Back in 2023, Andor creator Tony Gilroy revealed at an Emmy FYC event plans to share the scripts from the critically acclaimed series. And thanks to AI, those plans have been scrapped.
Speaking to Collider via The Verge, Gilroy revealed that he killed these plans over fears of his materials training AI. These would have been production scripts, which are a bit different from what we see in the final product. Gizmodo explained that these are "used on-set to help organize scenes and shooting schedules" and "usually marked up by script coordinators and used as a guide during shooting." These things can be analyzed for fans to see where there might have been lines of dialogue changed or deleted scenes. Tools like these are great for film students especially to study the step-by-step process of making a series as well as how to organize a shoot.
However, this plan is no more. The 1500 page collection was ready to be published but fears of upregulation with AI has stayed the Andor creator's hand from pulling the trigger anymore. Gilroy doesn't want his work to be used to train these machines.
Gilroy lamented the lost project, saying, "I wanted to do it. We put it together. It's really cool. I've seen it, I loved it. AI is the reason we're not. In the end, it would be 1,500 pages that came directly off this desk. I mean, terribly sadly, it's just too much of an X-ray and too easily absorbed. Why help the [expletive] robots anymore than you can? So, it was an ego thing. It was vanity that makes you want to do it, and the downside is real. So, vanity loses."
As much as it sucks to not get these scripts, I totally agree with Tony Gilroy on this one.
Artists and creators need more protection from AI. My job as well as the work of many creatives are constantly threatened by artificial intelligence, and there doesn't seem to be anything to curb it anytime soon. As artists, writers, actors, and voice actors are on the forefront of fighting this, it's been slow to change. And the lack of change is scary as real repercussions are happening. Friendly reminder in the US, you don't legally own the publishing rights to your voice. Someone can steal your voice and use it for whatever purpose they want and we have no recourse to protect us. Open sources steal artwork and writing constantly. Just recently, Meta misused a valuable tool in LibGen and stole thousands of pieces of work. I know some of these authors who did not consent to this. Heck, even games like Pokemon Go have used unknowing players to train AI for the military and policing.
AI should be a tool only, but until there are more protections against it, Tony Gilroy is doing the right thing.