Steven Soderbergh More Worried About Streaming Data Transparency Than AI

Steven Soderbergh, the Oscar-winning director behind Erin Brockovich, Traffic, and the Ocean’s trilogy, says artificial intelligence is a “serious issue.” But the availability of streaming data — or lack thereof — has him more concerned.

“Data transparency is the one that keeps me up at night,” the director told Defector in a new interview.

For example, Soderbergh said that he never saw data while working with Max, which released his films Let Them All Talk and Kimi, his reality competition Finding Magic Mike, and his new limited series Full Circle. “I was given adjectives,” he said. “‘We feel good about these numbers.’ ‘The comps are right in line with what we were hoping for.’”

Claudette Barius/Warner Bros./Courtesy: Everett Collection

The filmmaker has two theories about why streaming platforms withhold the numbers. “One is that they’re all making a lot more money than anybody knows and that they’re willing to tell us,” he said. “The other is they’re making a lot less money than anybody knows. And they don’t want Wall Street to look under the hood of this thing in any significant way because there’ll be a reckoning that will be quite unpleasant. It’s one of those two.”

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Soderbergh, who recently released his self-funded series Command Z online, said that he’d rather work in a version of the film and television business where he has all the information. “And if I have to take a haircut, to work in that business, and bet on myself more and take less upfront, which I’ve done a lot, then I’ll do that,” he added. “That could, though, mean, potentially, a drastic reduction in the amount of things that get made. If we tear this thing down to the studs, and find out that the math is funky, it’s going to be quite a transformation. And so my feeling — and I’m operating from a place of real privilege — is the sooner we find out the better, because one way or another, it’s gotta get rebuilt, you might as well start now.”

As for AI, the 60-year-old isn’t concerned about humans getting replaced. “It is my impression of the executives that I’m working with, or was working with, that they don’t need any more work. That they are overwhelmed,” he explained. “And the idea of riding herd over a department that’s going to generate new material, based on their ideas through AI, that will then have to be curated and made better by humans? I wouldn’t do it. I just don’t think we can be replaced like that. I just don’t. There are other very serious issues that need to be addressed. This is a serious issue. It’s just not the one that keeps me up at night.”