Everyone is talking about AI, whether they want to or not. Every day, it feels like there's a news story about how the tech is improving/ruining our lives, and many conversations about artificial intelligence either come from a place of deep fear or heightened optimism. 

As someone who works in entertainment, I've been wondering if these reactions reflect the actual state of the technology that's out there. Well, as I learned during this year's AI on the Lot, the world's biggest conference focused on AI in media, the disconnect is significant -- and the means to bridge the gap from fear to understanding, and potentially acceptance, are lacking.

The event, which drew roughly 2,500 attendees throughout its three-day run, took place near (and partially on) the backlot of Amazon MGM Studios in Culver City, California. I was there for one day, but that was enough time for me to experience the product hype and techno-optimism firsthand. (The persistent worries about human replacement and environmental damage were rarely mentioned.)

One thing you should know about me: I'm a card-carrying member of the performers' union SAG-AFTRA and, just a few years ago, I joined the strike that raised red flags about the non-consensual use of generative AI in entertainment. Now, here I was -- an AI skeptic, an actor, a CNET journalist -- entering the belly of the beast. 

Recent films like Hell Grind, which made waves at Cannes, and Dream of Violets, which sparked controversy for being the first full-length AI-made movie to be featured at Tribeca, show the direction movie-making may be heading: quicker, cheaper productions with fewer humans involved.

I wanted to change my mind about the state of the entertainment industry and AI's potential to improve Hollywood's overall operations. By day's end, I left feeling even more conflicted.

Read more: Siri AI Is the Apple Voice Assistant Revamp We've All Been Waiting For

Albert Cheng, the head of AI Studios at Amazon, delivered the opening keynote on the day I attended. During the hour, he informed the crowd that his team's approach to AI is "humans first." 

"We truly believe that at every part of the creative process, humans must be an active participant and decision maker in that process," he told the crowd, while standing in front of Amazon MGM Studios' Volume Wall -- an AI production tool used to transform a soundstage into any location imaginable. 

"Whether it would be a writer or a director or an actor," he continued, "it's really important to have humans involved in driving that process with AI as tools to empower, enable and accelerate everything that we do. And with that combination we'll get better creative product, we'll get more creative product, we'll get more voices."

An hour later, Amazon greenlit three new animated series, all created with AI; that afternoon, Jorge R. Gutierrez (The Book of Life, Maya and the Three), the creator of Punky Duck -- one of the titles announced -- scrapped the project entirely due to peer criticism and online backlash.

A day later, screenwriter Paul Schrader, best known for writing the Martin Scorsese-directed movies Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and The Last Temptation of Christ, took that same Volume Wall stage to counter Cheng's words by dismissing the need for human actors altogether.

"We, as carbon-based fools, will spend our money empathizing and caring about silicon-based creations, and then they'll want the next one," he said during one part of his speech. "We know where that actor lives, and he works for nothing, and he works 24 hours a day."

Schrader also took aim at background actors -- a legitimate job that can help performers make a living and qualify for union-offered health insurance (I'm speaking from experience) -- which he described as utterly expendable: "Why are we paying extras $180 a day when they look so plastic anyway? We have to clothe them, we have to feed them and we have to deal with their complaints when it gets too hot. Why don't we just make them?"

Two keynote speeches, two completely different AI perspectives. On one end of the spectrum, you have the human-driven message that AI is controllable and should be viewed as any other production tool -- not a death knell for humanity and creativity as we know it. 

On the other? Throw all that out the window and let AI take the wheel.

This is where we are with AI and Hollywood, though. On one side, there are people, such as Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino, who look down on the use of this technology in entertainment. 

The other side of the AI in filmmaking debate has people including Roger Avary, Tarantino's former writing partner, using AI to make movies -- just as Darren Aronofsky recently did with his AI-made series on the American Revolutionary War. Martin Scorsese has hopped on the AI bandwagon, as well, investing in an AI company that helps make storyboards. 

Do moves like this make people in the industry nervous? Absolutely. But picking sides and continuing to argue about this isn't getting us anywhere. AI is obviously here to stay. What are we supposed to do about it?

Everyone I spoke to on the ground did their best to educate me on the reality of AI as a tool -- comparing it to the likes of production software such as Adobe Premiere Pro for editors or Final Draft for writers -- that, in their eyes, will bring work back to the empty soundstages scattered throughout Los Angeles.

"We've built a tool that the whole point of the tool (it's called Artlist Studio) is allowing you to make the same decisions, like casting, location scouting, lighting, framing, directing," Ari Belsky, co-founder and co-CEO of AI production company Artlist, explained to me. "Now you can do it fully AI-generated, but you very much can also bring in real actors that you're working with, so you can get the performance and you can get the likeness to add shots."

Artlist recently partnered with Paranormal Activity producer Steven Schneider to create a full-length hybrid AI horror film called Terrarium. He regularly mentioned the need for human input and real actors in productions like his. He was in the minority.

By the sound of things, productions are already using AI tools on set to speed up the workflows and cut costs. During his keynote, Cheng spoke of a reality in which engineers and scientists, whose sole focus is artificial intelligence, will become regulars on a Hollywood set, while crews are downsized and the number of AI-enhanced projects that are greenlit increases. 

The result, as it was pitched to me, is more work coming to Hollywood, with more diverse stories being made.

But my fear of job loss persisted.

I mentioned the Volume Wall earlier and, as fascinating as this technology is, it's hard for me not to think about all the positions reliant on location shooting that this type of AI tech will eliminate. Yes, having the ability to recreate any location while never leaving the set is cool, and can save time, cut through budgetary red tape and sidestep variables such as weather delays. Yet there's still a glaring sense of artifice that can be seen in the finished product that can feel disconnected from the reality it's trying to replicate.

Belskey pointed to strong and unique storytelling skills as the answer that will cut through the slop. This echoed what Luke Arrigoni, the CEO of Loti, a company that takes down deepfakes, said to me earlier in the day about the allure of specificity and weirdness in entertainment -- something AI cannot replicate.

This, it seemed, is where all this talk of human intent comes into play. Yoland Yan, the co-founder and CEO of AI production tool Comfy UI, echoed the sentiment. 

"People who have the highest level of creativity, controllability and quality of taste will actually capture most of the world's attention," he said. "They have the taste, they have the content, they have the writing, they have the script, they have the technical competency; those are the ones that actually end up capturing almost all of the views."

But in an attention economy where views are a highly coveted currency, will any of this matter? I still don't have an answer. I don't even think it matters that I don't have an answer, though.

What matters is this gray area of fear and worry that many of us find ourselves in right now, the very real concerns that AI will make any number of careers obsolete. That stress is already palpable throughout Hollywood, where the work has yet to bounce back to prepandemic levels. 

"I think the probable thing that's going to happen is we're going to see a lot more stuff being made," Belsky said. 

He and Yan told me in separate chats that AI is already resulting in more production work -- mostly in advertising. TV and film are the next frontier, whether we like it or not.

So what's the solution? I asked that many times that day, and I was met with the same two words: Use it. I was told to get familiar with the tools to understand them and cut through the fear. Even if that means water is wasted.

"I think more people are going to have the chance to actually show their talent," Belsky added, reassuringly. "You're gonna see some amazing things emerge."