Why are respected filmmakers suddenly turning to AI?

IIn Steven Soderbergh’s beguiling new film “The Christophers,” a reclusive artist (Ian McKellen) takes on the quiet art forger (Michaela Coel) his greedy children have hired to secretly complete additional entries in a well-known series of paintings. Smart and provocative about the nature of art and authorship, the film explores what it means to create – and to stop creating. It’s particularly intriguing coming from Soderbergh, who has made films with workhorse reliability (The Christophers is his third theatrical release in the last 18 months) and has also completely retired from directing features for four years.

It also provides particularly harrowing context for Soderbergh when, in interviews promoting the film, he expresses his interest in something that many major artists have explicitly rejected: the use of AI in films. Soderbergh mentioned in an interview with Filmmaker Magazine that he used what sounds like generative AI to produce “thematically surreal images…”