James C. Oliver

Just got a LinkedIn message praising me for my "commentary" at a film festival I've never attended and inviting me to attend some event in a few months. Is this a new scam that people are seeing?

So if you add up all the innings we're essentially starting game nine of a seven game series.

Sea Otters Are Stealing Surfboards in California. Again.

How is this not already an animated movie?
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/s...

When Google Glass and Apple Vision Pro came out I was one of many science fiction writers who thought the future would be a sleeker version of that.

Now that it's fallen by the wayside, I can admit that was a bad prediction.

I think about this whenever someone assures me that the future is AI.

For those curious, I couldn't open a script in Final Draft, and the solution was changing the default printer on my computer.

It feels like saying I fixed the ice maker on my fridge by unplugging the toaster.

It was already an annoying morning because the file I needed for work wouldn't open, but what made it worse was that I had to sift through a bunch of AI slop tech support recommendations before I found the actual solution (written by a human).

Seems like OpenAI is desperately trying to make this app ubiquitous before the lawsuits catch up. If there were enough legit uses of this technology to justify the investment, why would they be pushing the legally dubious uses so fervently?

Final update: the victim hummingbird did not make it. Kiddo wants to have a hummingbird funeral after school. Murder bird is still at large.

Hummingbird update: the victim, made comfortable away from the feeder, is still breathing but is otherwise motionless. Murder bird doesn't seem to care now that the feeder is no longer threatened.

The murder bird even has a name, "Orangey", given to it by our kindergartner. So now we may have to help cover up an avicide in order to not break our child's heart.

We have a hummingbird feeder on our balcony and it attracts birds which is great and adorable, right up to the point that one hummingbird is straight up trying to murder another hummingbird right next to the feeder. It's grim.

Great piece with level-headed insight into AI and our industry.

Something that is only 80% accurate (and getting less so as it eats its own tail) cannot be relied upon. This is why the AI bubble will burst eventually. The only question is how bad the collateral damage will be.

AI slop video generators will mean every rando who says, "I've got an idea for a movie..." can prompt a janky clip that will be ignored just like their elevator pitch would be ignored. The difference is the AI clip will contribute to everyone having higher electricity bills.

zeldawilliams 20m From Create Mode •• Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad. Stop believing I wanna see it or that I'll understand, I don't and I won't. If you're just trying to troll me, I've seen way worse, i'll restrict and move on. But please, if you've got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even, full stop. It's dumb, it's a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it's NOT what he'd want. To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to 'this vaguely looks and sounds like them so that's enough, , just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop puppeteering them is maddening. You're not making art, you're making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music, and then shoving them down someone else's throat hoping they'll give you a little thumbs up and like it. Gross.

And for the love of EVERYTHING, stop calling it 'the future. Al is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be reconsumed. You are taking in the Human Centipede of content, and from the very very end of the line, all while the folks at the front laugh and laugh, consume and consume.

Daughter of Robin Williams, Zelda Williams 💔

The Sora AI disinfo nightmare is here

For more like this:
tiktok.com/@drewharwell
instagram.com/bydrewharwell

Running a TV show is like spending millions of dollars to build a factory that spits out episodes. If you repeatedly spend years setting up that infrastructure only to shut it down after six months of filming it's both heartbreaking and unsustainable.

It's a sad thought experiment. Look at any promising series that didn't last beyond its 6-8 episode first season from the last five years. How many could have been so much better (and gone on to make so much more money) if they weren't limited by their short orders?

The Pitt is really well done, but she's right -- an eight episode season would not have been able to hit as deeply with that many different characters. And the heaviest action episodes only work when you have the baseline chaos of an ER established over half a season. More long seasons please!

Happy #LaborDay to everyone who has ever worked for a living. It's been tough recently for everyone we know in the entertainment industry, but the best way to help one another going forward is to stick together. Proud to be a member of the #WGAW.

Sometimes writing a bad guy plan necessitates inventing an evil but commercially viable novel business model.

I've been hearing people talk about "vertical video" production lately, and am I wrong that a lot of it basically sounds like a non-union version of Quibi?

Sunk-cost fallacy and cheating students are the only things keeping AI in business at this point.

Just look at how usage of ChatGPT plummets as soon as the semester ends.

I recognize that people are going to continue finding uses for AI technologies. But please, don't expect us to be impressed when you brag about the various tasks you entrusted to it. It's very tiresome.

When you do something yourself, brag away.

In a conversation with the personal lawyer of the man with the ability to pardon her, the convicted child rapist and sex trafficker said that man with the power to pardon her did nothing wrong. Well that’s settled.

The most exhausting thing about this time is being condescended to by dipshits.

mRNA vaccines not only stopped Covid in its tracks, they promised massive developments in other virulent diseases, including many forms of cancer. The Secretary of Health and Human Services has just dramatically increased the number of people who will die needlessly in the coming decade.

Writers should never modify their own prose as a reaction to what stupid fucking generative AI is doing -- that shit stole from us, and it stole poorly, incompletely, and has none of our magic and zero of our humanity, our experience, our wonder and fear, and it never ever will. Fuck AI. You do you.

One of the many reasons TTRPGs are great for writers. It's the closest thing to being in a writers room when you're not on a show, but all the pressure is gone so you can just have fun with your friends.

YouTube video by Fleet Science Center The Fleet's San Diego Comic Con 2025 Panel: Evolution of AI Through Film and Reality

If you weren't able to make it in person but would like to see @sharlaoliver.bsky.social and me on a panel at #SDCC, the Fleet Science Center put the video up on YouTube: youtu.be/s_T2aP70yEA?...

AI-Altered ‘Raanjhanaa’ Ending Escalates Eros-Aanand L. Rai Dispute Over Creative Rights: ‘Indian Cinema Now Stands at Its Own Inflection Point’ Eros International and director Aanand L. Rai clash over AI-altered 'Raanjhanaa' ending, with both sides citing legal rights and creative ethics.

The studios would absolutely try this in the US if the unions like the @wgawest.bsky.social didn't stand in their way. It's why we spent a whole summer carrying picket signs two years ago.
variety.com/2025/film/ne...