The Oscars might start requiring films to disclose their AI use

The Academy is reportedly looking into changing rules to make disclosures of AI use in films like The Brutalist mandatory.

By William Hughes  |  February 7, 2025 | 5:28pm
The Brutalist, Image: A24
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The Oscars might start requiring films to disclose their AI use

The recent controversy over the use of artificial intelligence in The Brutalist—where an AI tool called Respeecher was used to adjust some of the film’s Hungarian dialogue for accuracy—is the kind of thing that’s only going to get worse in coming years. (As we noted, The Brutalist isn’t even the only Oscar nominee to use Respeecher in this slate of films, with Emilia Pérez also crediting the tech, while Maria used a different audio AI tool to capture some of its vocals.) The increasing use, and increasing diversity, of AI tech might soon push the never-exactly-swift Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences to make a move, with Variety reporting that the Academy is considering making disclosure of the use of AI tools mandatory for Oscars submissions.

The Academy already allows producers to make optional disclosures about AI use, presumably in the hopes of getting out ahead of stuff exactly like the firestorm of critique now facing Brady Corbet’s movie. (Corbet has defended the film’s use of AI, saying it was “done with the utmost respect for the craft.”) But Academy Governors are now apparently looking into the most effective ways to make such disclosures mandatory in the various branches of filmmaking that the Oscars cover, with an apparent eye toward employing them when the organization puts out its rules for the 2026 awards in April, after this year’s ceremony.

This will, obviously, involve some major and probably pretty fractious arguments about definitions, as conflicts almost certainly break out about which tools will require a mandatory disclosure. The Brutalist is getting most of its flack for using AI for audio—Corbet slapped down accusations saying language models were used to develop some of the film’s visuals, claiming they were all hand-drawn—but AI is becoming more prevalent in every branch of movie-making by the day, whether it’s being used for visual effects, to reinforce the illusions created by makeup and costuming teams, or to straight-up alter one actor’s appearance and performance into another. Most studios seem to know that they can’t get away with using outright generative AI image creation without getting yelled at. (At least, after Disney took its lumps for gen-ing up intro images for its Secret Invasion show.) But we can foresee a lot of hairs getting digitally split once the Academy starts making these types of disclosures mandatory for anyone looking to get recognized by their peers for their craft.

 

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