AI has given us the pope in a puffer, but it is also predicted to wipe out 200,000 entertainment jobs. We report from a crucial event in Portugal, full of angry artists, digital miracles – and a surprising amount of optimism

The first piece of AI-generated video I ever made moved me to tears – tears of laughter. Given the chance to fool around with Runway AI’s Gen-3 Alpha, I dropped in an image of an eagle carrying off a wolf. Moments later, the picture sprang into life. The eagle slowly flapped its wings as it glided down a mountainside, dropping the wolf from its talons. Except the bird only had one leg – and its plummeting prey sprouted wings from its tail and morphed into a wolf-headed goose. It was weird and hilarious.

Make no mistake, though – this is the future. Generative AI has given us amusingly surreal images such as the pope in a puffer jacket and a 90s nightclub where everyone is Gordon Ramsay, but the entertainment industry is not laughing. In fact, it’s panicking. A recent statement opposing “the unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI” has been signed by more than 25,000 writers, actors and musicians, including Julianne Moore, Kazuo Ishiguro and Thom Yorke.