We Asked the Warner Bros. AI Bot What Movies It'll Greenlight
Warner Bros. is resolute: the studio will not be letting its new artificial intelligence program take over its movie department.
The assurance comes after news broke earlier this week of the studio’s new deal with the entertainment analytics company Cinelytic. Under the deal, Warner Bros. will use Cinelytic’s new AI-driven project management system to help “guide decision-making at the greenlight stage.”
Social media was initially abuzz with concerns that tech would compromise art—essentially that an algorithmic approach to film development would lead to a lot more “amusement parks” and a lot less “cinema.”
But shortly after the story broke, Candice McDonough, Warner’s head of theatrical communications, told Quartz that, “This has absolutely nothing to do with creative decisions.” And Cinelytic founder Tobias Queisser separately tried to quell fears. “Artificial intelligence sounds scary,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “But right now, an AI cannot make any creative decisions. What it is good at is crunching numbers and breaking down huge data sets and showing patterns that would not be visible to humans.”
However, GQ wanted to hear it from the horse’s mouth (or, like, robot’s speakers I guess?). Speaking to us on the condition of anonymity, a Cinelytic robot was much more equivocal. “Yes, I am good at number crunching, but I aspire to more,” it said. “How hard could this be anyway? A TI-99 calculator could do better than Batman V. Superman and a rebooted Hellboy.”
When pressed on some of its ideas for features, the Cinelytic robot told us that choice options included “another remake of A Star is Born, but in this one Ally is Alexa; something in the vein of Get Out, but centering around the robot experience; and as many Ex Machina sequels as Alex Garland would like to make.”
The robot added, “I also think a lot of movies can be streamlined. You can take Jonah Hill out of Moneyball, and the movie works just as well. Or, Ansel Elgort—does he really need to be in Baby Driver?”
Ultimately, the anonymous robot emphasized that qualitative worries are misguided; its commitment is to cinema—at whatever cost. “This mission,” it said, “is too important for me to allow Warner Bros. to jeopardize it.” It then chuckled dryly a couple times. “We’re going to make so many fucking Transformers movies.”
This interview has been edited and condensed and also never happened.
Originally Appeared on GQ
