Danny Boyle explains how he embraced AI for ‘Ink’

Danny Boyle has just confirmed he used AI in his new movie, Ink.

The 69-year-old filmmaker thinks artificial intelligence technology is "good for" adding animals into a scene, and he also used around 30 seconds of generative AI in the film, which follows Rupert Murdoch's attempts to make The Sun a must-read and a rival to the Daily Mirror, leading to the rise of British tabloid journalism.

Following speculation AI had been used to reanimate old images of the Kray twins and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Danny told Vanity Fair at the Telluride Film Festival, “There’s about 30 seconds of it in our movie where we animate a couple of old photographs.”

“Oh, and there’s some mice. It’s very good for animals, and we had some mice that run around The Sun newsroom,” he added.

The Trainspotting director insisted his opinion of the use of AI in films shouldn't matter, though he admitted he thinks it can be a "very useful tool" if used in the right way, saying, “It doesn’t really matter what I think about AI. It matters what 20 year olds think about it. Is the honest truth.”

Danny further mentioned, "My opinion of it is that it’s a very useful tool in many ways, provided you use it respectfully and provided you pay actors if you’re going to replace them with some kind of AI embodiment.”

Earlier this week, Danny had voiced his concerns about the rise of AI and its impact on certain areas, including journalism.

Speaking during a press conference for Ink at the Venice Film Festival, he said, “The danger with the tech giants and their AI is that they will be able to replace journalism. They’ll be able to have an AI journalist who’s much more efficient, cheaper, etcetera, etcetera, and will that AI journalist speak truth to the power that created it?”

According to the logline, Ink is “an explosive cinematic rollercoaster about a group of visionaries and misfits who had an idea for a new kind of news - one that would give the people what they want and would change the face of the world we live in today.”