“Artificial intelligence means it’s much easier for us to make movies,” Lucas says in a feature published earlier this month in A Rabbit’s Foot focusing on his Museum of Narrative Art. “It’s very much like sitting here saying, ‘Well, I believe the horse and the buggy is really where it’s at. These cars, they break down, they need gas, there’s all kinds of problems with them and pretty soon they’ll be making them into tanks, and then they’ll be killing people. It’s terrible.’ There’s nothing you can do about it… That’s progress, it’s the future.” Of course, there’s a range of AI tools, from something like the Respeecher used in The Brutalist to the wholesale regeneration of a blockbuster into slop, and people’s comfort level with them will vary. But Lucas doesn’t offer, at least as his quotes are presented here, much in the way of specifics.
What he does add is a bit confusing, with writer Andy Hazel writing that Lucas “acknowledges the risks but insists that AI can provide its own solutions.” He’s then quoted as saying: “If you want AI that tells you when something is fake and where it came from, AI can do that. Humans can’t, we’re not that smart. The whole idea is you’re a human being, you’re responsible for what you say and what you do, and if you’re doing something that’s illegal you should be punished for that. Whatever you do, you should be recognised. It’s just like real life.”
Needless to say, AI is not a divine entity but a human invention trained from existing human knowledge, and a lot of people are quickly developing the ability to tell if something is fake and AI generated. But in the context of the interview, Lucas’ comments on AI are an extension of his feelings about digital film in general. While he says that other filmmakers he knows might avoid shooting digitally, he says, “No, it’s cinema. It’s the moving image. That’s what it is. It’s not a technology, it’s an idea.”
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