AI and Entertainment
interview with holly li on celebrities, AI and those meta chatbots
Last week, after 118 days, the Hollywood writers' strike ended. A sticking point in the negotiation was the push for the responsible use of artificial intelligence from the actors' camp. A few days ago, AI continued to permeate headlines with YouTube’s announcement of new AI music products like DreamTrack that allows users to create songs using the voices of popular artists like John Legend, Charli XCX, and Troye Sivan.
The application of AI in art making and the ability to generate artist and celebrity output complicates an already thin line between creativity and capitalism. As artificial intelligence and celebrity idolization have been LOOSEY preoccupations in the past, I grew curious about how these developments would impact pop culture and entertainment.
As chance had it, I ran into Holly Li on a subway in Brooklyn who generously agreed to be interviewed. Holly is a Team Lead at Creative Lab, an innovation team at Google that experiments with emerging technologies and how they show up in people’s lives. In her spare time, she thinks (and writes!) about cultural theory — how we understand and enforce our identities through our choices across technology, digital media, fashion, pop culture, politics, etc.
The discussion below has been edited for concision. Opinions expressed are solely our own and do not express the views or opinions of an employer.
Brendon: Thanks for agreeing to chat with me. For those unfamiliar, what have you worked on in the artificial intelligence space?
Holly: When people talk about AI they are usually referring to three buckets. The first is generative imagery, so think of AI-created images and videos like MidJourney. Another rapidly growing area is generative audio. Think of the TikTok songs that sound like Drake and The Weeknd but aren’t actually them. And then, finally, the most popular realm of AI is around large language models which are text-based products like ChatGPT. These are the three aspects of AI that I have experience with.
There is tension around the advent of artificial intelligence. Are you generally excited or worried about the presence of AI?
I am mostly excited for a million different reasons. Every technological change comes with disruption but I fundamentally believe that AI can lower the barrier of entry of creation for a lot of people. This is similar to how the printing press, the digital camera, or even Adobe Photoshop helped usher in entirely new types of creativity and jobs.
The fears we are hearing about with AI are not new. If you listen to the moralistic arguments against generative AI, they echo the anxiety I grew up hearing in the early 2000s around globalization. America went from producing its own goods to suddenly having shared trade and creation around the world. The fervor of today’s argument sounds similar: you can almost have anything you imagine. The same awe we felt walking into Forever 21 in 2005 feels similar to how people feel looking at Midjourney-generated fashion.
I love the idea that ‘AI lowers the barriers of entry to creation.’ Creativity is something that is seen as an innate talent so perhaps with AI we are no longer gatekeeping it.
‘Access’ is a common theme in the AI discourse. Access to creativity is one thing but another element we’ve seen is access to celebrity and fame. Recently, I’ve seen that Meta has created AI chatbots that allow you to speak with a duped version of Kendall Jenner, Dwayne Wade, and Snoop Dogg. It feels very Black Mirror but I feel like we have been heading in this direction for a while. As someone who works in AI, has this been surprising to you?
In some ways, it makes sense that Meta would jump to this conclusion because the idea of having an artificial relationship with a celebrity is not new. So the manifestation of it through a WhatsApp chatbot of Kendall Jenner, instead of consuming her Instagram, doesn’t feel that different.
We also have precedent for this in other cultures. The fascination with idolatry in Asian markets has already been established. In Japan, there are fake celebrities that are holograms that sell out physical concerts. The entire presence of KPOP boot camps is predicated on manufacturing humans into fake and artificial celebrities. AI almost feels perfectly consistent with this.
We talk about the parasocial relationships we have with celebrities and, in a way, these AI bots are a more blatant version of that. When I think back to earlier examples where we were explicitly sold a fake celebrity, Gorillaz comes to mind. It was always understood that this was a band that was completely fictionalized but, in a way, every single popstar is fiction. It’s not just the KPOP girlies that are manufactured. WhatApp AI bots are just a more outward, creepy frontier. Where does this point to? Can celebrity exist in a world where fame is entirely manufactured by AI or are some verticals of entertainment off limits for replication?
I would be curious to study the sociological effects of other step changes in digital media to understand what AI could pose for celebrities. For example, back when you were only able to listen to CDs and suddenly YouTube and then Spotify came out. I’m sure a lot of the angst that artists have now existed in some form at that time too.
Something I think a lot about is Taylor Swift and Spotify and how they famously battled it out in the public sphere over music royalties. Yes, Taylor definitely did change Spotify's business model and this is how it should be done, artists working with businesses to create something complimentary for everyone, but, over time, Spotify has become its own art form for Taylor that she never anticipated. The entire spectacle around her masters and the re-recording of her music may have never happened if Spotify didn’t exist. Because now, instead of recalling a bunch of CDs, all she has to do is tell Spotify to only play specific songs or only have the ‘Taylor’s Version’ on playlists. It introduces a new paradigm of artist control which you never would have anticipated when Spotify first came out.
In a lot of ways, AI and the ability to “speak” to celebrities on WhatsApp are just first wave of reactions. I would be curious if we actually want this. Are we just going to get bored when you can speak to this Kendall Jenner bot every day? I would be interested to see the usage rate of Meta’s celebrity chatbot product and with what audiences.
