Even though artificial intelligence has already caused a stir in Hollywood (writers went on strike), the controversial topic is barely broached in India’s film industry, which involves thousands of people. While some in India’s film industry are trying to downplay the dangers of AI for the time being, others are taking the issue extremely seriously and its showing the serious impact of AI on Bollywood film industry.
The 1983 Indian film Masoom, directed by Shekhar Kapur, chronicled a woman’s struggle to accept the child she had as a result of her husband’s adultery. Kapur opted to try out the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT as a follow-up to this touching film, which gently dealt with the issues around infidelity and social diktats.
“How intuitively AI understood the moral conflict in the plot” and the script it provided in seconds astounded the Oscar-winning director. Reversing the dynamic between the father and son from the original film, the AI-generated storyline shows the boy developing resentment as he ages. Kapur predicts that AI‘s future will be “chaotic” since machine learning can complete a task that would take a team of screenwriters “weeks to do” in comparison.
How does AI function, and what is it?
A 2019 Deloitte analysis found that India’s film industry is the biggest in the world in terms of annual film production. Over 850,000 individuals find work in this sector. Economic and ethical concerns are being raised by the increasing prevalence of deepfake videos of well-known Indian celebrities, such as “Rashmika Mandanna and Alia Bhatt,” on the internet, facilitated by increasingly sophisticated AI techniques.
A major point of contention during this year’s US actors’ and writers’ strike—which halted production in Hollywood for months—was the incorporation of AI into television and film projects.
“There hasn’t been a structured conversation around the use of AI in India yet,” remarks Siddharth Roy Kapur, a former president of the Producers Guild of India. He reasons that artificial intelligence tools are “getting smarter literally every second,” thus now is the perfect moment to have it. “Where we are today with AI will be very different to where we are three to six months from now,” adds Kapur.
So where is India, “now”?
“The “press of a button” does not yet provide “everything prepackaged” according to Redchillies.vfx’s Keitan Yadav and Harry Hingorani, who are in charge of artificial intelligence.
Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan started the visual effects company almost twenty years ago. The company was in charge of the visual effects for two of Khan’s films that were huge hits in India this year: Jawan and Pathaan.
According to Yadav and Hingorani, they have been utilizing AI technologies for brainstorming purposes. However, they still believe the resolution is inconsistent with a 4K movie. This idea, however, is going to be challenged by Guhan Senniappan. In his forthcoming Tamil film “Weapon,” he will be directing the first Indian feature film to feature an AI-generated two-and-a-half-minute sequence.
“We’re working on a superhuman saga with a lot of action sequences, and I wanted to convey the story in a new way,” according to Senniappan. Senniappan claims that using AI was more cost-effective than live action.
When he employed deepfake technology to utilize his voice and likeness in an ad in 2021, Khan was one of the first Bollywood actors to experiment with artificial intelligence. As part of their advertising strategy, Cadbury’s allowed small business owners to utilize his likeness and voice to promote their establishment and increase sales amid the pandemic slowdown.
Ogilvy India’s Sukesh Nayak claims that “one ad campaign created 300,000 ads across the country” due to the extensive advertising campaign. They ensured “only certain kinds of businesses were allowed to register” to use their campaign and worked closely with Khan’s staff in a restricted setting. Critics argue that the sector is vulnerable to abuse because the Indian government has not yet established restrictions regarding the use of artificial intelligence.
Actor Anil Kapoor, of Bollywood fame, won a battle this year to safeguard his image, voice, likeness, and name. Kapoor praised the decision as “very progressive” and said it will benefit other actors. “Where my image, voice, morphing, GIFs, and deepfakes are concerned, I can straightaway, if that happens, send a court order and injunction, and they have to pull it down,” he explained to Variety.
However, AI also has a dark side. As far as the film industry is concerned, AI has the potential to manage and simplify critical processes. Automating specific visual effects procedures that are now done “frame by frame” and take “long time periods to even generate a preview for the client” intrigues Shilpa Hingorani of Redchillies.vfx. “Anything that reduces the time periods will definitely make the process easier and faster,” says Yadav.
Which one is better human labor or AI?
According to Senniappan, a live-action filming would have been better “if we had the budget and time,” even if his picture Weapon relies heavily on AI. “AI is beautiful, but it is not as organic as a live-action or anime because a human [being] did not act or draw it manually,” according to him.
Following his first enchantment with ChatGPT, Kapur experienced a similar sentiment. My answer to the question, “Who is smarter, you or me?” was obvious.” He claims AI “assumes a morality from the data available” rather than possessing an inherent moral code. “It cannot create mystery, feel fear or love.” However, he does argue that it can make filmmaking more accessible to more people. “If everyone has access to the same tools, organizational hierarchies will break, and everyone will have the power to tell a story,” according to him.
