"It is inevitable. I mean, it's like, 'I don't think these cars are going to work. We're fine like this, with horses. Let's stay with the horses.' And yes, you can say that, but that's not how the world works." I am words di George Lucas, creator of Star Wars, on the use of artificial intelligence in cinema. Words that sound like a sentence, pronounced by one of the greatest visionaries of the seventh art.
Lucas, who received an honorary Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday, addressed the hot topic of AI by bringing up the pioneering experience of his Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) with digital technology. His speech obviously goes beyond the simple technical parallel, to embrace a broader reflection on the fate of cinema in the era of artificial intelligence. Something similar to what Annie Leibovitz he said in the field of photography and Joe Russo, always for the cinema. We feel.
AI in cinema according to George Lucas: an unstoppable paradigm shift?
George Lucas' statement on the inevitability of artificial intelligence in cinema is not a mere technical observation. It is a profound reflection on changing paradigms. Comparing the advent of artificial intelligence in the seventh art to the transition from the horse to the car, the creator of Star Wars seems to suggest that we are facing an unstoppable revolution, destined to redefine the very way we conceive and make films.
But what does this paradigm shift really imply? While on the one hand AI promises to open new creative frontiers, from the automation of the most repetitive processes to the generation of new content, on the other hand it raises profound questions about the role of the artist and the very nature of the creative act. If a machine can write a screenplay, direct a scene, or even act, what remains of human genius? Can cinematic art really be reduced to an algorithm, however sophisticated?
ILM and the digital revolution: a historical precedent
For George Lucas, who is unfazed, these questions are not new. His reference to Industrial Light & Magic's experience with digital technology suggests that cinema has faced similar challenges before. Founded in 1975 to create the visual effects for Star Wars, ILM has been at the forefront of the digital revolution that has transformed cinema since the 90s, introducing techniques such as morphing, crowd rendering and motion capture.
At the time, many feared that the advent of digital would mark the end of craftsmanship and creativity in cinema. I mean, how many professionals were involved in creating explosions and models and whatnot? Yet, decades later, we can say that those fears were unfounded.
Digital technology has not killed cinema, on the contrary. He enriched it with new expressive possibilities, opening the way to previously unthinkable visions. From the fantasy worlds of Avatar to the visual poetry of the Fabulous World of Amélie, digital has become a tool at the service of the imagination, not its master.
George Lucas and AI as a tool, not an end
Perhaps, George Lucas implicitly suggests, the same could happen with artificial intelligence. Perhaps, instead of fearing it as an existential threat to cinematic art, we should see it as a new tool available to creatives, capable of pushing the boundaries of what is possible. Not a replacement of human genius, but an extension of it.
Of course, for this to happen, a profound rethinking of the role of the artist in the era of artificial intelligence will be necessary. The director, the screenwriter, the actor will have to learn to collaborate with the machine, to guide it and inspire it, rather than compete with it. They will have to find a new balance between creative control and automation, between intuition and the algorithm. It will not be an easy path, and will require an evolution not only of technical skills, but also of artistic sensitivity and ethical vision.
Towards a new cinematic humanism
Mind you (even if I say this, not George Lucas. You'll have to be satisfied): the greatest challenge that AI poses to cinema is not technical, but humanistic. If machines step in and replicate man's creative abilities more and more closely, cinema will have to find a new way to affirm its specificity, its irreducible humanity.
It will have to do so by rediscovering what makes cinematographic art unique and irreplaceable: its ability to excite, to provoke, to make people dream. His ability to grasp the nuances of the human soul, to tell stories that touch us deeply. His magic in creating worlds in which we can lose ourselves and find ourselves, mirrors in which we can peer into our own essence.
Because cinema is an act of communication between human beings, a bridge built between different imaginaries, sensibilities and stories. Stories that talk about us, and our inexhaustible desire to reinvent the world: even when that world seems increasingly technological and artificial. We are ready? Engine… Action.