I would agree with that. We are fascinated with celebrities when there is a degree of mysticism. Think back to the days when we had celebrities like Julia Roberts, George Clooney, and Whitney Houston. They weren’t posting on social media and, because of that, they were elevated as untouchable deities. Now with the advent of social media and AI, where you can just create a celebrity, it becomes less fascinating.
My hunch is that people are way more comfortable with the concept of celebrity when they are being hoodwinked and sold an aspiration versus when you have the opportunity to ‘peek behind the curtain’ and see how the sausage or celebrity is made.
You touch something really interesting with AI enabling creativity and allowing more authorship and control for artists like Taylor Swift. It makes me think a lot about SOPHIE, the late music producer, and her response when there was pushback against the inclusion of manufactured instruments in musical production. SOPHIE was like, and I’m paraphrasing, “As an artist, wouldn’t you want to have every instrument at your disposal?” I think that is one pure artistic way to look at AI. I think when you bring in examples like Taylor Swift, and how she’s been able to direct attention to the most profitable pieces of her P&L through Spotify and other algorithmic pressures, it’s also fascinating. The lines kind of blur between artist and capitalist and who is to say that there is even a difference between that in a consumption-pilled 2023?
Absolutely. I think one of the biggest things we have yet to figure out is the emerging business models between AI and IP. We have no idea how that will roll out over the next couple of years.
You bring up IP which is something that artists and celebrities are understandably protective of. This is why I was surprised that someone like the Kardashians or an athlete would agree to have their IP, i.e. themselves, replicated for the use of Meta. Why do you think a celebrity would actually agree to this sort of deal?
If you think about the reach of the [Meta] deal, the largest audience is going to be on WhatsApp. The biggest WhatsApp markets are non-American markets like Europe and Asia. I think there is a real argument to be made that one of the strengths of the deal if you are a Tom Brady or Kendall Jenner, is the fact that the bot is almost a stand-in for you in every part of the world where you cannot be.
One thing that is interesting in Meta’s portfolio of celebrities is that almost all of them are ‘pure celebrities,’ and not artists. They are either a celebrity like Paris Hilton or an athlete. The common denominator between the two groups is that they need to be seen and consumed to function in culture. If you are Kendall Jenner you only care about reach. The Meta deal offers immediate mindshare in markets that they have not had the bandwidth to penetrate. From that sense, it’s just a surface-area business move.
As you think about separating the artist from the capital, this movement towards celebrity AI bots is probably only effective for artists who consider themselves as something only available for consumption. As a fan, you want more and more access to your star. I think one of the reasons why the Barbie film was so financially successful was because it had multiple access points. The movie, the doll, the fashion, the album. Same thing with Beyonce’s RENAISSANCE. You have the album, the tour, the fashion, and now the movie. There are so many different access points and I do wonder if there will be diminishing returns as AI scales that access. Are there any entertainment forms that you think are ripe for AI?
Music! One early example was Grimes when she allowed her voice to be used by artists around the world. It’s Grimes singing lyrics that aren’t hers but I listened to a few and they sounded incredible. They were just young DJs and artists trying to get a foot in the industry and create music that they were proud of and thought that Grimes had a voice and a vibe that worked well with their music.
It comes down to ownership and how you view it with artistic expression. Some artists are using AI as a tool to collaborate with others more easily while others are more hesitant, for all the right reasons, and don't want to sacrifice ownership and control over artistic expression. Taylor is more the latter while Grimes is the former.
I’d love to know what excites you with AI as it relates to pop culture and celebrity.
The areas that interest me the most with AI are music and film. When it comes to film and television, I think there is a rich opportunity to create truly immersive experiences. Imagine you are watching a version of the latest Saw and the creators know how to engineer an ending to maximize the satisfaction for you. Maybe they know what you find most scary and can create a custom ending for you that’s different from your friend watching next to you. Maybe that takes the fun out of filmmaking and maybe that’s not art but, as a horror fan, I am interested in exploring it.
Our culture is so determined to have one piece of art be canon and I’m curious as to what could happen if we shattered that expectation. I know we’ve seen a version of this innovation with Netflix’s Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, a ‘choose your own adventure’ series, but that was a bit cumbersome. For a film like Everywhere Everything All At Once, where it makes sense to the narrative arc of the story that there are multiple journeys, what does that look like in an AI experience?
I love that you mention ‘canon’ because I feel like - and this is from someone who probably consumes way too much Taylor Swift media - the fact that her concert has these call-and-response sayings and inside jokes that become collective experiences over the years, I wonder what happens when the relationship with media and celebrity becomes so individualized that you might not have these shared experiences anymore. The upside is that everyone gets their alternate ending, the downside is that you might risk fractalizing collective experience and social fabric. I can imagine a lot of celebrities not wanting that because a collective religion, in a lot of ways, is a lot more powerful.
‘Celebrity as religion.’ Well, that’s another discussion and for another essay. Thank you so much for your time, Holly.
Thanks! This was fun.
