🎭 Rambo vs. AI? Think Again
“I’m gonna get in trouble for this: AI is here to stay. I wanted to do half human, half AI, and put it together. And of course, everyone’s going nuts. I go, ‘That’s happening, guys.’ People are now selling their images. Eventually, there are 20 Elvises as avatars. It’s happening. So, I would take that risk, even though you get plastered bombastically by the creative community. They’re right, but we can’t stop this avalanche. It’s out of our control.”
—Sylvester Stallone, actor/writer/director, Tulsa King, Rocky, Creed, The Expendables
*Source: The Overlap
🎬 Elon Musk Gets a Big Seat at the Hollywood Table
The rumors were true. Elon Musk, the leader of SpaceX, Tesla, and Twitter/X, is investing $1 billion into David Ellison’s Skydance mega studio, which now houses Paramount and Warner Bros. The reveal comes via CNBC, which cites “a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named.” The funding is sorely needed, as Ellison is facing roughly $80 billion in debt, but Musk’s $1 billion won’t make much of a dent. Skydance expects roughly $6 billion in cost savings in the next few years now that the merger is done, but many expect that a significant portion of those budgetary cuts will come in the form of massive layoffs.
Such headcount reductions are common in large mergers like this. Usually, the acquiring company frames the layoffs as a way to improve its internal corporate synergy. But in a Hollywood that has already been bleeding jobs for the last five years, forcing some to seek alternative careers, the coming Skydance layoffs may feel more like a turning point in the history of the overall entertainment industry.
Musk’s Pre-2028 Gamble: The real value of the $1 billion investment for Musk is that it formalizes an already close behind-the-scenes relationship, accented by a cohort of political and Hollywood players like Ellison-friendly President Trump and super agent Ari Emanuel. For example, Emanuel, who steers the careers of a major portion of your favorite celebrities (via William Morris Endeavor, UFC, WWE, and MARI live events), has frequently given the entrepreneur credit as a private advisor on all things technology. In a recent interview, Emanuel, after being pressed on his relationship with Musk, had no concrete explanation for the seemingly incongruous relationship other than saying, “We are living in [a grey area] constantly.”
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The Hollywood-meets-politics angle is not insignificant. Emanuel’s brother, former Barack Obama advisor Rahm Emanuel, was mayor of Chicago, ambassador to Japan, and is rumored to be planning to run for president in 2028. Pay attention and you’ll realize that for all the noise around Musk’s connections today, he’s likely already strategizing for a post-Trump world in 2028, where he’ll need center- and/or left-leaning friends in high places like Ellison and Emanuel.
Will Musk’s investment in Skydance influence content? Based on Ellison’s track record so far, it seems unlikely. But it should be noted that one of the primary producers behind the scathing Alex Gibney documentary Musk is none other than HBO Documentary Films, which now falls under the stewardship of new Musk buddy Ellison, via the Warner Bros. acquisition. Some, including Gibney himself, are already speculating that Musk’s investment in Skydance could have some muting effects on a film the tech mogul has frequently ripped publicly.
There’s no proof to that effect, but when a controversial figure like Musk invests such a hefty sum into arguably the largest studio in Hollywood, the relationship will merit continued scrutiny. Would the Musk documentary have been co-produced by HBO in a post-Musk-investment world? That’s the question Ellison will likely be asked again and again, in various ways, in the next few years.
🤖 AI Is a Trigger Word in Hollywood
“A pencil is a tool. A paintbrush is a tool. A 3D printer is a tool. A digital capture system is a tool. AI is not a tool. AI can go fuck itself.”
—Travis Knight, director, Masters of the Universe, CEO of Laika
*Source: Ricardo Robles via Animation Is Film Fest
🔈 Do Spotify’s New AI Music Slop Efforts Ring Hollow?
AI-generated music is still a touchy issue that has divided some in the music industry, especially those artists who are vocal about the meager profits they receive from streaming on Spotify versus those who are using it to help produce their music. That discussion has focused a harsh light on the rise of AI-generated music on the platform. In response, Spotify has in recent months attempted to allay the fears of human musicians. Its latest update on AI might be its most strongly worded, going as far as to call a lot of the music “AI slop.”
“This year alone, we’ve taken more than 50 million slop and spam tracks out of recommendations,” the company said in a statement earlier this week. “Earlier this year, we looked closely at the tracks listeners were skipping, ignoring, or telling us they didn’t want to hear. A clear pattern emerged: these tracks were consistently ones identified as slop or spam…we’ve made numerous updates to our recommendation system to remove slop and spam, and surface more music made by authentic, human artists.”
The Unstoppable Robot Music Army: Will it be enough? I’m not so sure. One major difference between AI-generated music and human music is that algorithmically produced music is generally cheap and easy to make. So expecting the AI music slop to subside would be like suddenly expecting spam emails to disappear from one’s inbox. Sure, Google can work harder to police our inboxes for spam, but spammer techniques are ever-evolving and there is never a complete end to machine-generated email spam. I expect the same will hold true for Spotify. In that respect, I think the only way to truly police such music on the platform would be to ban it altogether. But since attention and engagement are Spotify’s bread and butter (and not the feelings or profit margins of human musicians), the listeners who are knowingly or passively consuming AI-generated music on Spotify will likely guarantee that it doesn’t disappear anytime soon.
Spotify has made some distinct efforts to regulate AI-generated music on the platform, including crafting AI Persona badges to let listeners know when they’re listening to AI-generated music. And while the gesture is pointed in the right direction, it’s unlikely to stem the tidal wave of AI music slop produced by users uninterested in the ethics of human-versus-AI-produced music. Legislation like the NO FAKES Act and the Protecting Working Musicians Act (PWMA) is attempting to address the concerns of human musicians facing what Spotify calls AI slop being served to its 788 million users.
Nevertheless, I don’t think there’s a middle ground on this that can use previous methods to address the issue. Especially in the age of AI agents, where a single person could conceivably construct an empire of AI agents to generate and distribute new AI music slop 24/7. On some level, it seems that humans will need to be assigned new rights that address the anonymity of the Internet and the current viability of virtual beings (read: AI agents) doing business on behalf of sometimes unscrupulous human operators cloaked behind a keyboard.
📺 Odyssey Star on Elon Musk’s Cinematic Nightmare
“Must-watch documentary of the year!”
—John Leguizamo, actor, The Odyssey, commenting on Alex Gibney’s Elon Musk film.
*Source: Twitter/X
MAN AND ROBOTS is a weekly column from MARS Magazine on AI, Hollywood, and the future of work. All editorial text is written by humans.
Cover image: Skydance’s David Ellison & Elon Musk in a modified scene from Top Gun: Maverick via via Skydance
