Artificial intelligence has long arrived in the creative industry. In the world of Short Dramas and Vertical Dramas, we are seeing more and more content created with the help of AI: translations, visual concepts, comic-style adaptations, generated voices, automated script ideas, or even fully AI-generated scenes.
In general, I find AI exciting as a tool. I use it myself and I see how helpful it can be when it is used in the right way. AI can support creative processes, help organize ideas, structure texts, make translations easier, or help people understand complex topics more clearly.
But this is exactly where an important distinction begins:
AI as support is not the same as AI as replacement.
And it becomes even more problematic when AI is used to copy, sexualize, or place real people into new stories without their consent.
The Opportunities: Where AI Can Be Useful
AI can be a useful tool, especially for smaller creators, actors, or new production companies. Not everyone has immediate access to a large team, legal advice, professional translators, or a marketing department.
This is where AI can genuinely help.
For example, it can support people in understanding contracts better. Of course, AI does not replace legal advice. But it can help identify certain clauses, prepare questions, or point out possible areas of concern — such as usage rights, AI clauses, voice rights, image rights, or the question of how long and for what purpose material may be used.
This can be especially important for actors. Anyone working in a fast-growing industry should know what to look out for. AI can help provide an initial overview — but the next step should always be to seek proper legal advice when in doubt.
AI can also support creative work. It can help sort ideas, develop first concepts, translate texts, structure social media posts, or test visual directions. As a tool, it can speed up processes and help people express their own ideas more clearly.
So the problem is not AI itself. The problem is what people choose to do with it.
The Limit: When AI Replaces People
It becomes problematic when AI is no longer used to support people, but to replace them.
When actors, writers, voice actors, translators, or other creative professionals are meant to become unnecessary because of AI, everything in me resists that idea. Not because I am fundamentally against AI, but because creative work is more than a result generated at the push of a button.
A scene does not live from dialogue alone. It lives from looks, pauses, tiny reactions, facial expressions, body language, and emotion.
Short Dramas in particular often work through these small emotional moments. A look that lasts a second too long. A brief hesitation. A slight uncertainty in the voice. A shift in body tension. These are the nuances that decide whether a scene touches us — or feels empty.
AI can generate images, imitate voices, recreate movement, and assemble scenes. But AI does not think in emotions. It processes patterns. It can show what an emotion might look like, but it does not live that emotion from within.
And you can feel that.
The Real Problem: Copies Without Consent
It becomes even more critical when AI is used to create almost identical copies of real actors.
In the Short Drama space, there are already examples of content where characters look extremely similar to real actors. This is not just loose inspiration. In some cases, it comes very close to a direct copy of someone’s face, body, presence, or screen persona.
When this kind of content is also sexualized, or when actors are placed into entirely new stories without it being clear whether they consented, it is no longer harmless creative play.
Then we are talking about consent.
About rights.
About respect.
And about how we treat the people whose faces, voices, bodies, and performances are part of what makes this industry work in the first place.
Because actors are not interchangeable templates. They are human beings. Their work, their presence, and their recognizability should not simply be reused without permission.
AI as a Tool: Yes. AI as a Free Pass: No.
For me, the boundary is quite clear:
AI can help.
AI can support.
AI can make creative processes easier.
But AI should not be used to replace skilled people or to copy real individuals without consent.
If AI helps people understand contracts, structure ideas, or support creative work, it can be valuable. But if it is used to bypass actors, writers, or other creatives, it becomes difficult.
And when real people appear in AI-generated content without their consent — especially if they are sexualized or placed into completely new contexts, then, for me, a line has been crossed.
Conclusion
AI can process data. But it cannot create goosebumps.
AI is not automatically good or bad. It is a tool. But like any tool, it can be used responsibly — or misused.
In the Short Drama space, AI can help make processes more accessible. It can support creators, help actors gain a better understanding of the industry, and complement creative work.
But it must not become a replacement for real people.
Not for actors.
Not for writers.
Not for voice actors.
Not for consent.
Because in the end, this industry does not live from content alone. It lives from people, from presence, from emotion, and from creative work.
And that is exactly why we need to look more closely at how AI is being used — and whose rights may be ignored in the process.
AI as a tool? Yes.
AI as a replacement or an excuse for missing consent? No.
