Video summary
The upcoming film "Bitcoin Killing Satoshi" has sparked significant controversy due to its heavy reliance on artificial intelligence for production, setting, and performance adjustments. Unlike traditional filmmaking that utilizes real-world locations and practical sets, this project was shot entirely within a gray screen-lined car showroom, with all environments generated digitally after the fact. The production claimed to have saved over 200 million dollars by avoiding conventional filming costs, yet this approach has drawn sharp criticism for prioritizing cost-cutting over artistic integrity. Critics argue that combining dubious technologies like cryptocurrency and generative AI results in "beautiful slop art" that lacks genuine social value, marking a troubling shift in the industry toward efficiency at the expense of human creativity.
Gal Gadot, starring in the film as Wonder Woman, has faced intense backlash from audiences who question her acting abilities and have expressed outrage over the use of AI in her scenes. In interviews, Gadot defended her involvement by explaining that she negotiated a complex contract with her lawyers to ensure her specific performances were not altered by AI, stating that while she fears the technology, she believes the industry has moved past the point of ignoring it. However, commentators suggest that her defense inadvertently highlights a lack of solidarity among workers, as her individual legal protection does not extend to other crew members like stunt performers, extras, or junior editors who have far less negotiating power. The argument posits that by accepting AI-driven production models, even high-profile actors may be contributing to the displacement of entire classes of workers and the erosion of collaborative creative processes.
Beyond the immediate labor concerns, the video transcript explores deeper existential and economic implications of this technological shift. The speaker contrasts the current trend with films like Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer," which utilized real locations and practical effects, noting that such high-quality, spectacle-driven cinema may become less viable as AI reduces production times and budgets. There is a growing sentiment that accepting these terms diminishes the quality of creative output and alienates actors from their final work, potentially reducing their pay by eliminating the need for reshoots. Furthermore, the discussion touches on how social media has already altered societal perceptions of beauty, with AI generating idealized images that may further distort human standards. The consensus emerging from these concerns is a call for collective action among workers and audiences to resist the unchecked incursion of AI into creative industries, fearing that without unified opposition, the future of filmmaking will belong solely to billionaires and computers.
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There's a new movie coming out soon and
it's about two dubious technologies with
very limited if not non-existent social
value getting together to make beautiful
slop art. No, that's not the plot. It's
the production called Bitcoin killing
Satoshi. The film focuses on the hunt
for Bitcoin's inventor and relies
heavily on generative AI. There were no
real world sets and locations were also
produced by by AI while performances
were also said to have been adjusted.
Filming was completed in just 20 days
with Decrypt describing the surroundings
like this.
The cast worked inside a former car
showroom lined with gray screen
nicknamed the gray box with every set
and lighting set up generated
afterwards. Producer Ryan Kavanaugh has
said shooting it conventionally would
have cost more than 300 million and put
the saving at over 200 million according
to Variety.
Now, one of the film's stars is Gal
Gadot, the Israeli actress best known
for playing Wonder Woman and she's been
defending a film that frankly didn't
need to be made.
>> What is the AI component of this Bitcoin
film that you did?
>> I'll tell you. This was the longest
contract
I've ever worked on. I think it was 6
months for my lawyers to go through any
scenario we could think about as far as
the AI of it component of it.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh because I absolutely did not want the
AI to have anything to do with my
performance. So, as far as the
performances for me, you know, it's all
me.
What they did there and again, I'm
afraid of AI but am I going to be afraid
and look away? No, I'm afraid and I'm
playing with it and I'm learning it and
I'm trying to educate myself with it
because
I think that the train had left the
station. You know, it's one of those
things. It's either you're going to
>> Work with it or
>> Or be out of the game completely.
>> Yeah.
>> So, I'm trying to make the best of it
and protect whatever I can protect.
>> Now, look, I saw a lot of stuff online
and reactions to this that, you know, I
I can't comment on cuz I've never seen
Wonder Woman, which are all about how if
any actress is it should be replaced by
a by AI it's Gal Gadot who's, you know,
apparently very wooden, one of the worst
actresses ever, etc., etc. I mean, I
don't know. I saw um you know,
over the bank holiday I I tried to watch
a film on Netflix called
uh Death on the Nile, an Agatha Christie
thing and it would have starred Gal
Gadot and I I had to turn it off after
like 20 minutes. I don't I I can't
entirely blame her cuz Kenneth Branagh
wasn't great in it, either.
Um but I think there are Well, you can
say what you like about this and maybe
you know more about Gal Gadot than me,
but I will say something about how the
lack of solidarity at play at play here.
