Speaking in Tokyo during the Tokyo International Film Festival, Academy president Lynette Howell Taylor said the Oscars would continue to honour human-driven filmmaking as artificial intelligence becomes more widely used in production.
“Even though there's a lot of exciting advances that can enhance the audience's experience through technology, at the center of it will always be humans driving that workflow,” Howell Taylor said.
Her formulation sets a clear principle for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: its awards recognise “human excellence, human-driven workflow”.
It does not yet settle the practical questions raised by AI. Howell Taylor said the Academy was weighing “very real concerns around copyright and around transparency and disclosure” as it considers the technology's place in filmmaking.
The unresolved issues include what policies the Academy may adopt on copyright and disclosure, whether AI use will be restricted in particular categories, and how filmmakers might document the respective roles of people and AI in a production.
The discussion came as the Academy pushes further beyond the US. Bill Kramer, the Academy's chief executive, said 25% of its membership is now non-US. Howell Taylor said last year's Oscars had international representation in every category.
Kramer was in Tokyo with Meredith Shea, the Academy's chief membership, impact and industry officer, and Amy Homma, director and president of the Academy Museum. The Academy has also visited Rio, Marrakesh, Morelia and Busan as part of its international outreach.
Its rules for the international feature category are changing too. Starting with the 99th Oscars, a non-English-language film will be able to qualify by winning the top prize at Berlin, Busan, Cannes, Sundance, Toronto or Venice, without being its country's official submission.
Shea said the International Feature Executive Committee would assess the rules each year to make sure they remain in line with industry standards. The Academy already uses qualifying festivals for its animated, documentary and live-action shorts categories, as well as documentary feature.
The existing official-submission route has produced varied outcomes. Andrey Zvyagintsev's 'Minotaur' won the Grand Prix rather than the Palme d'Or at Cannes before France selected it as its official submission.
The Academy is also preparing for a larger global platform. The 2029 Oscars ceremony will be the first held under its distribution deal with YouTube. Kramer said YouTube could reach 2.5 billion people around the world, and that the show will be available there in over 30 languages.
The Oscars already draw a non-US audience that is roughly equal to their US audience, Kramer said. The new distribution deal and broader eligibility rules extend the Academy's international ambitions, while its approach to AI remains centred on the human work it says its awards exist to recognise.
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