Bitcoin biopic Killing Satoshi leans into generative AI

An upcoming biopic about the mysterious creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, starring both Casey Affleck and Pete Davidson, is causing controversy for its willingness to use artificial intelligence, not only to generate backgrounds and scene locations but also to adjust actor performances.

The film, Killing Satoshi, will be directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity and 2024's Road House) but it was producer Ryan Kavanaugh who has been making headlines when he disclosed in a U.K. casting notice that the filmmakers reserve the right to "adjust" actor performances, including the right to "change, add to, take from, translate, reformat or reprocess" those performances, and that the actors themselves will be performing on a "markerless performative capture stage and not in any locations," according to reporting by Variety. 

These revelations come at a time of heightened anxiety and uncertainty in the film and TV industry, particularly around the use of artificial intelligence to augment, or even fully replace, the work of creative professionals. Labor unions, copyright lawyers, and federal courts are scrambling to come to terms with the implications of generative AI’s incredible ability to repurpose existing creative material.

Consider, for example, this AI-generated encounter between Keanu Reeves’ characters Neo and John Wick and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic Terminator, created using Seedance 2.0, or this AI-generated clip of Jack Black doing a comedic turn as Darth Vader from Star Wars, created using Google’s Veo 4, and you’ll quickly grasp the transformative and disruptive power of these technologies. 

In response to the public anxiety around the choice to lean into AI use in the making of Killing Satoshi, producer Ryan Kavanaugh had this to say to Variety: 

We were very cautious, sensitive and overly protective of our actors to make sure we only use performance capture AI which means that we will not have any AI-generated actors that do not exist. AI is a tool we’re using to make the filmmaking process more efficient while maintaining all department heads’ jobs, all actor jobs and hopefully helping to grow the industry in a positive way.

Though currently still just in production, Killing Satoshi will be one of the first movies to test these boundaries, so anyone interested in the intersection of AI and creative work should pay close attention to its reception.