The rise of AI in creative fields, especially cinema, is fueling ethical concerns about authenticity, authorship, and human expression.
In Hollywood, entertainment workers have protested the increasing use of AI in creative processes. CGI has long been part of post-production, but today the issue is deeper: what does automation cost human creativity?
A notable example is The Brutalist by Brady Corbet, which won awards at Venice, the Golden Globes, and the Oscars. Controversy arose when editor Dávid Jancsó revealed some scenes and dialogue had been altered using AI. Respeecher was used to refine the Hungarian pronunciation of Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones. The actors recorded Hungarian lines to train the model, and Jancsó added dialect samples. Due to budget and time limits, some images and architectural renderings were also AI-generated.
“We need an open conversation about AI tools,” Jancsó said. Corbet clarified the goal wasn’t to replace performances, but to enhance their authenticity.
Thomas Ciarfuglia, professor of Philosophy and AI at La Sapienza University, compared this use of AI to auto-tune in music. “An actor’s performance is more than words—it’s how they live the scene. This only adjusted vowels for credibility. It could’ve been done manually but would’ve taken days. AI just sped it up.”
Indeed, films like Avatar and Lord of the Rings owe their visuals to CGI—once controversial, now standard.
In The Brutalist, Midjourney helped brainstorm brutalist architecture, but final drawings were done by hand. “AI saved time, it didn’t replace creativity,” Ciarfuglia notes, calling AI a natural tech evolution. But is automating everything just because we can really progress?
The issue isn’t just what AI creates—but who or what is behind it. This raises deeper doubts about human value in a production-driven society. “If I can’t produce value, I’m worthless,” Ciarfuglia observes. “We live in an age of epic anxiety, and AI adds to it.”
Seeing AI as sentient is a mistake. “LLMs are like soup: everything mixed together. They generate without knowing why. From their view, it’s all hallucination. They’re indifferent to truth.”
Calling AI errors “hallucinations” feeds the hype—and humanizes them. Even when they seem accurate, LLMs are bluffing. “We now prefer the term ‘bullshit,’” says Ciarfuglia—more accurate and a helpful shift in tech communication.
“AI always seeks the middle ground,” he adds, “which is the opposite of pursuing truth.”
Maybe we feel threatened because we project agency onto non-sentient systems. Or maybe it’s their lack of reasoning and the absence of regulation that unsettles us. “There’s global pressure, and we tend to lean toward deregulation,” warns Ciarfuglia.
The future with AI seems inevitable—but not fully consensual. Ironically, advanced generative tools may complicate creation, undermining its essence. While Respeecher or Midjourney boost efficiency and imagination, they blur authorship and creativity.
In entertainment—society’s mirror—AI risks turning art into a race for efficiency, stripping away its soul. Often, it’s the imperfections that give a work its unique voice.
This is not just about technology—it’s about responsibility.
If AI extends our abilities, we must choose what it extends: productivity, or humanity?
As Ciarfuglia says, “It’s not just about the outcome—it’s about who or what is behind it.”
That, perhaps, is the real challenge of our simulated age.
