This Guest Post is written By Anoushna Bardhan, USA
Application of Artificial Intelligence in the entertainment industry
Artificial intelligence has been embraced by one of the world’s biggest industries: Entertainment. Filmmakers, streaming platforms, and consumers have all benefited from AI software and capabilities.
Artificial intelligence has reduced the workload for people working within the filmmaking industry, by simplifying many of the laborious production and editing processes. One such example is the use of AI in subtitle generation. Perfectly aligning subtitles with the actor’s lip movements is a difficult and time-consuming task. It is particularly challenging when movies are translated into many languages for international
audiences. By harnessing AI, filmmakers have been able to simplify the process and reduce the odds of making errors. AI is able to synthesize speech and analyze vocabulary to generate automated natural language subtitles through neural networks; a series of algorithms that recognize underlying relationships in a set of data. The AI neural network process mimics the way the human brain operates. This process allows AI to generate accurate subtitles in various languages and also determine the optimum length of subtitles displayed on the screen. The result is both an expanded content base for a wider audience, and a more user-friendly experience.
Streaming platforms have embraced AI to classify and personalize entertainment content. Big entertainment giants such as the streaming service Netflix use data collection and machine learning to create AI algorithms to generate personalized recommendations for their subscribers. The AI models are programmed to collect data and learn from their individual user’s viewing patterns and preferences. Due to the accumulative learning aspect of the AI software, the more a subscriber views Netflix the better the personalized “what to watch next” recommendations become. Streaming services also use AI to help their subscribers search for relevant content within particular film genres. The AI technologies can quickly scan thousands of movies and analyze details, including plots, actors, and filmmakers’ signatures, to classify each film into a particular genre. From this pool, the AI program makes selections for a particular subscriber. A seamless and relevant navigation process enhances the user experience, which in turn allows streaming services to retain their existing subscribers as well as attract new customers.
AI has also been harnessed to simultaneously identify a viewer’s internet speed and then compress the streamed video to achieve a minimal loss of picture and sound quality. This ability to ensure the viewing quality is good for streaming services’ subscribers in distinct localities around the world, benefits both the users and the platforms’ business. A happy customer is an ongoing one.
Visual Effects (VFX), the creation, manipulation, or enhancement of images in films, is one exciting area in which AI has been expanding. Recently, machine learning has been increasingly used in VFX. Digital Domain, an American visual effects and digital production company based in California, created a machine learning visual effects program for the movie Avengers: Infinity War. The transformation of the actor Josh Brolin’s face into the film character Thanos was achieved through facial tracking markers and facial-capture training data. The studio’s use of machine learning to enhance the quality of their original special effects program resulted in Digital Domain’s development of a new AI facial-capture system that allows for high-resolution VFX images of actors to be created in real-time.
Video Games are another big sector within entertainment that is being impacted by AI advancements. Video game designers are using AI to make the games more sophisticated, challenging, and interesting for the users. Controlling non-player characters (NPCs) to react to the main player’s actions and movements is a key aspect of the typical gaming experience. The NPCs will shoot the player after spotting them or retreat when attacked. AI can analyze a player’s actions to predict his/her future actions and reactions within distinct gaming scenarios. Another AI algorithm used by video game designers is the Monte Carlo Search Tree (MCST) algorithm. MCST uses the strategy of trying random trials to solve a problem. This AI strategy was used in Deep Blue — the first computer program to defeat a human chess champion in 1997. It is called a “search tree” algorithm. All the possible moves expand the choices in a fashion similar to the growth of branches on a tree. AI with MCST design is able to process thousands of possible actions and responses within each scenario and step of the game. This data is then used to calculate which scenario will challenge and interest the player. The future of AI in video games is in
the generation of unique and immersive viewing experiences through the enhancement of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) technologies. As gaming designers synchronize the AI-related algorithms pioneered in natural language processing and VFX facial capture in real-time, it will become increasingly more challenging for a gamer to know if his/her opponent or teammate is an AI-generated character or another human being.
The future of the entertainment industry will continue to expand in awe-inspiring ways, thanks to the help of artificial intelligence. This is an exciting era for AI programmers and designers of entertainment content. As pioneering teams collaborate and merge their AI developments, the entertainment industry will provide a proliferation of sophisticated immersive experiences for all seeking refuge from the humdrum and stress of everyday
life
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