Former Academy Head Janet Yang on the Creator Coalition on AI

Janet Yang, the producer and former president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, is a part of what she calls “a grassroots movement” to help Hollywood navigate the many uncertainties that surround artificial intelligence.

Yang and filmmaker Noah Segan were on hand for THR and Autodesk’s AI and Independent Filmmaking panel, done in partnership with the Berggruen Institute, at the Sundance Film Festival at the Pendry Hotel in Park City, Utah. The program also featured conversations with Oscar-winning director Daniel Kwan, actor and filmmaker Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Autodesk’s Matthew Sivertson.

Yang, along with other Hollywood insiders including Kwan, Gordon-Levitt, producer Jonathan Wang, CODA director Sian Heder and Natasha Lyonne, founded Creators Coalition on AI, which is working inside Hollywood to advocate for guardrails and guidelines around the use of AI. The coalition has hundreds of Hollywood signatories, including Rian Johnson, Ben Affleck and Kristen Stewart.  

Said Yang, “One of my biggest concerns is erosion of trust. What happens to a society when you don’t know when something is real or fake?”

“We’re really hoping — and it so goes against the grain of the sensibilities and the tempo at which people are working at now — to slow down. Can we examine things a little bit more deeply? Can we really look at where these learning models got the information? Can we even define what artificial intelligence is? Do we have any kind of agreement about anything?” Yang continued. “This is the very lofty goals of CCAI … to arrive at certain basic principles that we can agree on.”

For his part as an independent filmmaker, Segan said that he hasn’t yet come across any of his fellow indie directors looking to employ AI when making their films: “I don’t think that people who are used to doing everything themselves think that someone else is going to do it better than them.”

But Segan said he understands that there will be temptations for up-and-coming filmmakers to use AI. “From a perspective of young amateur filmmakers and artists who will be the next generation of professional filmmakers and artists, the standard has to remain high,” Segan said. “Just because you can make something very easily that looks almost as good does not mean it is as good.”

Segan was on hand at the Sundance Film Festival to premiere his latest film, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. The John Turturro-fronted drama follows an old-school pickpocket who, after an ill-fated lift, has to run across New York to track down what he stole.

The film got rave reviews out of Sundance, with THR’s David Rooney writing, “It’s an adoring tip of the hat to the city and to the vast canon of New York movies. And it’s a gift to the wonderful Turturro, another native son, who imbues his role with a lifetime of personal history, underplaying everything with the most delicate restraint.”

Back at the panel, Segan added that he wants independent filmmakers to prioritize human-centric storytelling: “How do we tend to that garden so that younger people, or people who aren’t even at a stage of being professional independent filmmakers, feel like they’ve got material that they can work with.”

Yang noted that upcoming labor negotiations between the studios and the guilds will have to contend with some hard questions about Hollywood’s use of AI. She said, “We’ve already had many conversations with the guilds. We’re starting with the studios.”