Monday Aug 24
ENTERTAINMENTOther

Hollywood's Secret AI Talks Go Public

24AUG
3 YEARS, 1 DOC3 TIERSHOLLYWOOD

Three years of closed-door meetings just produced a document. Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and AFI dean Susan Ruskin convened about 120 people. Their framework splits AI film work into three tiers.

The framework is called Human Generative Workflows. Tier one is built-in tools like denoising and upscaling. Tier two is artists directing generative models inside normal pipelines.

Tier three is machine generative, made by prompts alone. The group argues the first two tiers should be copyrightable. The third likely is not under current US Copyright Office guidance.

The Ankler sat in on some meetings and published the plan first. The group calls it a map, not a switch.

full brief & sources

⚡ Why this matters

  • It ties AI use to copyright, which is the only lever studios truly care about.
  • It gives the industry shared vocabulary before the next union negotiation, not after.
  • It came from working filmmakers rather than a regulator or a lab.

🔍 What happened

  • Talks began in November 2023, convened by Kathleen Kennedy of Lucasfilm and Susan Ruskin of the American Film Institute.
  • About 120 participants met last weekend and settled on the framework.
  • Three tiers: built-in editing tools, artist-directed Human Generative Workflows, and Machine Generative output from prompts alone.
  • The group's position: the first two tiers should be copyrightable work, the third likely is not.
  • The Ankler published the plan first. Variety and Cybernews followed on August 21.
  • Stated goal is a common vocabulary for authorship, not a rulebook.

💬 Smart takes

  • The Ankler on the document: a map and not a switch.
  • Matthew McConaughey, actor: AI is here to stay, so own yourselves and your likeness.
  • Christopher Nolan, director: Gen Z filmmakers are utterly rejecting AI slop.
  • Skeptic: a voluntary framework from an invitation-only room binds nobody, and the Copyright Office has not endorsed the tiers.

🧭 Where this goes

  1. Likelythe three-tier language shows up in studio contracts and vendor disclosures within a year.
  2. LikelySAG-AFTRA and the WGA test the tiers rather than adopt them.
  3. Possiblethe Copyright Office cites the framework in future guidance, which would make it load bearing.
  4. Wild Carda major festival adopts tier labels as a submission requirement and forces disclosure industry wide.

🥄 The Spoon Take

Every industry facing AI eventually stops arguing about whether and starts arguing about where the line goes. Hollywood just published its line, and it drew it around authorship rather than around tools. That is the smarter fight, because copyright is the only thing here with teeth.

🤔 Pushback

A framework with no enforcement and no signatories is a press release with better manners until a studio actually turns down a shot over it.

·The Ankler - Secret AI talks plan·Variety - Human control framework·Cybernews - Three years of talks