AI companies are courting Hollywood. Do they come in peace?

Shannon said potential benefits of AI include making work more efficient and creating additional commercial opportunities for artists and performers. Music artists including ABBA have launched concerts with digital versions of themselves and music artist Lauv used AI to create a Korean-language version of his song "Love U Like That" for fans last year.

"From where we sit, we very much view these as technologies that can further enhance the work of people and of what they're doing today," Shannon said.

Some in Hollywood are eager to learn more about the coming automated future. Entertainment mogul and tech investor Jeffrey Katzenberg took a group of movie, TV and music pros with him to AI chipmaker Nvidia's developer conference in San Jose, California, this month and watched a two-hour keynote presentation by Chief Executive Jensen Huang.

"AI is going to be an essential tool for all forms of storytelling and most especially Hollywood," Katzenberg said in an email. "Learning about it from one of the true visionary leaders was invaluable. I know everyone of us was super impressed with what we saw."

Caleb Ward and his wife, Shelby, started an AI filmmaking course at their Burbank online training school, Curious Refuge, in June. It's about to start its 10th session in April. People have gone through their courses from all types of professions, including a dentist who switched careers to filmmaking.

"I think it's natural to be fearful of change, and the truth is, AI is going to dramatically change the way that we tell stories," Ward said.

Director, writer and producer Bernie Su said that he recently used AI tools to help present his concept for a commercial, indicating what types of shots he wanted to take. Without the tools, he would have had to use stock photos, which wouldn't have conveyed his ideas as well, he said.

"It helps to save time and it also was able to clear communication from vision to vision as well," said Su, who is also a strategic adviser and investor in AI tool Sudowrite, which he has used to spark ideas as a writer.

Su cautioned that there remain significant limitations in today's AI text-to-video tools, including continuity problems. And they can't yet make a full, convincing narrative movie with multiple locations and sequences. "We're not there yet," Su said.