Latest news with #EdwardWhite
Japan Today
01-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Today
Netflix is now using generative AI – but it risks leaving viewers and creatives behind
By Edward White Netflix's recent use of generative AI to create a building collapse scene in the sci-fi show "El Eternauta" (The Eternaut) marks more than a technological milestone. It reveals a fundamental psychological tension about what makes entertainment authentic. The sequence represents the streaming giant's first official deployment of text-to-video AI in final footage. According to Netflix, it was completed ten times faster than traditional methods would have allowed. Yet this efficiency gain illuminates a deeper question rooted in human psychology. When viewers discover their entertainment contains AI, does this revelation of algorithmic authorship trigger the same cognitive dissonance we experience when discovering we've been seduced by misinformation? The shift from traditional CGI (computer-generated imagery) to generative AI is the most significant change in visual effects (VFX) since computer graphics displaced physical effects. Traditional physical VFX requires legions of artists meticulously crafting mesh-based models, spending weeks perfecting each element's geometry, lighting and animation. Even the use of CGI with green screens demands human artists to construct every digital element from 3D models and programme the simulations. They have to manually key-frame each moment, setting points to show how things move or change. Netflix's generative AI approach marks a fundamental shift. Instead of building digital scenes piece by piece, artists simply describe what they want and algorithms generate full sequences instantly. This turns a slow, laborious craft into something more like a creative conversation. But it also raises tough questions. Are we seeing a new stage of technology – or the replacement of human creativity with algorithmic guesswork? "El Eternauta's" building collapse scene demonstrates this transformation starkly. What would once have demanded months of modeling, rigging and simulation work has been accomplished through text-to-video generation in a fraction of the time. The economics driving this transformation extend far beyond Netflix's creative ambitions. The text-to-video AI market is projected to be worth $1.77 billion by 2029. This reflects an industry looking to cut corners after the streaming budget cuts of 2022. In that year, Netflix's content spending declined 4.6%, while Disney and other major studios implemented widespread cost-cutting measures. AI's cost disruption is bewildering. Traditional VFX sequences can cost thousands per minute. As a result, the average CGI and VFX budget for U.S. films reached $33.7 million per movie in 2018. Generative AI could lead to cost reductions of 10% across the media industry, and as much as 30% in TV and film. This will enable previously impossible creative visions to be realized by independent filmmakers – but this increased accessibility comes with losses too. The OECD reports that 27% of jobs worldwide are at 'high risk of automation' due to AI. Meanwhile, surveys by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees have revealed that 70% of VFX workers do unpaid overtime, and only 12% have health insurance. Clearly, the industry is already under pressure. Power versus precision While AI grants filmmakers unprecedented access to complex imagery, it simultaneously strips away the granular control that defines directorial vision. As an experiment, film director Ascanio Malgarini spent a year creating an AI-generated short film called "Kraken" (2025). He used AI tools like MidJourney, Kling, Runway and Sora, but found that 'full control over every detail' was 'simply out of the question'. Malgarini described working more like a documentary editor. He assembled 'vast amounts of footage from different sources' rather than directing precise shots. And it's not just filmmakers who prefer the human touch. In the art world, studies have shown that viewers strongly prefer original artworks to pixel-perfect AI copies. Participants cited sensitivity to the creative process as fundamental to appreciation. When applied to AI-generated content, this bias creates fascinating contradictions. Recent research in Frontiers in Psychology found that when participants didn't know the origin, they significantly preferred AI-generated artwork to human-made ones. However, once AI authorship was revealed, the same content suffered reduced perceptions of authenticity and creativity. Hollywood's AI reckoning Developments in AI are happening amid a regulatory vacuum. While the U.S. Congress held multiple AI hearings in 2023, no comprehensive federal AI legislation exists to govern Hollywood's use. The stalled U.S. Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act leaves creators without legal protections, as companies deploy AI systems trained on potentially copyrighted materials. The UK faces similar challenges, with the government launching a consultation in December 2024 on copyright and AI reform. This included a proposal for an 'opt-out' system, meaning creators could actively prevent their work from being used in AI training. The 2023 Hollywood strikes crystallised industry fears about AI displacement. Screenwriters secured protections ensuring AI cannot write or rewrite material, while actors negotiated consent requirements for digital replicas. Yet these agreements primarily cover the directors, producers and lead actors who have the most negotiating power, while VFX workers remain vulnerable. Copyright litigation is now beginning to dominate the AI landscape – over 30 infringement lawsuits have been filed against AI companies since 2020. Disney and Universal's landmark June 2025 lawsuit against Midjourney represents the first major studio copyright challenge, alleging the AI firm created a 'bottomless pit of plagiarism' by training on copyrighted characters without permission. Meanwhile, federal courts in the U.S. have delivered mixed rulings. A Delaware judge found against AI company Ross Intelligence for training on copyrighted legal content, while others have partially sided with fair use defenses. The industry faces an acceleration problem – AI advancement outpaces contract negotiations and psychological adaptation. AI is reshaping industry demands, yet 96% of VFX artists report receiving no AI training, with 31% citing this as a barrier to incorporating AI in their work. Netflix's AI integration shows that Hollywood is grappling with fundamental questions about creativity, authenticity and human value in entertainment. Without comprehensive AI regulation and retraining programs, the industry risks a future where technological capability advances faster than legal frameworks, worker adaptation and public acceptance can accommodate. As audiences begin recognizing AI's invisible hand in their entertainment, the industry must navigate not just economic disruption, but the cognitive biases that shape how we perceive and value creative work. Edward White is a PhD Candidate in Psychology, Kingston University, London. The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. External Link © The Conversation
Telegraph
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Princess Diana ‘was not a gay icon'
She has an enduring legacy as a gay icon, celebrated for her campaigning for HIV awareness. But Princess Diana might not have actually been as popular with the gay community as first thought. According to author Edward White, a survey carried out after her death in 1997 found that many gay and lesbian people were 'insulted' by the former Princess of Wales's association with them. Speaking to the History Extra podcast, Mr White said: 'Diana was kind of embraced, I think, by a lot of gay people as being kind of an ally or an icon. 'There's an absolutely fascinating resource that I drew on that's called the National Lesbian and Gay Survey. 'After Diana's death, they asked their respondents to write in and give their take on Diana's death and how they felt and what they felt it meant to gay people.' He added: 'Some people were absolutely horrified that Diana should be considered to be an important person in gay life at all, because she's this ultra-privileged ... She's basically a poster girl for heteronormative couples. 'You can't get straighter than Princess Diana.' Diana advocated for HIV awareness and in 1987 she broke new ground by publicly shaking hands with gay men with Aids. She also opened the first purpose-built unit for HIV and Aids at the London Middlesex Hospital. Talking about his book Dianaworld: An Obsession, Mr White said Diana's 1995 Panorama interview saw her become associated with the gay community He said: 'It kind of has a parallel to other sorts of interviews of the time such as George Michael's one, which is essentially like Diana doing a coming-out interview in the Panorama in 1995 as much as it is a kind of a whistleblowing interview.' Mr White said there were also respondents on the survey that held the positive view of Princess Diana that has continued to this day. He continued: 'Other people at the same time felt like she was, you know, their most important ally and that she took the discrimination that gay people faced as part of their daily lives and she did an awful lot to kind of combat it. 'And not just because of her involvement with the HIV issue, but because she was known to be friends with gay people and she was seen to be a great ally. 'Other people that wrote into this survey, they suggested that what was great about her is that she actually cut across all of these kinds of identities and that everybody could kind of find their own Diana, whether you were gay, straight or anything else.'
