Donna Langley Says a Lot of Hollywood ‘Panic’ Around AI Was ‘A Bit Premature’
Donna Langley thinks the uproar around AI use in film and TV production was a “bit premature.”
While speaking at the CNBC Changemakers Summit, the NBCUniversal Entertainment & Studios chairman took time in her keynote address to point out that AI provides more benefits than all the concerned parties are leading people to think. Langley envisioned AI as a powerful asset in the film and TV production toolbox.
“AI is just another technology, now it may be exponentially more powerful, move much more quickly, be much more ubiquitous, and have ultimately more of an impact,” Langley said. “It sort of goes back to that, just deal with a problem that’s in front of you that you can actually deal with, right? So the reality of it is, is we could be really scared of it and run for the hills, or we could embrace it as a technology that could actually enable efficiency or just a better set of processes.”
She continued: “The ethics in our world is you’ve got to keep it human centric and powered by humans. And that was a lot of the discussion that we had during the labor strikes. It’s probably a bit of incremental solution, problem solving that will change when AI does become all the things we expect it to become. But as we sit here today, the reality is a lot of the panic and the running for the hills was a bit premature.”
Langley added that at the end of the day what will trump everything is quality work available to viewers. In other words – content is king.
“I think at the end of the day, content really does win out,” she said.
The use of generative artificial intelligence during film and TV production was, of course, a major sticking point in the writers and actors’ strikes against the studios that saw a Hollywood shutdown for 118 days in summer 2023. Those contracts are back up for AMPTP negotiation in 2026.
“We’re in a moment of uncertainty, and it’s rocky and challenging,” Langley said. “Put your seatbelts on, right? Sometimes it could be easier to kind of bury your head in the sand. You can’t do that. You have to stare at it. You have to stare at the problem, and be comfortable in the discomfort.”
The post Donna Langley Says a Lot of Hollywood ‘Panic’ Around AI Was ‘A Bit Premature’ appeared first on TheWrap.