Creatives and artificial intelligence (AI) have had a contentious relationship since AI usage has exploded in both the arts and academics. Actor Zachary Levi of “Shazam!” and “Tangled” fame had some strong words against AI on “The George Janko Show.” Levi compared the influx of AI usage to the biblical flood of Noah in Genesis and warned that it could destroy the entertainment industry. “We can talk all day long and wax philosophical about how do we save the industry from itself in the way that it treats people, or it doesn’t make great content or whatever. Guys, honestly like, t-minus two years from now, good luck finding any job, because the studios will have a technology … it’s already basically here,” he said.

He cited the example of studios offering a “creator sandbox” where individuals can use AI tools to draw from properties owned by the studio and create their own movies. “And you can type in anything that’s a Warner Brothers asset, so it can be Shazam and Batman and Neo from ‘The Matrix,’ and you can type in all these characters, and you want them to go on a treasure hunt on Mars and I want it to feel like a Stephen Spielberg movie, go.’ And then it will make that movie, and it will look indiscernible from human-made, in fact it will look amazing. And it will be entirely animated, but it will look like real life. This is where we’re about to be.” He told Janko he was creating his own studio to stay ahead. “Right now, the studio I’m trying to build feels very much like the ark that God was telling Noah, ‘You gotta go build this thing, because the flood is coming.”

This is not the first time Levi has expressed concerns over AI. Speaking to Glenn Beck in December, Levi shared a more apocalyptic view of AI. “As far as I can tell, we are very close, within two years two to five years of the entire face of this planet being unrecognizable when it comes to how [AI’s}] going to infiltrate every single industry and workforce. Like, I don’t think people realize that we’re on the precipice of massive layoffs.” At FanExpo in Chicago in August 2023 during the writers’ striker, Levi urged his fans to show their support for human creators. “We have to recognize that that power can very quickly consume all of us,” he warned. “So know that, as Hollywood, we’re asking you guys to support us as humans, because very quickly, even if we get great contracts in this round, a few years from now AI is going to be so good that you won’t be able to tell the difference.” He warned that technology “will come for us all.”

Returning to Levi’s discussion with Janko, he stated his belief that there would always be a niche for human creators and people who want to support them. But he painted a picture of how tempting AI could be as well, such as movies being created that utilize deceased actors taking on their iconic roles in new AI-generated movies. He gave the example of the late Gene Kelly being used to make new movies. “And again, I don’t want to support that but are you kidding me?! . . . Like a new ‘Singing in the Rain’ sequel? I want to watch that, take my money,” he said. “I don’t want to be a doomsdayer, but I cannot stress this enough, please . . . wake up to AI. Please wake up to it. It is not, ‘Oh that’s fun,’ or some passing fad or whatever. It is going to replace so many jobs, and it’s going to happen way faster than you think it’s going to happen.”