‘Mad Max’ Director George Miller Thinks Art Needs to Evolve With AI

George Miller is one of the coolest directors working. His work on the Mad Max franchise is the stuff of legends, with tons of practical effects and genius worldbuilding.

But now something new has caught the director's eye: AI

In an interview with The Guardian, Miller said he has an “intense curiosity” that came to fruition once he saw the AI actress Tilly Norwood and the trailer for a movie supposedly directed by AI.

“AI is arguably the most dynamically evolving tool in making moving image,” Miller said. “As a filmmaker, I’ve always been driven by the tools. AI is here to stay and change things.”

The auteur said the rise of generative AI was sort of like when we discovered oil paint, which he says, “gave artists the freedom to revise and enhance their work over time.”

That's an interesting simile, but I'm not sure it makes the best point.

Miller went on to make a much more convincing argument, saying:

“A similar debate unfolded in the mid-19th century with the arrival of photography. Art has to evolve. And while photography became its own form, painting continued. Both changed, but both endured. Art changed.”

Then he added: “It’s the balance between human creativity and machine capability, that’s what the debate and the anxiety is about.”

I do think this leans much more into the "AI is a Tool" camp, which I think we're all in favor of. You will have to learn how to wield it if you want to use it. But photography wasn't stealing the painters' images and changing them, so I do think there's a bit of a divergence here.

For what it's worth, we just haven't seen AI get so good as to justify mass use. And while people say it's coming, it's hard to really predict when that leap forward will happen.

Miller made one last plea.

“It will make screen storytelling available to anyone who has a calling to it,” he said. “I know kids not yet in their teens using AI. They don’t have to raise money. They’re making films – or at least putting footage together. It’s way more egalitarian.”

The idea of a mass democratization of filmmaking across the board is such a fun thought, but right now, these AI services are very expensive. So they would have to become so ubiquitous that it drives prices to nothing for that to really happen. That could be decades away. And with the rising cost of computing systems, which require massive data centers to process these AI things, I don't see professional systems being accessible to kids anytime soon.

But that's just my thoughts.

Let me know what you think in the comments.