You know, in that interview, she talks
about and I think this is a way in which
she's trying to sort of present what
she's done here as being for a greater
kind of good. She talks about how the
contract that she got um from the studio
or from the filmmakers was so
complicated about what could and
couldn't be, you know, they could use AI
on and she worked with her lawyer for,
you know, months to sort of stipulate
the things in the contract and as she
put it so that she could so it could be
used by the Screen Actors Guild, you
know, the the union of screen actors in
the future as a kind of template. Um but
it's, you know, it's it that's already
to concede a lot, right? To say like,
"Oh, the way I'm going to assist my
fellow actors is by designing a contract
that will protect them, maybe their
performances, possibly." Um but won't
protect any of the other workers around
me in the production of film or in the
production of television or you know, or
whatever kind of industry it is. We're
talking about film here, obviously. Um
so, it's a kind of this conception of
oh, actually the essential parts of
filmmaking are the cast. Everything
else, all the other parts can actually
be happily used up, replaced by by AI,
but the cast is irreplaceable.
And if you think that, you're crazy,
right? The cast is a very expensive.
It's going to be one of the things that
AI will be used very quickly to try and
get rid of. And there'll be no one to
stand up for you because you'll have
already helped it to get rid of all of
the people who otherwise would the
production designers, the the the
lighting designers, um the set
designers, all the people who require
you to be in a film so that they have a
job as well. You've helped
you know, people obsessed with AI and
what by making films on the cheap get
rid of them and they won't be there to
to help you when they try to get rid of
you which they are absolutely inevita-
inevitably going to do. I think some
people think about this, you know, as
like
what's happening here is a kind of
some one of those regular
transformations in how work works or in
how industry works or whatever, you
know, that that comes along and it's
like a revolution of of some kind. But
it's like it's just fundamentally
different because, you know, what those
things did was they sort of
you know, they transformed what workers
did. Um they transformed the way in
which things were made and the how
workers were used where they were used
in order to produce things. But what
they didn't do was replace
the workers, which is what AI is
intended to do. It's intended to
actually remove an entire class of
people. Well, not probably not totally
but as much as possible from production
so that it's just
billionaires and computers.
>> Mhm.
>> And I think this is like really like
sort of
class A foolishness. Um
on the part of Gondor.
>> Yeah, I mean I won't comment on uh Death
on the Nile or on the merits or demerits
of of those films. Um I told you earlier
actually I I spent my bank holiday
weekend watching old films. One of the
film films I watched was Singing in the
Rain, which the premise of that film, if
anyone's ever watched it, is when you
get this evolution in filmmaking from
silent movies to um
the talkies as they were called at the
time, which is just you know, a film
with sound. Um and the ways in which the
the actors have to cope with this kind
of changing landscape. So I think the
point that you make is really
interesting about the way in which this
kind of AI revolution is actually quite
different to a lot of the other previous
um sort of changes that we've seen
before through the artwork of film. I
think your point about, you know, Gal
Gadot's phrase I think she uses in the
Variety article that that I read earlier
was the train the train has left the
station, which she says, isn't it? In
other words, this is happening, so you
better get on board or you'll be left
behind. Um,
you know, and I think just saying AI is
a technological reality, which it is,
the technology exists, is accepting that
is quite different to saying therefore I
will kind of accept, you know, a lot of
the the terms and conditions which is
actually diminish the quality and the
creative output of my work and
potentially other people's. So, I think
the her read on that is not particularly
helpful to be honest. And you're right,
you know, it's great for her as an
individual, a very famous, well-known
sort of Marvel actress who has great
lawyers who can negotiate for her and
get her a great contract, you know, in
terms of
um being protected in her view from some
of the dangers of of of AI, but really
like if we're going to actually face up
to the the issues and problems that AI
being driven by profit, that's the kind
of fundamental issue going on here.
We're going to face up to that, we have
to do so collectively. And I'm not sure
what sort of individual single and
negotiations via expensive lawyers, I
don't see how that's going to translate
into the other people on a film set. As
you've said, you know, what about the
stunt people, what about the extras,
what about junior editors, you know,
those people who've got far less
negotiating power. Um,
and I think also this idea of one of the
things that they spoke about as well in
in the Variety article that covered
this, they talked about the idea of of
efficiency of of film sets. Um, and the
idea that you'll spend, you know, actors
will spend less time um just sort of
waiting around on on set. Creatively, I
think there's probably some use for some
actors in actually just sitting around
and and and you know, thinking and
mulling over their creative experience.
