On AI and Fandom

So an old Variety article has resurfaced on BlueSky wherein one of the Russo brothers talks about creating a movie with AI where he can have a double go on a date with Marilyn Monroe’s double.

When it first came out— and while it was making the rounds— people pointed out that it was kind of creepy (especially with his choice of Marilyn Monroe specifically) but there are several things I need to make clear.

One, setting aside the implications, you can, in fact, pay an artist to draw you a picture of yourself on a date with Marilyn Monroe. Or you can write your self-insert RPF fic.  Or find someone else who has written it, or written imagines on Tumblr. A lot of people, myself included, find it weird, but you can get it if you have the inclination.

Which I’m going to pretend is a good segway to something that has not come up in AI discussions for reasons I can only speculate about: Fanfiction.

I mean, if someone’s talking about creating your perfect version of someone else’s work, surely fanfiction would be a natural jumping off point. I don’t know why no AI bro has gone “well instead of writing fanfiction you can just prompt the movie you want!” It’s probably either ignorance or sexism, quite possibly both, but in the event some AI tech bro remembers that fanfiction exists and tries to use it as an argument I’m going to nip that in the bud.

No.

Go away.

I can’t speak for everyone in the fanfic sphere but with eight years on Tumblr and over 400,000 published words on Archive Of Our Own, I’ve been in the trenches and I can tell you right now, just creating our own personalized movies will not scratch the same itch as fanfiction.

The thing about fanfic, and fandom in general, is the experience of watching something communally is the point.

It’s not all “I want the two guys to kiss” or “I want these characters to have freaky sex,” it’s what could have happened, or what if the next episode goes like this.

Even if it’s something you don’t like and you’re fixing it, fixing it together, the communal releasing of stress, of looking at say The Last Skywalker and going “what the hell were they thinking?!” is the point!

If you’ve noticed that binging shows all at once is less fun than watching them on a weekly basis and getting to discuss each episode, you’re probably someone who likes the communal aspect of fandom. 

The point is getting to talk to other people about the thing you liked, and that’s gone if there’s not some sort of baseline experience you can all compare it to. Even in video games, where you can find out someone solved a quest in a completely different way than you, there’s still the baseline quest and game you have to discuss.

I’m not going to say no one would enjoy something like Russo describes, but I am going to say they can already get that if they go digging and that’s not what a lot of people are going to want out of their fiction.

It’s why, despite my increased annoyance, I don’t believe AI is actually ever going to be able to kill any artistic medium, even if it works. Somehow, we’re still seeing plays live and movie theaters are a thing, after all. Because what AI tech bros talking about how Sora or whatever is the death movies don’t realize is that for other people the medium and its limitations are the point.

It’s not just about content, it’s about communication, both between creator and audience, and about the audience and other people. A siloed experience where you’re just having a computer make movies to your specifications is not going to appeal to many people, and the only thing that’s going to die is their business if they can’t understand why.