Intro for August 21, 2026
– 3 min read
Dear Gossips,
Earlier this week, Maria wrote about Gwyneth Paltrow’s private dinner for OpenAI CEO Sam Altman at her Hamptons home. That event was “off the record”, which seemed like a weird phrase for a summer dinner party, even one hosted by a contentious celebrity for a contentious CEO. Then, yesterday, Richard Rushfield’s The Ankler published an article titled, “First Look: Hollywood’s Secret AI Talks Go Public. Here’s the Plan”, about a years-long series of closed-door meetings, held “off the record”, between various factions in Hollywood and tech, to determine how to use and classify AI in filmmaking.
The Gwyneth story broke from Matthew Belloni’s Puck newsletter, so are the industry insider journalists fighting, or are Belloni and Rushfield following the same scent from two different directions? Is Gwyneth’s dinner party part of this unofficial symposium about adopting AI in Hollywood, or did she become aware of the existence of those conversations—held between unions, guilds, filmmakers, the American Film Institute, and organized in part by Kathleen Kennedy—and decide to do the fancy dinner party version of it?
I have questions about Gwyneth’s Sam Altman love fest in the Hamptons in light of the news that key figures in the entertainment industry have been meeting to discuss AI adoption for THREE YEARS—ever since the dual labor strikes of 2023—but I also have questions about this fluctuating group of people discussing AI in Hollywood.
Per The Ankler’s report, I don’t think they’re farting around in the woods about AI. They’re onto some of the very concerns my co-workers and I have about AI in our jobs, too, which is that some programs definitely seem more useful than others, but everything is lumped together into “slop” (which I believe is deliberate positioning by untrustworthy tech CEOs trying to “too big to fail” their way to the next billion-dollar IPO before their chatbot craps out and exposes the naked emperor at the center of the lie).
But they’re also brushing up against what Maria brought up before, by way of that brilliant moment in Hacks when Ava points out that it’s the tech CEOs forcing AI down our throats and acting like it’s inevitable when they’re the ones MAKING it inevitable.
Recently I’ve encountered an attitude that AI is equivalent to the sound revolution in early Hollywood, but no, that was streaming/digital technology. AI is just another tool, the latest in a long line of computer advancements that will, like every computer advancement before it, be more useful to some people than to others. Right now, the best use cases I’ve heard for AI in Hollywood are in highly technical workflows like sound and visual effects, where there is a huge amount of not only work, but also processing power at play.
Some people want to use AI to replace storyboard artists, which I am less on board with because that isn’t supporting an existing person’s job, it’s REPLACING a job, which we have to be careful about because we are not a cool and groovy society that takes care of one another. Also, have you seen storyboards? They’re awesome! Why do you want to make this soulless?
I am an AI doomer in that I think there is a financial bubble around AI and we’re all going to suffer when it pops, and I am not much more optimistic about the labor implications of widespread AI adoption, but I do think it is inevitable, in some form or another. Technology, once arrived, never goes away. It only evolves, until it is one day supplanted by something newer. So, we DO have to have conversations about how and when and where to implement AI, in every industry including Hollywood.
But I also think it’s pretty naïve to assume the tech people are on our side. They’re not. Not these ones in charge right now, anyway. Mira Lane, Google’s VP of “technology and society”, was part of these closed-door industry talks. I don’t for one second believe her participation is altruistic. I think you let the fox into the hen house.
When it comes to AI, my most resolute belief is that we should NOT let the tech bros dictate how we use it. The tools exist. Let us figure out how and where they interact and intersect with our lives. Hollywood is trying to dictate how they will use AI, but as long as they’re letting Google execs in the room—and who knows who else, I still have questions about Sam Altman—I don’t think they’re really in control of the conversation. We should be treating tech companies hawking AI like travelling salesmen of old. Leave your wares on the doorstep, we’ll figure it out from there.
Live long and gossip,
Sarah
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