How AI is Changing Creative Industries

After analyzing the impact of generative artificial intelligence on 850 professions, analysts of the McKinsey & Co consulting center concluded that AI can optimize 60-70% of standard working hours and contribute, for example, to the US economy in the range of $6.1 to $7.9 trillion per year. 

And while it is commonplace and even predictable to use AI to optimize and automate simple linear processes, the impact of AI on the work of representatives of the so-called "creative industries" has sparked lively discussions and even heated debates.

The best role of AI

James Dean, an American movie icon of the last century, died in a car accident back in 1955, but today he is making an unexpected return in a new movie Back to Eden which is about to be released. Thanks to the "talents" of generative AI and the basics of deepfake technology, digital copies of long-dead actors are once again "playing roles" in Hollywood blockbusters. Carrie Fisher, Harold Ramis, and Paul Walker are just a few of the famous celebrities, who have posthumously played iconic roles in movies, and their number is constantly growing. This fact has caused the acting community around the world to become deeply concerned.

It is the first time in 43 years that actors and screenwriters in Hollywood have gone on strike. Artists fear that they will be replaced by artificial intelligence algorithms, and it's not hard to believe. After all, if skillfully handled by humans, AI can indeed offer many options for dramatic storylines for the script of the next TV series. And instead of millions of dollars in fees for each actor's shift on the movie set, it will now be possible to use a digital image of the artist created in just one working day using innovative Hollywood computer-generated imagery (CGI) technology.

The enormous resource savings are obvious even to those who have never produced an Oscar-winning blockbuster. Moreover, a digitized copy can not only "play a role" by perfectly and tirelessly "fulfilling" the director's instructions, but also work just as enthusiastically in all marketing and PR activities necessary to promote the movie.

For example, James Dean's digital avatar with artificial intelligence will be able to communicate with the audience on interactive platforms, including augmented and virtual reality, as well as games. Moreover, such activities are not limited by time or any other circumstances, as a digital clone is virtually "immortal" and can work at any time if needed.

For example, recently, Brazilian singer Elis Regina was "resurrected" by advanced digital technology to promote the car with her daughter Maria Rita.

James Dean's image is one of hundreds presented by WRX and its subsidiary licensing firm CMG Worldwide, among others: Amelia Earhart, Bettie Page, Malcolm X and Rosa Parks. After Dean's death 68 years ago, he left behind a substantial collection of his images in movies, photographs and audio - what is known as the "source material."

To achieve a photorealistic representation of Dean, a team of digital experts scans and processes a huge amount of footage using advanced technology. The next step is to use audio, video, and artificial intelligence to transform this footage into a complete image that looks, sounds, moves, and even responds to cues like a real actor.

The more data can be collected about a living "prototype," the more perfect the digital clone will be. The modern world of the Internet and data capture opens up super opportunities. There are already companies that allow users to upload digital data of deceased loved ones to create "deadbots" that can communicate with living people from the "other side." Likewise, the heir to the property or image of a modern celebrity could potentially forever allow a realistic clone of the deceased star to continue creative activity in the film industry and other related fields.

This brings up a lot of questions. Won't "digital copies" of dead actors take away work from the living? How and in what way will actors be able to influence the further activities of their digital copy if the rights to it are transferred to production companies? How will the artist's avatar be disposed of by his or her heirs? Will there be cases when an actor's posthumous "roles" do not coincide with his or her lifetime values?

Actors are concerned over these issues, and so far the search for an answer seems vague. A few celebrities, such as Robin Williams, have managed to use a will to restrict the use of their image after death, but under the existing rule, this prohibition expires in 25 years.

AI Music talents 

AI is taking over the music world. Now, there’s an entire industry built around AI services for creating music, The Verge writes. Most solutions are implemented on the basis of immersion in the process: the software "listens" to hundreds of hours of music, analyzes it to find patterns. The AI also takes into account musical styles, harmony, tempo, duration, and note ratios, and then creates and modifies patterns to create its own melody.

In 2016, the AI software Flow Machines wrote the song Daddy's Car for Sony CSL Research Laboratory. The algorithm analyzed about 45 songs by The Beatles and created a melody in the band's style. In six years, the track has garnered almost 3 million views on YouTube.

The song became the world's first AI track and since then, the "collaboration" between musicians and AI has been gaining momentum. In 2023, Ukrainian rapper Krechet created RoboWave, the first music album in Ukraine to be entirely AI-generated. The cover art was designed by Midjourney, the lyrics were written in ChatGPT, and the music video was also generated by AI. The album has four tracks: Minecraft, Wednesday Addams, Huggy Wuggy, and Garten of Banban. While the songs did not become mega-hits, it opened a new page in musicians' experiments with AI.

AIVA Technologies, a Luxembourg-based company, has created an artificial intelligence that composes music for movies, advertisements, games, and TV shows. OpenAI's Jukebox allows users to choose a genre when working on a piece of music. Artists, whose image and voice are created by AI, as well as the music they perform, have long since become mega-shows in Asia and gather millions of people online and at live concerts.

Creative and tireless

A tireless, customized content maker capable of learning quickly and acquiring new skills even faster is the ideal creative worker in marketing - and his name is AI. According to the McKinsey & Co. projection model, generative artificial intelligence can revolutionize the industry by taking over the function of generating creative content for all possible activities: from advertising slogans to texts, images, and ideas for social media. AI can also communicate by creating personalized emails and messages, as well as analyze data and predict consumer reactions to a product.

All of these benefits seem like a jackpot, as they reduce the cost of content creation and increase revenue by improving the efficiency of high-quality content and scalability.

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The burst of AI technology's impact on the creative industries is expected in 2027, when artificial intelligence learns to accurately recognize normal human speech and respond logically. By then, humanity may have found the right solution for legislative regulation of AI-generated "creativity." As it stands, AI-generated content is not considered original and is not protected by copyright. However, in case of digital copies of people or works that can generate enormous revenues, certain "rules of the game" should still be fixed.