The key to understanding the AI solution is that it will not replace all actors, because AI-generated performance is a new medium, an entirely new form of animation. But AI will make it a hell of a lot easier to solve the problems created by actors and bloated productions, offering a clean, compliant exit from the mess that decades of mutual enabling between talent and management created.
Will Tilly Norwood be the next hot actress? No. She’s not going to be any studio’s life raft, but AI will at some point create the next equivalent of Mickey Mouse, Kermit the Frog, Bugs Bunny, Bart Simpson, or Jack Skellington, able to feature in multiple movies, to endorse any product, and be printed onto any merchandise; believe that.
The current union disputes are no longer a fight for fair wages; they are the final, desperate struggle for market control that is being lost because the value of the “product,” the human talent, has been diminished by that talent’s own behavior. The studio’s message is now becoming the audience’s message: “We don’t want you. You’re horrible.”
The ultimate irony is that while the guilds and traditional Hollywood structures fight desperately to place legal and cultural shackles on AI, the market has already moved on. Independent creators and smaller studios are not fighting the technology; they are adopting it at warp speed.
That’s the part all of these infantilized and media-addled individuals have to come to terms with. We are not their subjects. We are individuals trying to get by in an ever-evolving and advancing world. This is real life. We don’t have time to deal with their online harassment, their temper tantrums, and their proclamations of imagined integrity based on what they thought life should be like when they were twelve. The adults in the room can see that we need to work every day just to keep up.
That needs to be all of us, no matter what anyone might think. For better or worse, we need to make the best of it. Throwing a perpetual fit won’t change that, but it’s sure to piss off an increasing number of people just trying to do their thing, so think twice about how you react to something someone did with AI the next time you see it. They’re likely to remember how you treated them.
“Hollywood is not just losing a battle; it has already lost the market to a nimble, global network of innovators.”
This is the reality, now. We are unburdened by guild rules and the resistance of cultural atavists clinging to outdated systems. Their approval is no longer needed or wanted. We are already seizing the creative and financial edge, blending AI tools with what we already knew before, to bring human stories to life faster and cheaper than the established players can fathom. You think you know what the limits are? You do not. No one does. Hollywood is not just losing a battle; it has already lost the market to a nimble, global network of innovators. The powerful studios are now being forced to adopt AI, not because it is the superior artistic choice, but because their own expensive, self-important yet mediocre talent has made it the only viable business choice. The audience left first, and the studios are simply following, using the technology as the necessary tool to finally sever ties with their toxic, high-maintenance workforce that killed their own industry.
After everything they’ve done, the way they’ve behaved, the unholy alliances they’ve made, the lives they’ve destroyed, and the lack of regret they’ve shown over all of it, one might believe that whatever they suffer as a result is well deserved, and who am I to argue? They’ve had numerous opportunities to course correct, and any bridges built for them have been promptly burned down, despite how badly they need them. We all love a good redemption arc, and we know there’s value in forgiveness, but at what point do we say enough is enough? For me, it was over eighteen years ago. More than enough time to have moved on.
Christopher Moonlight is an animator, special effects artist, and the director of the ‘Award This’ winning movie, The Quantum Terror. His upcoming animated sci-fi adventure, Escape From Planet Omega-12, combines traditional film-making special effects with AI to create something never seen before in independent film. You can follow the behind-the-scenes, including tutorials, tips, and tricks, on his YouTube Channel and Substack.
