Tyler Perry has paused plans for an $800m (£630m) expansion of his Atlanta studio complex following the release of OpenAI’s video generator Sora, warning that artificial intelligence will lead to “a collapse of the film industry” A lot of jobs have disappeared.
The US film and television mogul said he was adding 12 soundstages to his studio, but halted those plans indefinitely after seeing a demo of Sora and its “shocking” capabilities.
“Because of what Sora and what I’ve seen, all of that is on hold indefinitely right now,” Perry told The Hollywood Reporter. “I’ve been hearing about this product coming for the past year or so, but I didn’t know until I saw a demonstration of its capabilities recently. It shocked me.”
The AI tool launched on February 15 (limited to a handful of researchers and film creators) and has attracted widespread astonishment for its ability to generate minute-long realistic footage based on simple text prompts.
Perry, whose successes include the Madea films, said Sora’s achievement means he will no longer have to travel to locations or build sets: “I can sit in my office and do it on my computer, and that makes me feel like Shock.”
A demo released by OpenAI, the developer of the groundbreaking ChatGPT chatbot, shows realistic scenes in response to prompts, such as a request to take photos of people walking through the “beautiful, snowy city of Tokyo” with “gorgeous cherry blossom petals and snowflakes” Flying in the wind together.”
Perry said the breakthrough Sola would bring would impact a range of jobs across the film industry, including actors, editors, sound experts and transport crews.
“I’m very, very concerned that a lot of jobs are going to disappear in the near future,” he said. “I really, really feel that very strongly.”
Perry said a direct example is that construction workers and contractors will no longer work on his planned studio expansion because “there is no need.” He added that he has used artificial intelligence in two recent films where the technology was used to age his face and help him avoid spending hours in the makeup chair.
Concerns about the impact of artificial intelligence on jobs have been a feature of recent strikes by actors and writers in Hollywood, and peace deals ending those disputes have featured restrictions on the use of the technology.
However, Perry told The Hollywood Reporter that a “whole-of-industry” approach is still needed to save jobs.
“The union can’t be fighting every contract every two or three years. I think everyone has to be involved in how we protect the future of our industry because it’s changing rapidly, right before our eyes,” he said.
