Michael Jackson's 1983 "Thriller" video, with its iconic zombie dance scene, is credited for transforming music videos into a serious art form more than 40 years ago. Now, with the rise of artificial intelligence, will the art of making music videos ever be the same again? LA Times entertainment business reporter Wendy Lee wrote about how one indie pop artist turned to AI for the making of a new music video. She joined Lisa McRee on "LA Times Today." 

OpenAI's Sora platform can be used to create video entirely from AI. Lee explained how one artist used the technology.  

"Washed Out, who is known for creating the theme song to the show 'Portlandia,' has commissioned a full length music video using Sora. It's seen as the longest music video used through this technology," she said. "The song is called 'The Hardest Part.' It's a song about love lost. And as you're watching it, you're seeing these two people. A red-haired woman, a dark-haired man. It starts out in the 1980s high school. It shows their lives, them getting married, them having a child. But the people in this video aren't real actors. They are all made through AI." 

Lee said the director of the video created hundreds of short video clips with Sora, then used a few dozen of them to create the final product.

"He's one of the few creatives to have access to Sora right now. We don't have access to it. It's not open to the public yet, but Paul [Trillo] is one of those people that did it. My understanding is it took him around six weeks to put this together," Lee said. 

While Lee said Washed Out was "blown away" by the AI video, she also discussed concerns in the industry over the use of AI, especially with actors. 

"One could argue that in the past, to do a traditional music video, you would hire actors or dancers who would shoot at specific locations. And in this case, it was all done through AI. There weren't any actors that were employed as part of this video, but at the same time, this video was shot in multiple locations. That is, if it was only shot as a traditional music video, some of the special effects and multiple locations probably would not have been possible under its limited budget," Lee said. 

Lee explained some people are already creating feature-length projects with AI, but it will be a while before we see a product that would look like a studio movie. 

Watch the full interview above.

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