I do feel for them, but this genie is not going back into the bottle. This is really no different than the weavers trying to destroy the automated loom. If the technology is inferior, they have nothing to worry about. If it’s superior, striking isn’t going to save them. It may delay the inevitable, but…
Now, actors having their likenesses replicated by AI, that’s a different story. They have every right to stop that nonsense.
…people keep saying this, but reality says otherwise. The technology is objectively inferior. AI can’t write a single sitcom script, let alone an entire season. AI can’t write a movie. Not without a human having to substantially rewrite and edit it. It can’t even write the most basic of click-bait articles without getting the simplest of things wrong.
But that isn’t stopping the studios taking this technology that simply doesn’t work off the table. Because the people running the studios are on another planet.
Absurd. Anyone exploited would seek a Union. No one can easily exploit a wealthy famous actor so they don’t need a Union, but they were nobodies once and needed support. That support is in the form of a Union and it only lasts and backs up the nobodies because EVERY actor is in it.
What if you’re not around to stop it?”When you die, just about anyone can upload your public digital legacy into AI software to create a deadbot or an interactive AI avatar. ”
Heh. If you knew something about textile history, you’d realize that this analogy isn’t making quite the point you were hoping it would make.
Indeed, the industrialization of fiber and fabric manufacture did destroy a lot of extremely high-quality textile production, much of which may be permanently extinct because crucial techniques and materials have been lost. From Dhaka muslin to innumerable specialty threads and other textiles, “they don’t make them like they used to” represents a genuine impoverishment of human fiber arts by industrialization, although it may not even be noticed by people who simply want to buy more and cheaper blue jeans.
Industrial mechanization doesn’t necessarily succeed by using “superior technology” to produce a better product. Often, on the contrary, it dominates markets by using more efficient technology merely to produce a smaller range of inferior products in much larger quantities much more cheaply, which leads to cost-cutting substitutions and the eventual loss of the original higher-quality product. (To say nothing of the negative impacts on artisans themselves, natch.)
If we don’t want to risk that happening to the creative arts, it behooves us to pay attention now to what the different options are, instead of lazily and complacently taking it for granted that the market will find the optimal solution while we ignore the situation. Mind you, even if the output of the new technology tends to be mediocre, I’m sure lots of people would be perfectly content to watch nothing but the performing-arts equivalent of machine-produced fast food. (Especially once public knowledge of performing arts becomes as impoverished and shallow as public knowledge of fiber arts has become.) But it would be a pity to just credulously assume that the entertainment-automation process is bound to produce a better—as opposed to merely cheaper and more abundant—product than we now have access to.
Not to mention that the automated loom was a monstrous beast that demanded fingers, limbs, lungs, and lives from its workers–often children. It worked beautifully to concentrate capital in a small class. Weavers who adapted to the new technology saw their wages drop by more than 80%. The people who purchased the cloth–farmers, butchers, day workers–broadly supported the weavers, because while everyone likes a cheap shirt, your better class of people like a healthy neighbor.
If AI is the new power loom, there are big lessons for us to learn from the analogy about adopting new technology.
Yeah, if we can learn to introduce new technologies more sustainably so that we restrict the harm they do while sharing their benefits more widely, I think objections to them will mostly evaporate. But workers are never going to be enthusiastic about the prospect of having their livelihoods shattered just to increase the wealth of their employers, while being handed a consolation prize of more abundant and cheaper mediocre crap.
At least the environmental impact of AI-generated mediocre crap entertainment is presumably likely to be less severe than that of machine-made mediocre crap textiles. Though, come to think of it, AIUI the training and maintaining of large language models costs a non-negligible amount of computing power and hence energy consumption, so the impacts might not be as unequal as I initially assumed.
The industry as a whole can hopefully realize the benefits of nurturing new talent and structure the industry to foster it. The entertainment industry is unique in that people can’t just go to school and come out as A-list actors and writers. The low-level jobs like extras and assistant writers are critically useful to give new creatives a way of making a living while learning their craft and gaining experience. If AI takes over that bottom layer, then that means a vast swath of jobs won’t be available to help people rise to the top. In the short term it would help the studio’s profits since they don’t have to pay for people in those lower-end jobs, but in the long term it would hurt the industry since there would be no path to getting to the A-list level. Hopefully the studios will realize that by making the sacrifice to ensure that the lower-end jobs are viable, they will do better in the long term. But, of course, corporations are all about the short-term, quarterly numbers, so I expect that they’ll shoot themselves in the foot over this.
(bolding mine)
There is absolutely no reason the studios can’t treat the talent fairly except that they simply don’t want to because they are greedy assholes.
This isn’t unique to entertainment; this is how most fields work. It’s not like recent college graduates are moving directly into the C-suite in most industries.
The pay would be a lot worse without the union setting minimums. Not to mention the problem of getting paid. When my daughter acted (she was a SAG member) her manager told us that he spent a lot of time chasing down money from non-union production companies. Not to mention that the union runs the residual process, not all that easy to do.
Ever been in a casting director’s office? No? Then don’t write nonsense. Writers and directors have firm ideas on the look and sound of characters, and want the best match they can get. Even for minor roles and especially for bigger, if not starring, roles.
With the increase in interest rates the streaming services are finding that they can’t shovel money at new productions. You may be happy browsing the B and C list of Netflix but no buzz shows means fewer new subscribers. Networks can’t charge advertisers as much for reruns (which will have lower ratings) and if the new season gets delayed it’s going to be a big problem for the networks and the studios. You think that non-union indies and foreign films are going to put butts in the seats of theaters, which are already hurting? You and I are going to be fine watching streaming we never got to, but those half our age who go on dates are going to avoid theaters and maybe not subscribe.
It is rather suspicious.
It’s being reported that tree trimming along the street is typically done by the city and no permits had been filed and that the studio may be subject to compliance action.
This follows some suspiciously timed construction work that would force picketers into the street without pedestrian safety barriers.
Suggestive of strike busting and not very subtly
I hope the studio bosses remember who serves the food at the restaurants they go to.
There’s a photo in post 51 of this topic.
“Yes, we did release thousands of plague rats into the streets, but it was part of an unrelated project.”
I love it.
Damn it, you’re right. I should have looked before I posted.
Wow. My daughter got a check for twice that much (six cents) when a soap she had a minor part in ran in Italy. That was pre-streaming. I wondered how actors got paid for streaming, obviously the answer is not much.