From their preachy posts on LinkedIn to their deluge of uploads on Reels, AI-generated video evangelizers are determined to put forward the message that AI-generated video in marketing and advertising is an existential game-changer. You either get on board with it or you’re going extinct. Yet, I am convinced that the full-throated adopters who think they will not only survive but thrive by becoming the World’s Greatest Prompter actually are the ones narrowing their opportunities and relevance the fastest, and that those of us who are actively uncooperative with this narrative are the ones that will receive the greatest reward in the end.
The commercial industry has always been a place to test exciting new ideas, technologies, and collaborators, but I recall a time when this was tied to the notion of us as a creative lab versus a production and distribution machine. From Ridley Scott’s “1984” Apple commercial (demonstrating a 60-second spot could dominate the zeitgeist), to the early use of motion control rigs and high-speed cameras (deployed in commercials before becoming commonplace in film and television), to David Fincher discovering DP Darius Khondji on a Nike commercial (and later working with him on the iconic film Se7en), you chose uncharted paths, tools, and partnerships because commercials were a space where you were allowed to do those things and be paid to do it.
Over the last decade, however, that way of relating to and leveraging the medium, especially in the realm of video production technology, has mutated. As brands and those that represent them have become more prescriptive, their budgets grown tighter, and their risk tolerance smaller, instead of acting as a laboratory for innovation, commercial production has increasingly become about discovering approaches that optimize for fast, affordable, and predictable output. I’d say much of it is our own doing; for the sake of survival, we’ve not stood up enough in many of the moments where our ideas and yearning to take risks were culled back. But as it stands, I can think of no better tool than AI generated video to ensure the creation of more ignorable work and irrelevance.
Even casual observers of AI-generated videos are generally familiar with the fundamentals of how it works, which is why it mystifies me that anyone can truly be convinced it’s going to break us out of where we currently find ourselves. These systems scrape existing images, films, designs, and writing and cobble them into huge datasets that are synthesized by a complex method of averages. The mechanism is fundamentally recombination, not originality, constraining us to the ground we’ve already tread rather than advancing us toward anything in the realm of new. This is why AI-generated videos always have the patina of familiarity. You feel you’ve seen something like this before because, well… you have. Imitation is literally its entire framework, and it will never consistently cut through the noise from which it was created.
I’m not saying that AI writ large has no place in creative work. Even at Washington Square Films, we are selectively using AI in our workflows all the time, especially in post production where we train on original material and consenting performers to perfect or adapt aspects of our work. But what we’re doing is more akin to Photoshop for video, and we’re non-believers that we should unseat ourselves and the talent we work with from the helm. If anything, with the onslaught of AI content perpetuating sameness, there is an even greater call for artists to stand out and be the difficult creatures they can be. We should be leaning further into the things machines still struggle to replicate: tonal dissonance, the serendipity of the irrational, and the universe of imperfections that are inherent in humanity. At the end of the day, that’s what has led to the best of our discipline, capturing our attention and wonderment.
So instead of allowing creative conversations to begin with “it should look something like…,” we should go back to starting with the as-yet-unquantifiable: “it feels like…” Maybe we need to get even more radical and collectively walk back the expectations for treatments and pre-visualizations, reverting to good old fashioned conversation and text, where our imaginations are deliberately being exercised to fill in the blanks instead of high fidelity AI renderings that once seen, are like firing clay in the minds of our stakeholders with very little malleability thereafter.
Ultimately, if there is a battleground for video production, the enemy is not the technology. As has always been true—from film celluloid turning digital to homemade pies turning into Sara Lee—this is a battle with ourselves. Who will choose the tendencies shaped by new technology for the sake of cost, convenience, and laziness? Where will that lead them in the long run? And who will take the more difficult path that never veers even in moments of technological disruption: that good creative requires a complete commitment of your mind, body, and spirit. No easy prompts. No shortcuts.
I, for one, will be trying to walk the latter.
Han West is partner and executive producer at Washington Square Films
