Filmmaker Danny McBride, digital artist Beeple get real about AI and Hollywood

Before Danny McBride and Beeple could discuss whether artificial intelligence might someday replace human creativity, they had to bring out a couple of robots. 

The four-legged machines, outfitted with the men's faces, wandered onto the stage at the Charleston Music Hall on Oct. 21, setting a fittingly bizarre tone for an evening devoted to technology's increasingly strange possibilities. 

"I thought we'd get the creepy stuff out of the way first," the digital artist said. 

Leading the Gibbes Museum of Art's annual Distinguished Lecture Series, Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, sat down with comedic actor McBride to tackle a question facing artists across nearly every medium: As AI becomes increasingly sophisticated, what happens to the people who have spent their lives creating art? 

McBride is the filmmaker behind HBO's “Eastbound & Down,” “Vice Principals,” and “The Righteous Gemstones,” while Beeple became a global sensation when a piece of his digital artwork sold for $69.3 million in 2021. 

The two internationally-recognized creatives have made Charleston their home, but their approaches to art are quite different. Even so, their perspectives on AI proved more complementary than contradictory. 

Is there room for AI in art? 

McBride has experimented with artificial intelligence, but anyone expecting him to hand over his next screenplay to ChatGPT will be disappointed. 

"I enjoy writing. I enjoy creating stuff," McBride said. "I enjoy the process of making [a script] so I would never look for a tool to replace that because then I don't have anything to do with it." 

Instead, he’s found AI most useful for research, particularly when writing historical scenes that require specific details. "It's just in a more advanced version of Google," he called it. 

McBride also has some complaints about AI's personality, particularly its tendency to flatter users and produce writing that sounds convincing without much substance. 

"I feel like it's surface level," he said. "It's one of those things where it says all the right things, but when you really kind of look at it, there's not a lot of depth to it." 

He even pointed out a few well-recognized writing habits AI tends to make.  

"It lists things in threes. It says, 'It's not this, it's that.’ You can kind of see the tricks it does to make it sound like a human." 

Despite its kinks, McBride believes ignoring the technology entirely would be a mistake, especially as Hollywood studios experiment with incorporating AI into production. 

"You don't want people to stop creating on their own, obviously," he said. "But at the same time, you don't want people to not know what it can do, because the big guys are learning what it can do, and they will replace everyone in all their jobs by doing it." 

At the moment, he pointed out, studios have not required him to use AI in his productions, although visual effects work might increasingly incorporate the technology. 

Beeple, whose artwork regularly explores emerging digital tools, approaches AI from a different creative background. He has previously described the technology as “a way to unlock creativity for people who lack the technical skills to bring their ideas to life.” 

The two collaborated on “Synthetic Theater,” an experimental production exploring AI and creativity, about a year before last week’s Gibbes conversation. If there’s anything they could agree on, it was that AI's capabilities have advanced dramatically in a short time. 

Rage against the machine 

The two creatives touched on one of AI's most contentious issues being debated internationally right now: what happens when technology learns from human-created work? 

"When you create something, you put it out into the world, and it kind of isn't yours anymore," McBride said. 

He pointed to television characters seemingly inspired by Kenny Powers, his foul-mouthed baseball player from “Eastbound & Down,” explaining that he sometimes finds those similarities flattering rather than threatening. 

He distinguished artistic inspiration from copyright infringement or unauthorized use of someone's likeness. 

During an audience question about “Thrilling Tales of Modern Men,” McBride's book, whose audiobook includes language prohibiting AI training, he was asked how artists can protect their identities when technology can replicate their voices. 

"Maybe [AI] just raises the bar and everyone has to just work harder," he said. "Maybe suddenly you have to push yourself harder, be more authentic, and outpace the machine. My mindset would be to not be intimidated by it, but to dig down and try to outthink that mother…” 

Charleston's kindred spirits 

Although their work reaches audiences around the world, McBride and Beeple have found creative advantages operating far from Hollywood and traditional art capitals. 

McBride first came to Charleston in 2015 to shoot “Vice Principals.” He and his family fell in love with the area, and several longtime collaborators eventually followed him from Los Angeles. 

"We've been here for 10 years, and we pushed all of our work here. It was the best choice we ever made," he said. 

On the other hand, Winkelmann said the Holy City’s lack of a major digital art scene pushes him to consider how people outside the technology and NFT communities experience his creations. 

"It forces me to look at these works outside of the way that, for lack of a better term, a normal person would view these works,” Winklemann said. “And I think that can sort of strengthen the work because it doesn’t assume a level of interest in it that a bunch of nerds would have for this stuff.” 

The two artists ended by praising each other for their willingness to experiment and build ambitious creative projects in Charleston. McBride recalled visiting Beeple Studios and being struck by the energy inside a facility hidden away along Clements Ferry Road. 

"I just instantly saw a kindred spirit because I felt like you could be anywhere," McBride told Beeple. "You chose to be here, and you're doing what you do, and it's unlike anything that's out there." 

McBride may be old-school when it comes to creating art, while Winkelmann embraces just about every new technology that comes along. But the two seem to share a belief that no matter how sophisticated the tools become, it's what artists do with them that makes something worth watching.