Late Night with Generative AI

There has been a lot of discourse swirling about Late Night with the Devil. I find the use of generative AI incredibly disappointing and money should not be spent to see it. There has been an influx in this content from big studios but the creep into a production like this is very concerning.

One argument for not boycotting this piece is that it's an indie production (sometimes conflating it to the status of a Cassavetes piece). Independent work is always tight for cash and time. There's no big studio to fall back on for financial support. The problem comes in with the normalization. If this piece is a commercial success, that signals to future indie projects that, "we can make the same quality at this price". Budgets then start shrinking even more for creatives because using generative AI bumps the bottom line.

Another argument is that it's only used a little bit in the film, only three short title cards (though there's is speculation about more instances in the set decoration). When it comes to cinema, what is on screen and what is heard is important. Every second of a piece comes together to form the whole. In purely screen-time, it's not a lot but that doesn't make it any less important. When any of this content is inserted in, it is woven into the very fabric of the piece. You either elevate generative AI to the status of all the human work or drag that work down to uncanny valley dreck.

As consumers our control comes from our wallets. We can choose whether to spend money on a movie ticket, streaming service, or something else entirely. Hollywood loves riding on winners, if there's a success you can bet there will be similar things coming out in the near future. By spending money on this piece, you are signalling to the people who profit on the back end (sales folks, distributors, producers) that it's okay. They are seeing how much they can get away with, Disney Secret Invasion and Loki, True Detective season four, Magic the Gathering adverts, it's not going away.

There were no doubt a lot of talented people who worked on this film. While it may seem harsh to monetarily boycott (though all the below the line folks weren't sharing in the revenue anyway) there isn't much option. Audiences can kick and scream but money is the only thing that's going to talk. Executives and shareholders love the idea of cutting costs and boosting margins. Why wouldn't they push for more use of a technology to cut cost, it is up to consumers.

It's very disappointing to me to see a lot of folks dismiss this. To say it is overblown and does more harm than good. Hollywood is a very predatory place and much of the foundation has free labor cooked in. It's such a shame thinking that some artists could have made and been paid for those title cards. One would think an independent production (and those who enjoy indie cinema) would have more sympathy for artists.