Hollywood’s AI Concerns Grow with Content from TikTok and Similar Platforms

Topline:

AI content — and platforms for it — have the potential to become something that further erodes Hollywood’s once-steady grip over how people get their entertainment.

Why it matters: The big fear in Hollywood is AI replacing the creators and distributors of traditional filmmaking. What leaps in AI suggest, instead, is a new medium of expression, which comes with its pros and cons.

The attention economy: Hollywood is already losing the war for eyeballs to YouTube and TikTok, and AI-generated videos could be yet another way for people to spend their time versus watching professionally produced content.

State of play: AI videos have improved at a disturbingly rapid clip, and dedicated social media accounts that post specific niches of AI images and videos are attracting six- and seven-figure audiences for impossible-seeming depictions of underwater fashion shows and objects and creatures transforming into other forms. There are even human creators that remake popular AI videos.

The “HBO of AI”: A startup called DreamFlare aims to be the “HBO of AI,” creating premium AI content that acts as a storytelling medium for artists who don’t have the resources to tell their stories in the traditional fashion. The company charges $3 per month for a subscription and already has 3 million subscribers after launching out of stealth mode in July.