‘Without storyboards, I feel like I’m in Grand Central station in my underwear’: film’s fightback against AI

As Hollywood begins to adopt the technology, the professionals in most direct jeopardy are the illustrators mapping out directors’ first visions. They sketch out what could be lost

A film industry dominated by AI is a dystopian prospect: stories and dialogue generated by large language models, populated by reincarnated screen icons and uncanny humanoids. That is in the future, but the real-world impact of AI is already directly affecting jobs behind the scenes, as Hollywood’s biggest film-makers begin to adopt the technology. James Cameron – long an advocate for emerging technologies in film-making – is on the board of a gen AI firm, citing his interest in how AI will intersect with CGI; Steven Soderbergh used Meta-powered tech to create animations for his recent documentary about John Lennon; even Christopher…