Sunny Hostin defended her decision to license her name and likeness to an AI company on The View Thursday, arguing that generative AI can break down Hollywood gatekeeping that has kept Black and Brown stories off screens. Her co-hosts pushed back, warning that the same technology could put the actors and crew members she wants to see employed out of work.
Hostin, who partnered with AI company Fountain 0, said she spent six years trying to get her New York Times best-selling trilogy adapted for film or television without success. "The gatekeeping in Hollywood around Black and Brown creative content is insane," she said. "With AI, that cuts out the gatekeeping. You get to make your film."
The core disagreement
Joy Behar countered that with AI, "real people are not working." Hostin agreed with that premise but framed it differently: "The real people are not getting jobs in Hollywood. Black and Brown actors are not getting the jobs."
Alyssa Farah Griffin said she worried Hostin's approach would close doors to roles that could be played by Black and Brown actors, replacing them with AI-generated performances instead. Griffin also raised a concern familiar to many working in creative fields: generative AI "is pulling from intellectual property of all the existing actors out there," without those actors receiving residuals.
Hostin responded that the studios are already refusing to make these projects. "That would be great if the studios would not gatekeep and allow the stories to be told," she said.
A different art form, not a replacement
Ana Navarro asked whether Hostin felt any ethical concerns about working with an AI company. Hostin said she "thought about it a lot" before signing away her likeness, but concluded that diverse stories need to be told.
Behar suggested a different route: "Force them to do it rather than have a robot replace Black people in movies."
Hostin closed the exchange by framing generative AI as an addition to the creative toolkit rather than a threat to human artistry. "I don't think it's ever going to take away the arts," she said. "I think it's a different art form." She also said the AI "train has left the station," adding, "This is something that's here. It's not going away, and I think that there are going to be enormous benefits."
Why this matters for creatives
The debate on The View mirrors the split across creative industries: some see generative AI as a way around entrenched gatekeepers, while others see it as a tool that devalues human labor and borrows from existing work without compensation. For working creatives, the practical question is whether generative art skills become a necessary addition to their toolkit or a direct threat to their income. Hostin's position assumes the former, but her co-hosts' concerns about residuals and job displacement reflect the economic reality many creatives already face. Learning to use these tools - or at minimum understanding how they work - is becoming harder to avoid, even for those who object to how the underlying models were trained. The AI for creatives conversation is no longer hypothetical; it is happening on daytime television, in union negotiations, and in hiring decisions.
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