Inside a soundstage once used by silent film stars Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand, Hollywood executives, actors and filmmakers sipped cocktails as they marvelled at what some say is the biggest breakthrough since the talkies: AI-generated video.

But whether AI will be the future, or the end, of cinema is still up for debate.

It was only two years ago that actors and writers shut down Hollywood with strikes demanding protections from AI. Now the technology is controversially creeping into TV, movies and video games. Two films honoured at the Oscars even used the technology.

As a DJ played '90s hip hop, computer developers rubbed shoulders with actors and executives, in a sign of the changing power players in the industry.

AI in Hollywood is "inevitable", says Bryn Mooser, the party's host and the co-founder of Moonvalley, which created the AI generator tool Marey by paying for footage from filmmakers with their consent. Mooser says that while AI may still be a dirty word, their product is "clean" because it pays for its content.

"Artists should be at the table," he says, adding that it's better to build the tool for filmmakers rather than get "rolled over by big tech companies".

Artificial Intelligence has long been depicted as a villain in Hollywood. In The Terminator, AI used by the US military decides it must destroy everyone on earth.

But it's AI's creators, and not the technology itself, that has received the brunt of real-life criticism. Companies use publicly available data to build their AI models - which includes copyrighted material shared online - and creators say they're being ripped off.

OpenAI, Google and other tech companies are facing multiple lawsuits from writers, actors and news organisations, alleging their work was stolen to........

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