“Shazam!” star Zachary Levi senses a biblical disaster looming, thanks artificial intelligence.
On the “The George Janko Show” podcast, Levi compared AI to the great flood from the book of Genesis, saying, “I don’t think the flood is water. Honestly, I think the flood is AI.”
He continued, “We can talk all day and get philosophical about how we can save the industry from itself by the way it treats people, or by not making great content or whatever. Guys, honestly, t-minus two Good luck finding a job because the studios will have a technology… it’s actually already there.”
Levi further gave an example of how AI technology allows audiences to generate their own films.
Zachary Levi compared the future of AI to the great biblical flood. (Wiktor Szymanowicz/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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“Imagine if not only does every studio have this technology, but then they go to you and say, ‘Hey, as part of your HBO Max subscription, you can pay an extra ten bucks, and you get to use the creator sandbox , and you can make your own movies in there. And you can type in anything that’s a Warner Brothers asset, so it could be Shazam and Batman and Neo from ‘The Matrix,’ and you can type in any of these characters and you want to they are going on a quest on Mars and I want to that it feels like a Stephen Spielberg movie, go.” And then it will make that movie, and it will look indistinguishable from human-made, it will even look great. It will be completely animated, but it will look like real life.”
The “confused” star said he’s working on his own studio to stay ahead of the curve, saying, “Right now, the studio I’m trying to build looks a lot like the ark that God told Noah, ‘You’ve got to build this thing.’ because the flood is coming.
When asked by host George Janko why he wanted to continue working in entertainment when AI is such a threat, Levi focused on the power of the human element.
“There should always be, and hopefully always will be, a niche, at least a niche part of the entertainment industry where people say, ‘I still want to support people making art. People-made art.'”
Levi predicted that AI tools will soon be available, allowing people to create their own movies with a few prompts. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
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He admitted that it will become a harder sell as AI advances.
“No matter how good AI-generated art becomes, it’s going to be very, very, very, very good, and they’re going to be cheap. Most people think, ‘Yeah, but I’ll never want computer-generated art to have.’ film.’ If we’re super altruistic, of course, but if a man-made movie still costs you twenty dollars, but for two dollars you can make a movie where, by the way, you can scan your own face and your own voice and you become Superman or, better yet, your kid is going to be Superman, and now for two dollars you can shut them up for the next few hours and watch them be Superman in the movie, you’re absolutely going to pay for that movie.”
“I don’t think the flood is water. Honestly, I think the flood is AI.”
The “Chuck” star also pointed out that he faces new competition from past actors whose likenesses may be redacted by their families. He explained a hypothetical situation in which Gene Kelly’s descendants could sell the rights to the star’s likeness. “And then suddenly we start watching Gene Kelly movies again. How crazy! And again, I don’t want to support that, but are you kidding me?!… Like a new ‘ The sequel to Singing in the Rain ? I want to see that, take my money!”
Levi’s example is not far off, as there have already been attempts to make a film using one James Dean resurrected by AI, although none have been completed and released yet.
Levi said that actors will soon compete seriously with long-dead celebrities thanks to AI. (Daniel Knighton/Getty Images)
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Of course, entertainment isn’t the only sector that will see the impact of AI Levi urged people to remain alert.
“I don’t want to be a doomsayer, but I can’t stress this enough, please… wake up to AI. Please wake up to it. It’s not, ‘Oh that’s nice,’ or a passing fad or whatever. It is going to replace so many jobs, and it will happen much faster than you think,” he said.
“There should always be, and hopefully always will be, a niche, at least a niche part of the entertainment industry where people say, ‘I still want to support people making art.’
The 44-year-old continued, saying, “In the bigger picture of everything, in terms of technology and progress, I firmly believe that you can’t stop it, you can only hope to direct it. So, We’re going to get rid of this flood We can only build dikes and dams and canals and things like that to make sure that we guide them in the best possible way, a lot of people are going to get hurt. Unfortunately, I think we’re going to end up in what’s going to be a whole new world.”
The “Shazam!” star thinks AI will displace many jobs, but will hopefully open people up to focus on ‘creation and discovery’. (Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images)
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“Ultimately, and this is part of the reason why I want to build, why I feel like I need to build the campus, or campuses plural when I can do more than one, is because I think that’s what we as people really want to do .” what we need to focus on are: there are two areas of vocation that still mean something, moving into the future, and those are creation and discovery.”
He added AI will still be a tool used in creation and discovery, but these two things are what ‘stimulates the human heart, mind and soul, and I think as long as we really preserve a lot of places for people to work, because work is not just a matter of making income. Work is a goal. How many people retire and die just a few years after retiring, and why? Because they have nothing to do. We’re super sedentary, and now they have no purpose and they’re dying.”
Levi thinks AI will be a tool to help people continue creating and discovering, and empower people to still have a purpose. (Jason Mendez/Getty Images)
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“I think it’s important that we have a purpose as we enter this new world, but I don’t know. I don’t know what it will be like for everyone else in every other sector. And I don’t know. What’s definitely going to happen in terms of entertainment, I can guess, and I suspect that in the very short term, people, not just the studios, but regular people through the studios’ various catalogs, by the way, won’t have access to that. just make their own movies, but TV shows, video games.”
