Whether you love it or hate it, AI, artificial intelligence, is everywhere, from search engines to news headlines and now Hollywood. Last month, author, lawyer, and media personality Sunny Hostin revealed that she has licensed her name and likeness to Fountain 0, an AI startup, for use in AI-generated films and television shows. Describing it as a pioneer for new art forms, Hostin’s collaboration with the AI company is an effort to bring her novels to TV and movie screens.
“Top-quality AI productions cannot only enable writers and directors to have their imaginations unleashed and no longer be tethered to budgetary constraints,” Hostin said, per Variety. “To be able to bring my novels to life in movie and TV form, and actually have my image inserted in the productions, so that audiences can relate to me through my stories beyond my role as an author, is incredibly exciting to me.”
While Hostin is excited about the possibilities AI can open for on-screen adaptations of her books “Summer on the Bluffs,” “Summer on Sag Harbor,” and “Summer on Highland Beach,” social media users have been sounding the alarm on AI, particularly in creative fields.
During a conversation on “The View,” Hostin further explained her stance and her partnership with Fountain 0.
“I think it can be considered a new art form,” she said. “One of the reasons I partnered with this [AI] company is because I’ve written a trilogy and for six years I’ve tried to get my films or my stories made into series and films. And the gatekeeping in Hollywood around Black and Brown creative content is insane.”
“I cannot get New York Times best-selling books onto the screen to tell diverse stories to diverse communities. With AI that cuts out the gatekeeping. You get to make your film it’s a way to go, then to a streamer and say, ‘here’s the product, will you license it, will you show it?’ It’s a way, I think, to get Black and Brown stories told,” Hostin added.
As social media users reacted to the clip of Hostin on “The View,” many agreed with her point about Hollywood gatekeeping. However, as Malynda Hale noted in an Instagram video, there is nuance to this conversation.
“Getting those stories told is an egregious effort because a lot of people are dead set on what they think Black and Brown stories should entail, how they should look, and who they should include,” Hyde shared. “So I understand why AI looks like the answer when the real answer is investment back into those stories. […] Plenty of us want our stories told, plenty of us want that normalization of our existence and the beauty of our culture on screen and told correctly and properly. But licensing your image to AI and giving in to ‘This is just how it is’ is something that I will never do or stand by. When everybody’s movies start to look and sound the same, I hope that people remember there are those of us who value the hard work and the long road, because integrity and art matter more than getting something done because it’s quicker and cheaper.”
“This pissed me off! Using Hollywood’s lack of support in greenlighting and producing Black & Brown projects in Hollywood as an excuse to turn to AI, especially when everybody knows you have the funds to self-fund an indie project, is so beyond GROSS. This truly makes me livid. The money & network of people you have to do it yourself and you still choose AI?!?!? That is so lazy & the lack of desire to invest in your own people is A PROBLEM! Feeding our work to AI is not the answer,” one user wrote on Threads.
Another Threads user wrote reacting to her clip: “Sunny, the big wigs in Hollywood aren’t picking up your book series because they believe Black and Brown stories don’t make any money. Period! You selling your likeness and your book series to an AI company to ‘Tell more Black and Brown stories’ just took away so much work from real people who would make your series come alive. You just did the work for those gatekeepers by devaluing your work and making an AI company money. I am so disappointed.”
Hostin’s reflections come months after the Tribeca Film Festival accepted and premiered its first fully AI-generated film, “Dreams of Violet,” and as AI actors and their creators emerge, calling for an industry awards category.
“If big film festivals are allowing short films made from AI then they shouldn’t be charging struggling filmmakers $80-100 submission fees,” author and screenwriter LaDarrion Williams wrote on Threads.
With AI continuing to spread into more and more industries, there are subgroups that are championing the artificial intelligence innovations, while others are seeing its rapid spread and safety warnings as a sign to invest, honor, and amplify human skills.
“At some point, we have to seriously draw a line and push back, and really start to invest in the resources, the tools that are being built to support, preserve, protect our community, our culture, our assets, our resources,” Tamar Huggins, an award-winning AI strategist and tech founder, previously told theGrio. “I genuinely feel that we are at a point in time where we still have the power to make a change, but the time is running out. If we don’t do anything about it, we will reach a point of no return, and then those predictions from those researchers will become our destiny.”
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