Hollywood's AI Anxiety on Full Display as Google's A24 Investment Draws Fire

The film purists' pushback against AI is understandable but misplaced

Of all the white collar industries staring down the barrel of AI disruption, few are more tortured by it than Hollywood.

Look no further than the howls of protest that greeted a fairly innocuous announcement by the indie studio A24 that Google was investing $75 million as part of an AI partnership.

“A24 Knows You’re Mad about the Google-AI Collab,” declared WIRED’s headline on the story. Film Twitter, which is on the front lines of the rebellion against AI, descended into full despair. “Rest in Peace A24 2012-2026” went one viral tweet. An A24 subreddit was similarly in a meltdown.

The studio was indeed aware people were mad, sources close to the studio told me. But they pushed back on the notion that embracing AI was a top-down initiative being forced on filmmakers for business reasons. Instead, they said, the push to explore these tools came from the artists themselves.