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Princess Kate Looks to Princess Diana's Mistakes With the Press and Gives Them "Nothing," Per Royal Author
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. In the new book Dianaworld: An Obsession, author Edward White chronicles Princess Diana's life through the lens of celebrity and the viewpoints of people around her. When it comes to Diana's daughter-in-law, Kate Middleton, the author says her royal career is marked by one major difference—and that Princess Kate has learned from Diana's mistakes. "Kate Middleton is much more reminiscent of the older generation of royal figures in the way that she comports herself," White recently told Fox News. "She was almost 30 when she married William, and that was deliberate from both sides. The big lesson that she probably learned from Diana's life is don't rush into becoming a royal." The royal author noted that unlike Kate, Lady Diana Spencer "didn't know what she was getting herself into" with her marriage to Prince Charles. "She was so young and very, very sheltered when she entered the Royal Family," he added. Diana and Charles barely knew each other after their brief courtship, but Prince William and Kate met in college and dated for nearly a decade before their 2011 royal wedding. As for dealing with the press, Diana and Kate have used very different tactics. Controversial media personality Piers Morgan, who worked with Princess Diana in the '90s, recently told the "Him & Her Show" podcast that "Diana worked the media exactly the same way the media worked Diana." "I used to have lunch with Diana, I used to talk to her on the phone quite regularly," Morgan said. The journalist claimed that he "used to send her stories that we were going to run and she would edit them and fax them back." The current Princess of Wales, however, follows more in Queen Elizabeth's footsteps when it comes to dealing with the press. She's used social media to deliver her own messages rather than giving interviews, using a more tightly controlled and private method than her late mother-in-law. Like Princess Diana and Prince Charles did, William and Kate spoke to the waiting press outside the hospital when their children were born, but Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis have largely grown up in privacy. "Diana dealt with the press scrutiny in the way that she felt that she could, and in the way that she felt she had to," White said. "I don't think anybody was advising her to behave the way that she did with them." He added that Princess Kate "handles the press scrutiny really well, but she…had to switch herself off and only focus on duty." For the Princess of Wales, White added that "the best way of dealing with the scrutiny is by giving [the press] nothing. By stepping through the hoops of shaking hands, cutting ribbons and smiling, being dutiful and not being too big for your boots. Those are all the things that the monarchy is built on." While Princess Kate had a firm grip on who she was and who she wanted to be before marrying Prince William, Diana didn't have that opportunity as a young woman. "Diana's life is more reminiscent to me of a pop star's life," White shared. "Someone once said, 'If you don't know who you are before you're famous, then fame is the thing that you become. It is the thing that will define who you are.' I think that's what happened to Diana, at least for many years."
Fox News
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Kate Middleton's royal success came from dodging Princess Diana's missteps: author
Kate Middleton has been crowned the reliable, glamorous face of a modern monarchy. Several royal experts believe that her secret to success has been playing by the rules and not breaking out as a royal rebel. Edward White has written a new book about Kate's late mother-in-law, Princess Diana, titled "Dianaworld: An Obsession." It examines the "Diana Effect" and how it continues to influence both the monarchy and pop culture, decades after her death at age 36. White told Fox News Digital that, unlike Diana, who became engaged to the much older former Prince Charles when she was just 19 years old, Kate was more mature when she said "I do" to Prince William. Kate married the royal in 2011 when she was 29, and he was 28. "Kate Middleton is much more reminiscent of the older generation of royal figures in the way that she comports herself," White explained. "She was almost 30 when she married William, and that was deliberate from both sides. The big lesson that she probably learned from Diana's life is don't rush into becoming a royal." "Diana's life is more reminiscent to me of a pop star's life," White shared. "She didn't know what she was getting herself into. She was so young and very, very sheltered when she entered the royal family. Someone once said, 'If you don't know who you are before you're famous, then fame is the thing that you become. It is the thing that will define who you are.' I think that's what happened to Diana, at least for many years." Kate was not born into royal life. She's the daughter of a flight attendant and a flight dispatcher and comes from a well-to-do area of London. It was at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland where Kate first met William, the elder son of Charles and Diana and heir to the British throne. They were first friends and then housemates before they were romantically linked in 2004. Kate graduated in 2005 with a degree in art history and a budding relationship with William. William complained about press intrusion, and Kate's lawyers asked newspaper editors to leave her alone. Even so, the British media followed every twist in their relationship, including a brief split in 2007. The tabloids dubbed