Hollywood is bending the knee to OpenAI
Hollywood is bending the knee to OpenAI
好莱坞正在向 OpenAI 低头
Studios’ reluctance to acquire Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial is a troubling sign for the entertainment industry. 各大制片厂对收购卢卡·瓜达尼诺（Luca Guadagnino）执导的电影《Artificial》表现出的迟疑，是娱乐行业一个令人不安的信号。
Netflix, A24, Focus Features, and Warner Bros.’ Clockwork have all reportedly decided to pass on picking up Artificial — director Luca Guadagnino’s new biographical drama about OpenAI cofounder / CEO Sam Altman — for distribution deals. And while Neon and Mubi are still said to be interested in the film, this situation makes it seem like Hollywood no longer has the courage to tell critical stories about Big Tech. 据报道，Netflix、A24、Focus Features 以及华纳兄弟旗下的 Clockwork 都已决定放弃卢卡·瓜达尼诺执导的传记剧情片《Artificial》的发行权，该片讲述了 OpenAI 联合创始人兼 CEO 山姆·奥特曼（Sam Altman）的故事。尽管据称 Neon 和 Mubi 对该片仍有兴趣，但这种情况让人觉得，好莱坞似乎已不再有勇气讲述关于大型科技公司的批判性故事。
Postproduction on Artificial was nearly finished when Amazon MGM unexpectedly announced last week that it no longer plans to distribute the film. The news came as a surprise given how far along the movie was and reports that Amazon initially intended to give it a short, Oscar-qualifying theatrical run some time later this year. Artificial was also reportedly scheduled for a wider release in early 2027 and a showing at the SXSW Film & TV Festival, but those plans are now dead in the water. 当亚马逊米高梅（Amazon MGM）上周突然宣布不再计划发行《Artificial》时，该片的后期制作已接近尾声。考虑到电影的完成度，以及此前有报道称亚马逊最初打算在今年晚些时候为其安排小规模的奥斯卡入围资格院线放映，这一消息令人感到意外。《Artificial》原定于 2027 年初进行更广泛的发行，并计划在西南偏南（SXSW）电影电视节上展映，但这些计划现在都已彻底泡汤。
Though Amazon hasn’t gone into detail about why it dropped Artificial, the company told Deadline that it felt the film would be “better served if it were released by a different studio.” While Neon or Mubi could ultimately be better homes for the project, Amazon’s decision follows its $50 billion investment into OpenAI from earlier this year. Amazon has made abundantly clear that it wants to be in the AI business in a big way, and it’s easy to understand why the company might be reluctant to release a film that portrays an AI executive in a negative light. But the larger issue is the fact that Amazon probably won’t be the last studio to move this way. 虽然亚马逊没有详细说明放弃《Artificial》的原因，但该公司告诉《Deadline》，他们认为“由另一家制片厂发行该片会更好”。尽管 Neon 或 Mubi 最终可能成为该项目更好的归宿，但亚马逊的这一决定发生在其今年早些时候向 OpenAI 投资 500 亿美元之后。亚马逊已明确表示希望在人工智能领域大展拳脚，因此不难理解为什么该公司不愿发行一部将 AI 高管描绘成负面形象的电影。但更严重的问题在于，亚马逊很可能不会是最后一家采取这种做法的制片厂。
Written by An American Pickle scribe Simon Rich, Artificial chronicles the tumultuous period in 2023 when Altman was fired from OpenAI and subsequently rehired just a few days later. The drama began with OpenAI’s board of directors alleging that Altman was hindering “its ability to exercise its responsibilities” by not being “consistently candid in his communications” (corporate PR speak for “lying.”) Shortly after, Altman was set to join Microsoft and hundreds of OpenAI employees signed an open letter threatening to quit if he wasn’t reinstated as CEO. Things concluded with Altman returning to OpenAI and installing a fresh board of directors almost entirely full of new faces. 《Artificial》由《美国泡菜》（An American Pickle）编剧西蒙·里奇（Simon Rich）执笔，记录了 2023 年奥特曼被 OpenAI 解雇并在几天后重新聘用的动荡时期。这场风波始于 OpenAI 董事会指控奥特曼在沟通中“不够坦诚”（这是企业公关对“撒谎”的委婉说法），从而阻碍了董事会“履行其职责”。此后不久，奥特曼一度准备加入微软，而数百名 OpenAI 员工签署公开信，威胁称如果他不被恢复 CEO 职务就集体辞职。最终，奥特曼重返 OpenAI，并组建了一个几乎全是新面孔的全新董事会。
