Charisma Carpenter questions 'ridiculous' AI casting service
Charisma Carpenter has questioned whether actors should use artificial intelligence (AI) to find auditions.
The Buffy the Vampire Slayer star posted a screengrab on Instagram last week of a message asking her to apply to the 100 Actors Program, an AI service that can seemingly connect actors directly with producers and directors and eliminate "intermediaries".
In an interview with Deadline on Monday, Charisma explained why she believed the service was detrimental to the industry and called the AI casting process "ridiculous".
"AI is not a belief system," she stated. "They may take data and statistics and spit out a formula that says this person is right for this part, but there's no foresight... AI doesn't know me, they don't know the richness of my soul.
"They don't know my life experiences. They don't know the books I've read. They've never had those conversations with me to glean how right I am for a part that maybe data would not foresee."
When she shared her original post on Instagram, Charisma wrote in the caption, "Welp, AI is coming for Casting Directors, Agents and Managers too. (They're) seen as 'intermediaries'. AI protections across the board!"
In the comments, Yellowjackets star Melanie Lynskey noted, "Having 'intermediaries' who believe in you and think of you for those roles that might not seem 100% right for you but they know you can do it, is how an actor builds a career. This is nuts."
Sami Arpa, the CEO of the service's parent company Largo.ai, responded to the criticisms in an interview with Deadline.
"We can see that current reactions are quite superficial by positioning the overall AI as a direct enemy, by casting directors or voice actors," he said. "Our system has nothing to do with both. Largo.ai has been mainly created for producers, studios and distributors, and many of them are already using our platform since 2019."
