Tim Levy, Founder and CEO of Twyn, issues an urgent warning to the entertainment sector: continue fighting AI and hand the keys over to big tech or engage with it to build a flourishing future.
Technological development has always been a double-edged sword for the entertainment industry. At once, both enabling and threatening, the history of technological change in the world of radio, TV, and film has been turbulent. But few technologies have simultaneously caused as much trepidation, excitement, and fury as artificial intelligence.
The entertainment industry’s instinctive reaction has been one of self-preservation. They have seen AI accelerating towards them in the shape of a bullet and have been fighting tooth and nail to try and safeguard jobs, protect IP and ensure fair compensation.
This is an understandable reaction – unfortunately, though, it will guarantee the very outcomes it’s hoping to prevent.
How the commercialisation of AI threatens creatives
The UK government has made it very clear that it’s embracing AI with open arms. At the recent US-UK bilateral partnership talks and at the AI Safety Summit in November, the UK staked out its position as a light-touch regulatory environment for AI innovation and commerce, opposing the EU’s regulatory framework, which has been named the ‘toughest’ in the world.
The government wants to talk to industry representatives with tangible plans to roll out AI responsibly – but by fighting it, the entertainment industries have shut themselves out of this conversation. They are only increasing their exposure to AI-based disruption.
Without a seat at the table, the entertainment industry is vulnerable. And big tech corporations are circling, only too happy to take advantage of this opening. Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet are very much in the room with regulators – and have no intention of leaving profits on the table by putting up guardrails. Controlled by big tech alone, AI will take creatives’ jobs, trample over IP protections and lead to significant pay cuts for those workers left standing.
Embracing AI in the entertainment industry
However, this isn’t the only path available for the entertainment sector. It can engage with the government to build an industry where creatives and AI work together—where AI is a tool in their hands to enhance human-authored content rather than replace it.
But to get there, they have to develop a roadmap for the productive, responsible, and positive use of AI in the sector. Rather than refusing AI reform root and branch, creatives can outline exactly when their jobs can be augmented by AI and when they need to be protected.
For example, in the realm of digital effects, AI is already being rolled out – and this is likely to continue. AI can automate lighting adjustments and colour grading, freeing up effects specialists to work on creative decision-making and story-telling tasks rather than repetitive technical steps. On the contrary, AI companies should not be able to use writers’ scripts as data inputs freely, and then to pump out new ones at a rapid rate without fair compensation and explicit consent.
These are just two examples of what a productive and responsible roadmap for AI’s use in the entertainment sector would look like. The industry needs to come up with tangible ideas about when and where AI can be used to work alongside creatives – and it can then draw lines in the sand to protect workers’ jobs, creative IP and fair pay.
AI will drive investment – let’s start to leverage it in the arts
This is beneficial for both sides involved. The government wants to stimulate growth and use AI as a lightning rod for investment and capital in the UK. With a practical plan for AI’s use, the entertainment sector is providing certainty – and if there’s one thing that investors like, it’s certainty. The creative industry might find then that this AI blueprint opens the gates to a flood of investment into the sector, funding new films, TV shows and projects.
But without this certainty, both the entertainment industry and the government lose out. If the sector sees AI as nothing but a threat, they’ll be shut out of the conversation – and lose any chance to put up guardrails in the industry. And the government will see the UK’s media and entertainment sector, one of the few areas in the UK that is genuinely internationally competitive, become the latest in a long line of industries picked to the bone by preying big tech corporations.
The £97bn of industry revenue made by the entertainment industry in the UK will then be stashed away in tax havens outside HMRC’s reach.
This is a potential, not a certain future. The entertainment sector still has time to grab hold of the rudder and chart a new course. But it’ll need to get realistic and outline a tangible plan for the productive, responsible, and positive use of AI in the sector.
Only then will they be able to constructively engage with regulators and safeguard workers’ jobs, IP and pay. Without this, they’re placing their future in the hands of big tech – and this will only spell disaster.
