During a flashback to the 1980s in Mike Flanagan’s new horror series The Fall of the House of Usher, two characters have a decidedly contemporary conversation discussing the use of AI to write scripts.
In episode 2, “The Masque of the Red Death”, in a scene set in 1980, the younger version of Roderick Usher (Zach Gilford) and his sister Madeline (Willa Fitzgerald) discuss the technology. The brilliant and devious Madeline comments on mathematics and technology: “An algorithm is just a finite sequence of all the defined instructions for solving a problem or performing a calculation. But in the future, with computers, we could use them for anything. Financial markets, investments, predictive medicine. Hell, an algorithm could write movies and TV shows.
Roderick looks sceptical and replies, “Not well,” and Madeline makes a chilling prediction: “You’ll see. In time, we could mimic human consciousness.
Although the scene was written and filmed well before the two WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, the use of AI in Hollywood is one of the unions’ key concerns. Director and screenwriter James Cameron recently spoke to CTV News about his scepticism about using AI to write successful scripts.
“I just don’t think a disembodied mind that’s just regurgitating what other disembodied minds have said is ever going to have something that’s going to move an audience,” Cameron said. “Let’s wait 20 years, and when an AI wins an Oscar for best screenplay, I think we’ll have to take it seriously.”
Justine Bateman, who advises SAG-AFTRA on AI issues, recently spoke to Variety about how deeply the technology could infiltrate Hollywood.
“I stress that this is an existential threat,” she said. “And if they can do it to actors, they can do it to writers, directors, cinematographers – everybody. We’re being replaced with Frankenstein spoonfuls of our own work.
All episodes of The Fall of the House of Usher are now available to watch on Netflix.
