Last year, Rachel Antell, an archival producer for documentary films, started noticing AI-generated images mixed in with authentic photos. There are always holes or limitations in an archive; in one case, film-makers got around a shortage of images for a barely photographed 19th-century woman by using AI to generate what looked like old photos. Which brought up the question: should they? And if they did, what sort of transparency is required? The capability and availability of generative AI – the type that can produce text, images and video – have changed so rapidly, and the conversations around it have been so fraught, that film-makers’ ability to use it far outpaces any consensus on how.
“We realized it was kind of the wild west, and film-makers without any mal-intent were getting themselves into situations where they could be misleading to an audience,” said Antell. “And we thought, what’s needed here is some real guidance.”