On paper at least, the entire saga reads like a drama that could make for a gripping and timely examination of one of Silicon Valley’s most powerful executives. After projects like The Audacity, Mountainhead, The Dropout, and Aaron Sorkin’s forthcoming The Social Reckoning, Artificial feels like the sort of film that aligns with Hollywood’s recent fixation on stories about tech titans. And in this era of generative AI being shoved down everyone’s throats, audiences are primed for a star-studded feature focused on some of the people responsible for the technology’s omnipresence. 至少从纸面上看，整个事件读起来就像一部引人入胜的戏剧，可以对硅谷最有权势的高管之一进行及时且深刻的审视。继《The Audacity》、《Mountainhead》、《辍学》（The Dropout）以及阿伦·索尔金（Aaron Sorkin）即将推出的《The Social Reckoning》等项目之后，《Artificial》似乎正是那种符合好莱坞近期对科技巨头故事痴迷的电影。在这个生成式 AI 被强行推向大众的时代，观众们已经准备好观看一部由明星云集、聚焦于那些推动技术无处不在的幕后推手的电影了。
What’s truly alarming, though, is how many other studios have chosen to follow Amazon’s lead. Yesterday, Google’s DeepMind AI arm announced that it has struck a $75 million, multiyear “research partnership” deal with A24 to develop a host of filmmaking technologies like a new storyboarding application. The companies have said that the deal won’t involve Google gaining access to A24’s library of film and TV projects, but they have yet to make clear the extent to which these tools will be used by the studio. That lack of clarity is part of why people have already begun to take a dimmer view of A24. Just last week, the studio was riding high on the breakout success of Backrooms, but after posting the trailer for Jesse Eisenberg’s upcoming musical The Debut, A24 has been met with a wave of scathing online criticism specifically because of the DeepMind collaboration. 然而，真正令人担忧的是，有多少其他制片厂选择了效仿亚马逊。昨天，谷歌的 DeepMind AI 部门宣布与 A24 达成了一项价值 7500 万美元的多年期“研究合作伙伴关系”，旨在开发一系列电影制作技术，例如新的故事板应用程序。两家公司表示，该协议不涉及谷歌获取 A24 的影视作品库，但他们尚未明确这些工具将在多大程度上被该制片厂使用。这种模糊性是人们开始对 A24 产生负面看法的部分原因。就在上周，A24 还沉浸在《Backrooms》大获成功的喜悦中，但在发布了杰西·艾森伯格（Jesse Eisenberg）即将上映的音乐剧《The Debut》的预告片后，A24 因与 DeepMind 的合作而遭到了网络上的一波猛烈抨击。
The chances of A24 and Google’s partnership dissolving feel unlikely because the production company is far from the only studio that has decided to get into bed with gen AI. Disney has struck (failed) AI deals of its own, Netflix has absorbed AI startups, and Paramount Skydance executives have signaled that they see the technology as being key to boosting productivity. A24 与谷歌的合作关系不太可能破裂，因为这家制作公司远非唯一一家决定与生成式 AI 联手的制片厂。迪士尼已经达成过（失败的）AI 交易，Netflix 收购了 AI 初创公司，派拉蒙与天空之舞（Skydance）的高管也表示，他们将该技术视为提高生产力的关键。
All of this paints a very bleak picture of Hollywood’s possible future — one in which movies and series are produced with gen AI by studios that refuse to say anything truly insightful or negative about the technology or its creators. Projects like The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist have already shown us how uninspired and soulless films about AI can be when they’re crafted by people who seem beholden to tech executives. And what we’re looking at now is a potential age of Hollywood giants doing everything in their power to stay in Silicon Valley’s good graces. Operating that way — from a place of cowardice in service of tech-driven profits — is antithetical to producing good art. 这一切为好莱坞可能的未来描绘了一幅极其暗淡的图景——在这个未来里，电影和剧集由制片厂利用生成式 AI 制作，而这些制片厂拒绝就该技术或其创造者发表任何真正深刻或负面的看法。《The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist》等项目已经向我们展示了，当电影由那些似乎受制于科技高管的人制作时，关于 AI 的电影会变得多么缺乏灵感和灵魂。我们现在所看到的是一个潜在的时代，好莱坞巨头们正竭尽全力讨好硅谷。以这种方式运作——出于怯懦而服务于科技驱动的利润——与创作优秀的艺术背道而驰。