A recent film festival dedicated to shorts created with generative AI highlighted both the creative potential of the technology and the deep division it is causing within the film industry. According to an article by Samuel Axon for Ars Technica, the AIFF 2025 festival, hosted by the AI company Runway, served as a microcosm of the wider debate in Hollywood.
The event featured 10 short films that used AI tools. The styles ranged from surreal animations to a quasi-documentary. The grand prize winner, a film titled Total Pixel Space, put forward a philosophical defense of AI art. It argued that all possible images already exist as mathematical data and that artists, whether human or AI, merely discover them. The runner-up, Jailbird, used AI to achieve shots from a chicken’s point of view in a story about companion animals in prisons.
Proponents of the technology, like Runway CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela, see it as a tool that can democratize filmmaking and increase efficiency. In an interview with Axon, Valenzuela stated that these tools allow new creators to produce high-quality work that was previously impossible without large budgets. Some industry professionals already use AI for practical tasks such as extending shots during the editing process.
However, many in the industry remain deeply skeptical. The article cites concerns from creatives about job displacement, the rapid speed of AI adoption, and the technology’s inability to replicate the nuance of human storytelling. Director Mike Rianda is quoted from another interview describing corporate AI as a “buzzsaw that will destroy us all.”
A central point of contention is copyright law. Creatives and guilds are concerned that their work has been used to train AI models without their consent or compensation. While companies like Runway offer legal indemnification to studios for the content their models generate, the underlying issue of how the models were trained remains a source of legal and ethical conflict.
Axon concludes that this debate over AI in Hollywood is ultimately philosophical, questioning the very nature of creativity. However, its resolution will not come from philosophical arguments. Instead, the future will be shaped by practical and legal outcomes, including court decisions, new legislation, and the collective bargaining agreements that have long defined the business of filmmaking.