Um, but it also means that if shooting
time is going to be condensed, for
example, into a shorter period of time,
you'll be working more intensely over a
shorter period of time. Is that a great
experience for you as a worker to
essentially have to do a lot more work
within a shorter period of time? So, I'm
not even really sure that what
potentially the likes of of Gal Gadot
and others who are individually
negotiating is actually going to be that
good e- even for them as well. I'm quite
concerned even with the amount of
creative power that is going to be given
to
um you know, sort of executives or or
film producers um
over that their ability to be able to
sort of edit um an actor's performance
without having to do reshoots. Again,
like if you don't have to do reshoots,
presumably that means you'll be paid
maybe a bit less because you'll be
spending less time on set. So, there'll
be less money for you, less work for
you. I think reshoots is part of the
creative process as well. So, there's
something about alienation there and
there's something about the way in which
you as an actor you may be further
removed actually from the that final
creative product which should be a a
wonderful collaboration I think between
different artists. And instead, you're
going to be pulled further away from
that potentially as well, which I also
don't think potentially is going to be
very good either. Um so, I think this is
quite a sad
a sort of sad story really about the way
in which film is going. We had a
wonderful film released in the summer of
the Odyssey, which uh Christopher Nolan
kind of painstakingly went out of his
way to shoot in real locations.
>> practical effects, yeah.
>> Absolutely. Yeah, and that's been a a
major success. And I think one of the
sad things about that is Christopher
Nolan said, you know, I I used up my
Oscar sort of like uh
points that I got making Oppenheimer to
make this film because if I had if I
didn't have that, I would have never
been given the remit to make these kinds
of films. And he seemed to talk about it
as though really that being able to make
films of that kind of spectacle and
scale using, you know, real locations
and all the all the expensive stuff that
comes with it going to become less and
less of a reality. It's that's going to
make up less and less of a film. And and
I think that that's a real economic
issue for those who are involved in in
the production of film, um those who who
who are actors, etc. That that's a real
issue, a creative issue. And and I think
it's a workers' issue as as well.
>> Yeah, and I think what we need to see
really is actually like solidarity not
just amongst workers as workers, but
also workers as like paying audiences
for these things. Be very interesting to
see what the box office take on a film
like like this is cuz I do think that
there is a kind of tide turning against
the use of AI. Like I spend a lot of
time on TikTok and when whenever someone
posts something that's done with that
AI, there is a stream of comments
objecting to the fact that it contains
any AI at all, talking about the
climate, talking about data centers, and
talking about slop, and just really not
liking it.
Um and I don't know whether that
translates to other platforms or whether
it will translate to film, but it will
be interesting I think to see whether
audiences want to go and see it or not.
Um and whether audiences and when if
audiences don't want to go to see it,
there's also then the question of
whether there should be like some
solidaristic action, organized action
amongst workers in TV channels and
stations and uh you know, places like I
mean I'm I'm not going to bank on
somewhere like Netflix or Amazon, but
like you know, the BBC, Channel 4, ITV,
and the the the the like across across
the world whether you know, you actually
do want to license these these these
kinds of films or whether you want to
use your power as a kind of cultural
beacon in a society or media beacon in a
society to also, you know, shape the
rejection of this very speedy incursion
into our lives of of of of this stuff.
>> Yeah, definitely. It'll be really
interesting to see, you know, like the
way in which we were talking was it last
week about the way in which people are
coalescing very quickly around being
anti-data center for example. That's
something that's happened quite quickly
despite the fact that data centers have
not necessarily been in the kind of
cultural and you know, economic lexicon
for for a very long period of time. So,
it'll be interesting to see if if
audiences and and other parts of of the
industry do this. And And one of the
things that I often think about when it
comes to AI as well, I can't remember
who said this, but it's not just so much
that AI will replace us or that AI will
take our jobs. That's a very real
threat, but also the ways in which like
we will also become more like AI. And
so, the the use you know, the man
becomes the machine as well. And that's
also a big maybe that's more of a
philosophical or existential issue
rather than just purely a political one,
but but I do think that it matters. You
know, what does it mean to say that
parts of of a creative experience and a
creative output have been made by AI
when I'm looking at an actor's face
trying to portray a particular feeling
or emotion. What does it mean that I am
seeing something that has been produced
ultimately by a machine and reading
that? Like, what does that do to me?
What does that imprint onto me as as the
audience and the way in which I
participate with a piece of film? You
know, I think a good film is two-way,
right? It's not just you passively
watching something. It's It's also
having an imprint, an emotional imprint
on you. What does it mean that that
emotional imprint is coming from a
machine?
>> Very interesting. There've been a whole
um series of articles
written recently. I think one in the New
Yorker, another in the New York Times,
um
and other places as well, which is all
about the way in which our conception of
beauty is changing because of social
media and the screen.
Um and and
and because of engagement. Um and, you
know, there are people having treatments
done which change their faces in ways
which, you know, offline we wouldn't
necessarily find attractive, but it's
sort of it it's sort of engaging and
immediately grabbing in some way because
they did certain features are really,
really enhanced.
Um
and how that's affecting our perceptions
of of what is beautiful. And AI, of
course, you know, if you if you look at
like stuff stuff that people generate on
Grok, they have a very it has a very
particular understanding of what a
beautiful man or a beautiful woman might
might look like.