Ashton Kutcher is getting flack for recent comments he made regarding the benefits of AI in filmmaking, after suggesting that entire movies could be made with Sora, OpenAI’s newest generative video tool.
During a conversation with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Kutcher was asked what entertainment will look like in the coming years, and what new technology will come next. Though it’s difficult to predict what platforms and content will be popular 20 years down the road, Kutcher explained that after experimenting with Sora, he’s been impressed with what the tool can do, per Deadline.
“You can create good 10, 15-second videos that look very real. It still makes mistakes. It still doesn’t quite understand physics… If you look at the generation of this that existed one year ago as compared to Sora, it’s leaps and bounds,” he said. “In fact, there’s footage in it that I would say you could easily use in a major motion picture or a television show.”
Kutcher added, “Why would you go out and shoot an establishing shot of a house in a television show when you could just create the establishing shot for $100? To go out and shoot it would cost you thousands of dollars.”
Kutcher then described providing a prompt of a marathoner running through a sandstorm, something that would normally require extensive CGI: “In five minutes, it rendered a video of an ultra-marathoner being chased across the desert by a sandstorm, and it looks exactly like that.”
He then went on to say that if this type of technology were used to write its own scripts and generate footage, “eventually we would have more content than there are eyeballs on the planet to consume it.”
Detractors were quick to call out Kutcher for his comments, with writer Ash Lazer saying Kutcher was promoting “such an ignorant, shortsighted, selfcentered, shortterm cost vs longterm gain mindset. You’re training it to replace YOU. And your kid’s dreams.”
Another writer, Sean O’Connor responded, “You could probably make an Ashton Kutcher movie with OpenAI’s Sora, but you couldn’t make a good movie with it.”
A screenwriter named J. Filiatrault also added, “Imagine being Ashton Kutcher stepping onto a film set now, after coming out and advocating for all those crew people to lose their jobs and fucking starve. Gutsy choice, bud.”
Though Kutcher got his start as an actor in Hollywood, he’s become known as an investor in new tech over the past few years and has a very obvious stake in the growth and use of AI. Most recently, his venture capitalist firm, Sound Ventures, committed to making $240 million worth of investments in companies like OpenAI (the creators of Sora), as well as Anthropic and StabilityAI.
His latest fumble comes not long after he and wife Mila Kunis were blasted for supporting Danny Masterson, the That ’70s Show star who was convicted of rape. Kutcher and Kunis caught plenty of flack for backing Masterson, and issued an apology for their support of their co-star, but Kutcher later resigned from the anti-child sex abuse organization he co-founded in 2009, Thorn.
