The Walt Disney Company has formed a task force to explore the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and use it across the company, despite the ongoing writers’ and actors’ strikes to limit Hollywood’s exploitation of the technology. As per the latest report from Reuters, the entertainment conglomerate created the task force earlier this year before the WGA strike in May.
According to Reuters, Disney currently has 11 job openings for candidates in machine learning or AI expertise. These job positions will touch different departments inside the company, such as the Walt Disney Studios, Disney Branded Television, Theme Parks, Imagineering, advertising team, and more.
Disney is showing interest in the effective utilisation of AI to reduce the soaring costs of its movies and TV shows and improve their profit margins. Latest releases from the studio, such as ‘The Little Mermaid’, ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’, ‘Elemental’, and ‘Haunted Mansion’, have tanked at the global box office. These movies had budgets of around $150-300 million and needed handsome box office returns to break even.
Disney is yet to respond on this matter.
One of the sources who spoke to Reuters informed the platform that the studio is using AI tools to improve the quality of its digital effects instead of replacing actors from the projects. Still, this scenario is a major concern for the actors and writers supporting the strikes as they have made AI a primary element of their collective bargaining agenda. They consider the technology as a threat that can steal their jobs in future.
Disney CEO Bob Iger highlighted AI’s ‘substantial benefits’ in the studio’s earnings call in May. He even joked about the technology taking his place in future. “It is also clear that AI is going to be highly disruptive and could be difficult to manage, particularly from an IP management perspective,” Iger said at the earnings call.
The growing trend of utilisation of AI by big studios has drawn severe criticism from actors and writers inside the industry. Recently, many people criticised Marvel’s usage of AI to create the Secret Invasion Disney+ series’s opening credits. Stay tuned for more updates.
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