her "Waity Katie" for her patience during their courtship. William later acknowledged that the couple's romance wobbled for several months, saying they were both young and trying to find their way. In comparison, Diana was known as "Shy Di" when she found herself suddenly thrust into the glaring media spotlight. She later became an unlikely revolutionary during her years in the House of Windsor. Diana helped modernize the monarchy by making it more personal, changing the way the royal family related to people. By interacting more intimately with the public – kneeling to the level of children, sitting on the edge of a patient's hospital bed, writing personal notes to her fans – she set an example that has been followed by other royals as the monarchy worked to become more human and remain relevant in the 21st century. But Diana's brief life was plagued with problems. She became paranoid of the palace trying to control her and cited a lack of support from senior members and the "men in gray," or palace aides who prioritized tradition. Meanwhile, Charles continued seeing his mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles. Their marital woes played out on the world stage and Diana famously declared in an explosive 1995 interview with the BBC, "There were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded." "Diana dealt with the press scrutiny in the way that she felt that she could, and in the way that she felt she had to," said White. "I don't think anybody was advising her to behave the way that she did with them. It's an invidious position to be in. Kate Middleton handles the press scrutiny really well, but she… had to switch herself off and only focus on duty." "The best way of dealing with the scrutiny is by giving [the press] nothing," White continued. "By stepping through the hoops of shaking hands, cutting ribbons and smiling, being dutiful and not being too big for your boots. Those are all the things that the monarchy is built on." WATCH: PRINCE WILLIAM, KATE MIDDLETON CAN LEARN FROM PRINCESS DIANA'S MARRIAGE British broadcaster and photographer Helena Chard told Fox News Digital that Kate receives constant support from both the palace and her family – something that Diana lacked as she struggled with royal life. "The truth is, there was an enormous amount of tension and animosity between Princess Diana and Prince Charles," said Chard. "They were not a happy couple and didn't work as a team… Princess Diana was like a rabbit thrown into the headlights. Life was hard as she didn't have the support she craved and needed. She learned to fend for herself, grew in strength and was perceived as a rebel. She wasn't going to allow anybody to dim her light." "Princess Catherine came from a supportive family, "Chard shared. "She also had a longer time edging her way into royal life. The most important factor is that she and Prince William are a dream team. They work together perfectly. They are each other's rocks, plus they have an amazing extended support network. Princess Catherine has always had a strong sense of self, a quiet strength, confidence and resilience… She also knows what is expected of her as the future of the modern monarchy." "She navigates her role like a breeze and is the perfect future queen," Chard added. Royal expert Ian Pelham Turner also agreed that William, a supportive spouse, has been essential to helping Kate navigate royal life with ease. "Diana was strangled by royal bureaucracy, having to live with royal rules and regulations," he said. "After trying everything to make Charles love her, she eventually decided to fight back." "I used to work with Diana during those days," he shared. "I watched on many occasions when both competed with each other for the best photo opportunity. Diana always won because she was 'The People's Princess' and everybody wanted to see her on public walkabouts, not Charles, which he grew to hate." Diana also confided in the wrong people when she wanted her voice heard, Chard argued. In 2021, William and Harry criticized the BBC after it was revealed that one of the broadcaster's journalists used "deceitful behavior" to secure Diana's TV interview. William said the BBC's failures contributed to the deterioration of his parents' marriage and worsened Diana's feelings of paranoia. Diana was killed in 1997 from injuries she sustained in a car accident. She was 36. At the time, her car was being chased by paparazzi. "Princess Catherine had far greater preparation and resilience than Princess Diana due in part to entering into the monarchy as an adult, well aware of the institution's demands, and with years of support from Prince William, her family as well as the palace," British royals expert Hilary Fordwich told Fox News Digital. "She's been able to turn to her family to help her navigate both public and private challenges," Fordwich shared. "She has handled the intense media scrutiny with a blend of transparency, regal dignity and composure. Even her recent public acknowledgment regarding the unfortunate photo editing controversy demonstrated accountability and leadership, shielding the royal family from any further backlash." "Despite intense international speculation during her illness, Princess Catherine even managed to share information on her terms, balancing public interest with personal privacy," Fordwich continued. "She hasn't played the press in the same way Princess Diana did, as Princess Catherine is far more secure in general." There's one thing all the royal experts agreed on – the monarchy's future looks bright, something Diana would be proud of. "Princess Diana sparkled, had an affinity with children, and loved her children more than anything in the world," said Chard. "The same can be said of Princess Catherine."
