless, it is and is continuing to prove itself as an imminent learning curve (with no end point) that some might say challenges community and connection. So if we know the lines of transhumanism are continuing to shift before the ink can ever dry - how are we harnessing its possibilities in this context? This comes back to the importance of the individual voice, and using AI to create content that doesn’t feel characterless, which is a focal concern for many entertainment professionals. 

Last year, OpenAI’s Chief Technology Officer Mira Murati expressed that generative AI could remove the need for certain creative jobs, suggesting “maybe they shouldn’t have been there in the first place“. Visual Effects Supervisor Jim Geduldick, in response, commented that figures such as Murati have “repeatedly shown in their public-facing interviews or marketing that there’s a disconnect [in] understanding what creatives actually do… Film-making is a collaborative thing. You are hiring loads of talented artists, technicians, craftspeople to come together and create this vision that the writers, director, showrunners and producers have thought up.” (Adrian Horton, The Guardian). Of course, there are two sides to this coin - AI transforms production costs and speeds up our storyboard processes significantly.

Many believe that the process (and the cost) of creating impactful art is intuition, and I don’t think AI can interfere with the core of this idea. Though it can, of course, imitate it. The creative processes of any artist include a lot of mental roundabouts (fun fun fun), and the opportunity to learn… as a sentient being. Studies tell us that as it is now, we generally prefer to put faith in what we know is real, rather than what isn’t. That isn’t to say artificially created content isn’t challenging this idea either, or that consumer behaviour patterns are staying the same. If anything it is certainly the opposite. The idea that technology can’t turn a bad story into a good one, which rang true 25 years ago, now ceases to exist. AI’s study of comprehension and cognitive recognition practices provides incredible global accessibility, where we are all free to create anything we like.

Existential values - specifically courage and freedom - are the core pillars of any successful advertising or legacy brand. Ironically, even so, for OpenAI, which is perhaps the distinguished limit of their vision statement, which includes defining AI systems as generally smarter than humans. Their latest tube ads on my commute to work are an imperative emphasis on the importance of human connectivity. 

With such quick changes coming our way, the quantification of creative value remains cryptic, which is where the fear lies. Added to that is the historical and pragmatic perspective which dismisses how lucidly people can create. Instead, the order of priorities becomes more polarising in the entertainment space. It’s not just about your demonstrable comprehension of cultural corners, moments or ideas, and in what perceived tone of voice, to which audience. It’s most importantly about the speed at which you can complete it.

This is where the significance of iconic legacy catalogues and brands remains - in collision with new digital ages. In forms of entertainment, the creme de la creme of film, music, theatre and maisons. You can certainly try your best to fabricate a legacy, but it is, in essence, an impossible task. The basis of a legacy is that it isn’t forgotten, and more importantly, that it’s our job to protect and preserve it. Like all great leaders, these brands are self-defined by the identity profiles of their select consumer, who they choose to honour in their product. Their excellence is different from brands whose goals have historically focused on engineering performance. Now, every legacy brand’s focus is both reinventing and carving new strategies for existential greatness for consumers in a world where, in many ways, excellence has already been achieved.

This is also why the upward trajectory of experiential marketing feels so exciting. It’s also moments such as seeing your favourite artist live. It’s why some anticipate the comeback of radio, driven by younger audiences, and a wealth of engagement and campaigns that invite us to participate in the collective creative process. But not any less than we also love innovating under a new momentum of progress. The induction of diffusion models is just different this time. 

Behind every great songwriter, filmmaker, fashion designer or ‘artist’ is an existential nod of understanding that creation comes from some combined reality. Fleeting or complex encounters of lives, losses and gains, pain and joy - not perpetual comparisons to what your algorithm shows you (despite this importance and valuable insight for us as professionals). This is before it becomes a priceless anecdote on a used napkin (shoutout to Tim Burton) or, perhaps less romantically, an untitled Google doc (that’s my own shoutout). Our only authentic currency for paying respect to these ideas is by opening books, watching films, recording music and managing our relationships. Our technology is the most transformative vessel for representing and enhancing these experiences moving forward. Our work has always been fundamentally algorithmic. AI becomes an increasingly exciting possibility when we use it to inspire and extract new realities, ones that will always be derived from our own. 

We all know we aren’t going to AI for authenticity. We’re aware we’re asking for iterations of modelled authenticity. AI hasn’t obliterated the protection of our values, it has shifted it. I agree with the idea that consumers will be using models of AI content generation natively soon, and I’m very excited to be part of a wider industry where we’re riding this wave. AI provides a methodology for gaining desired quantitative study alongside semantic reflection, as it relates to our emotional intuition, in a matter of seconds. We’ve never had this capability before.

This therefore supports the idea that these behaviours - reading, writing, creating and building valued, sustainable communities - become more important pillars than ever before. I was privileged enough to spend time with some of the creators of Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein a few months ago, where this notion of the individual voice was discussed as a kernel component of del Toro’s creative strategy. Practising criticality is decreasing, yet the need for it is actually increasing, otherwise known as the individual voice, where our beliefs are conceived. 

We haven’t clearly established the meaning of the dynamic between the artist and the technology, or any order of subservience. For years to come, we’ll be learning about what creative direction looks like, intellectual ownership, and an influx of new legal structures - varying across territories and communities. 

As we’ve always been at our best, we practice innovation, resilience, and adaptability. I end with some sensibility, maybe humour - take your pick. 

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"We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race." - Walt Whitman 

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*No AI was used in the creation of this piece.

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