The world premiere of what’s been billed as the first photorealistic, AI-generated feature film in the Yoruba language fizzled out last week when user demand overwhelmed the servers of Docuth, the streaming platform that hosted the launch.
After months of hype building to the release of “Asiri Ilu Awon Osu” (Mystery of Osu Land), the film’s Nigerian producers, Mysterious Tech Studio, took to social media to apologize for the glitch, telling their followers: “To everyone at home and abroad who has tried to watch and could not get through, please do not be offended or discouraged.”
The episode felt somehow symbolic for this moment in the history of AI in Africa, where excitement over the technology’s transformative potential for the continent’s filmmakers often runs counter to the practical realities on the ground.
As African industry professionals convened at this year’s Durban FilmMart, both the potential and pitfalls of artificial intelligence were high on the agenda.
Among the chief concerns for many stakeholders are the barriers to entry. AI tools that are widely available elsewhere in the world face unique challenges in reaching African consumers, from high data costs and low broadband speeds to payment-processing headaches.
Tamara Dawit, of Ethiopian Canadian production company Gobez Media, noted that those challenges represent significant “systemic barriers” to the adoption of the latest tech tools on the African continent.
“How do we address those issues so that everyone is benefitting from the advancements in technology?” she said. “If these are great opportunities for the industry, can everybody actually access them?”
Zukisani Karabo Mabece, of media-tech and production company Digicine Motion Picture, agreed.
“AI isn’t necessarily a magic pill,” said Mabece, whose Johannesburg-based company has leaned into generative AI with a host of digital tools designed to democratize access to cutting-edge technology for African filmmakers.
“It’s very biased. It’s very Western,” he said. “We’re having to build our own language models to accommodate the languages that we have here locally. We took it upon ourselves to build models that serve our market and our geography.”
In some instances, the rapid adoption of AI technology has had unintended consequences that aren’t unique to Africa.
Earlier this year, the South African government drafted an ambitious AI policy that was summarily withdrawn when journalists discovered that at least six of its 67 academic citations were the by-products of AI hallucinations, referring to journals and authors that did not exist. The drafters appeared to have used a large-language model to compose the policy without verifying its claims.
While the blunder was a PR disaster for South African policymakers, Amilcar Patel, who serves as co-chair of the South African Screen Federation (SASFED), noted that there are more pernicious dangers lurking for Africans when it comes to using AI tools developed in the Global North.
“We need to be very careful when we’re using AI in our work, especially in our policy and legal work, because we’re infusing a very different culture that doesn’t protect women, that doesn’t protect the poor, that doesn’t protect the vulnerable, into our legislative framework,” said Patel. “And then it becomes law.”
For African creatives, there are additional ethical factors to consider.
“AI mirrors society,” said Dawit. “Society has a lot of systemic inequities within it, and those show up [in AI models].”
“Those that are building AI don’t look like us. Biases are already built into the AI systems,” added Samantha Kaine, of the Independent Media Producers Assn. of Creative Talent (I.M.P.A.C.T.). “When the major AI models are trained largely on Western data and Western culture, what does it take to use these tools without importing someone else’s aesthetic or erasing who we are — erasing our own identity?”
Such concerns are likely to be on the agenda next month when Cape Town plays host to the Africa AI Summit, a three-day event that gathers heads of state and global tech and business leaders to draw up a roadmap that will shape the future of AI across Africa and the Global South.
Backed by partners including the World Bank, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia, the event is built around a billion-dollar AI initiative that’s designed to accelerate the deployment of artificial intelligence across the continent.
In the meantime, African filmmakers will continue to find uses for AI tools, even as the continent’s digital infrastructure and policy frameworks are forced to play catch-up.
One week after the failed rollout of “Mystery of Osu Land,” Kafilat Yusuff, of Mysterious Tech Studio, told Variety that after “viewers experienced intermittent access due to high traffic at launch,” the platform “has now been stabilized.” The film, which incorporated roughly 80% AI-assisted scenes with 20% live-action scenes utilizing real actors and their voices, is now available to stream on Docuth.
“Our experience has shown us that AI offers independent African filmmakers new ways to explore ambitious stories and visual worlds,” Yusuff said. “However, it also raises important questions about the role of human performers, consent, compensation, creative ownership and how audiences receive AI-assisted films.”
As for future plans, she said that the company is holding off on a follow-up until “Mystery of Osu Land” has had time to enjoy a “full run.”
“We spent a lot of time building this, and with the premiere traffic we just saw on Docuth, it’s clear there’s a lot of global curiosity. So our focus now is festivals, wider press and securing a stable global streaming release so everyone who wants to see it can,” she said.
“We are documenting everything we learned from this hybrid 80% AI-20% live-action pipeline, which will eventually help us and other African filmmakers make future projects at lower cost.”
The Durban FilmMart runs Oct. 9 – 12 in Durban, South Africa.