The Guardian
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Dianaworld by Edward White review – why we're still obsessed with the people's princess
A thriving industry of books, TV shows and films has kept Diana, Princess of Wales's image alive since her death in 1997. Most focus on her flawed inner world, and claim to uncover her 'true' self. Edward White's lively, deeply researched Dianaworld gives us something very different. White, whose previous work includes an acclaimed biography of Alfred Hitchcock, approaches Diana's story through the people who saw themselves in her – the doppelgangers, opportunists and superfans who found parallels between the princess's life of extraordinary privilege and their own. His subjects are the frequently ridiculed devotees who fuel celebrity culture: women rushing for the Diana hairdo; impersonators opening supermarkets; psychics jolted awake the night of the fatal crash. It is, White says, 'less a biography of Diana, more the story of a cultural obsession'. He marshals an impressive range of sources – diaries, oral histories, teenage scrapbooks, adverts and comedy skits. There is the woman who, eight months pregnant and living in a homeless hostel, feels a deep bond with the princess also expecting her first child; the sex worker who sees in Diana's rejection of royal pomp her own disdain for British hypocrisy; the owner of an Ealing boutique specialising in Shalwar Kameez who, after Diana wears one on a trip to India, encourages her customers to 'look like a princess'. There are nationalists and internationalists, royalists and republicans, conservatives and progressives, those who pitied, admired, were beguiled or infuriated by Diana. In their stories it is very hard to see where Diana ends and the rest of us begin. Such intense connections to celebrities are easily dismissed as 'parasocial relationships', one-sided, delusional versions of love. But the strength of White's approach is his desire to take seriously the stories that drew people to Diana and continue to shape her afterlives. There is no single explanation for her enduring appeal – and in fact, any attempt to provide one will seem foolish after White's book. Instead, he traces what sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild calls the 'deep stories' that power our gut reactions. Some of White's subjects connected with Diana through narratives of the 'doomed family', seeing their own generational histories of trauma in hers. Others, particularly immigrants and gay people, recognised her as a kind of outsider. White demonstrates how some of the most radical images in Diana's life derived their power from older tropes. Photos of her shaking hands with HIV-positive men certainly challenged the stigma and misinformation surrounding the disease. But they also summoned more ancient ideas: the laying on of royal hands and the religious concept of the 'healing touch'. As White's subjects try to explain why Diana mattered to them, they often find themselves inside these deep stories, repurposing them for the modern age. As White astutely puts it: 'Blair once told an interviewer that Diana invented a 'new way to be British'. It might be more accurate to say that through Diana, the British invented a new way of fantasising about themselves.' Above all, what Diana offered was a new way for British people to imagine the place of emotion in public life. Again and again, White's subjects tell us that what drew them to Diana was her messy but apparently authentic expression of emotion, the way she challenged British reserve. The historian Thomas Dixon argues that the stiff upper lip was only a brief, 20th-century anomaly in the emotional history of Britain, where sobbing in the streets has been far more common than not. Yet, by the 1980s and 90s, Britain seems to have felt like a place where a reservoir of long-repressed sentiment was ready to overflow. Right from the start, people were fascinated by Diana's feelings. First it was her tears, her blushes, her bitten fingernails, her self-conscious head tilt. Later, it was her weight loss, reckless outbursts, and her penchant for what Julie Burchill called 'damp, self-dramatising American therapy-speak'. Finally came the endless cruel speculation about her mental state and accusations of borderline personality disorder and paranoia. Her seemingly excessive or apparently unwanted emotions resonated with people struggling to express their own in a world only too eager for them to quietly conform. Though, as White observes, Diana's pain was also an essential tool in neutralising potential resentment towards her gilded life: 'Poor Di, so human, so lovable,' as one man put it. As have others before him, White sees this emotionality as a watershed moment, when Britain was forced to reckon with the new self-actualisation culture that had been gathering momentum for some time on the other side of the Atlantic. 'Arguably of greater social significance than her embrace of any specific cause – homelessness, domestic abuse, addiction, mental illness, Aids – was the emotional tenor in which she approached them,' writes White. As bouquets mounted up outside Kensington palace after Diana's death, some grieved, while others found the public spectacle coercive, seeing it as synthetic as the plastic wrapping on all those flowers. Today, with far more terrifying spectacles of public emotion to contend with, worrying about the authenticity of mass grief seems quaint. This book is an ingenious solution to the problem of biography in an age of global celebrity, where identity seems much less stable, a jumble of ever-changing projections and imaginings. It is hard to know what White himself makes of the continuing obsession with his subject. Dianaworld is a kaleidoscopic place, stuffed full with contradictory perspectives. But perhaps that is appropriate for a life that ultimately seemed so mercurial and slippery, so un-pin-down-able. As one visitor to Althorp comments at the end of a rather lacklustre tour of Diana's childhood home, 'Is there nothing else Diana? Is that it?' Dianaworld: An Obsession by Edward White is published by Allen Lane (£25). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
