Is it Concerning That AI Was Used in Two Oscar-Nominated Movies?

In March of 2024, Cameron and Colin Cairnes’s supernatural-horror “Late Night with a Devil” was met with glowing reviews — that is, until viewers noticed the three AI-generated images that briefly appeared during the film. This year, a similar controversy has arisen with two Oscar contenders: “The Brutalist” and “Emilia Pérez.”

Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” centers on a Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor and architect, László Tóth (Adrien Brody). Last month, Dávid Jancsó, editor of “The Brutalist,” discussed the use of AI in the film in an interview with RedSharkNews. According to Janscó, the AI software Respeecher was used to improve the accuracy of Brody and Felicity Jones’s Hungarian accents. Janscó, who is a native Hungarian speaker, even provided his own voice to the model, but said that he was “very careful about keeping their performances. It’s mainly just replacing letters here and there. You can do this in ProTools yourself, but we had so much dialogue in Hungarian that we really needed to speed up the process otherwise we’d still be in post.” Janscó also disclosed that Generative AI was used at the end of the film to create a series of architectural drawings and buildings in the style of the protagonist.

The French-directed Spanish-language musical “Emilia Pérez” received a leading 13 nominations from the Academy Awards, but it has quickly become the award-season villain for a host of reasons. From Karla Sofía Gascón’s problematic tweets to the backlash from Mexican audiences on the film’s depiction of the Mexican cartel, the use of AI cloning to enhance Gascón’s vocals only added fuel to the already massive fire surrounding the film. 

Users like Reel Takes voiced their discomfort with the use of AI in both Oscar contenders. Many found it ironic that “The Brutalist” revolved around a struggling artist, yet designs shown in the film were not even created by human beings. Corbet issued a statement to The Hollywood Reporter in which he stated, “Respeecher technology was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed. This was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production. The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft.” Corbet also stated that “[The Brutalist production designer] Judy Becker and her team did not use AI to create or render any of the buildings. All images were hand-drawn by artists. To clarify, in the memorial video featured in the background of a shot, our editorial team created pictures intentionally designed to look like poor digital renderings circa 1980.”

Manipulating vocals with technology is nothing new, but it is understandable why AI has become such a point of contention for so many people. Even if AI was not used extensively in these two films, any use contributes to the seemingly ubiquitous normalization of the technology. Aside from the fact that the increased utilization of AI has already resulted in widespread job displacement, its environmental impacts cannot be overstated. AI data centers not only require a significant amount of raw materials, water, and energy to function, but they also produce electronic waste containing hazardous materials. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, the number of data centers has dramatically increased from 500,000 in 2012 to 8 million in 2024. This number will only continue to rise, especially with the Trump administration’s push to bolster the AI industry in the United States.

Additionally, if AI is used more often in creative fields for the sake of time and budgets, does it not defeat the purpose of art? Art is meant to be personal–it’s meant to be a testament to human creativity. How can artificial intelligence truly tell stories about humans better than humans can? There is a reason that AI generators have to blend together the works of human artists to create “new” images –– they cannot create anything unless they take from humans. Of course, technology is key to making films, but if it’s used for jobs that were originally taken up by real people, it does feel like a violation of the medium. 

If it is so important to Brady Corbet that the actors speak perfect Hungarian, why not cast Hungarian actors? If “Emilia Pérez” is a musical, why cast an actress that cannot sing? Using AI to alter the performances of actors, no matter how minor, not only adds a layer of artifice to these films, but furthers the possibility that actors could someday be completely replaced by technology. This has been a major debate for years, especially as CGI and AI have been increasingly used to recreate dead actors or the younger versions of older actors. To me, it is utterly terrifying to imagine a world where humans are no longer played by humans, but are instead cold, artificially-produced impressions of humans.