Hollywood's 'Groundbreaking' AI Proposal for Actors Is a Nightmare

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 385 points – Hollywood's 'Groundbreaking' AI Proposal for Actors Is a Nightmare
gizmodo.com

SAG-AFTRA said that AMPTP's AI plan included scanning background actors and using their likenesses "for the rest of eternity."

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Getting some real Black Mirror vibes from this story.

I just saw the episode you're referring to - yes definitely got those vibes as well.

I'm surprised there's not much abuzz yet in the recording industry for artists voice use. That seems like it'd be much easier to do and exploit. Think there's already a lot of content using AI voice generation for parodying Obama, Trump, Biden, etc. This is going to get a lot bigger.

The Grammys actually said AI-generated songs were eligible! Insanity. Their rationale is that the person who prompted the AI gets the award. Still crazy.

Can we just make the Grammys themselves AI-directed? Then just let the robots give themselves their own awards and cut us out of the process altogether.

There an anime recently where basically every musical artist used AI in their songs I think. The main characters were unique for writing their own without it. Someone must remember the name of it lol.

That's a basic idea in Orwell's 1984 too. Music and books are created by machines as propaganda for the masses.

Wow - complete and utter insanity. I think I read an article on an art contest prize awarded to an AI-generated piece.

The ONLY upsides to this are:

  1. No more long waits for a new record to drop from your favorite "artist" - Taylor Swift still relevant in 50 years..etc, etc.

  2. Less revenue for TicketMaster because who tf is going to an AI concert?

I've seen videos of packed crouds at Hatsune Miku concerts and that is a computer generated voice with a 3d projection on stage.

I remain confused by the Vocoloid sensation. I'm also really amazed by that video - how TF did they project like that in a way that looks good on stage. My goodness. This is one of those "We're in the future now" moments. Though I really can't see wanting to go to a concert that's entirely virtual - I'm waiting to have it in my house like movies I guess.

This just seems so much like tamagotchis - like ... it's not real. Maybe I need to see one singing in English.

Why would it be worse that someone getting a Grammy for a song that is made out of samples or using premade virtual instrument loops like it's commonly done in electronic music or hip-hop? Artists should be able to use any tools they want, but you do have to update the jury so it is still able to discriminate between artistic quality in a world with AI and cheap gimmicks.

Especially with things like rick and morty and Justin roiland being removed. I would imagine his voice could be easily replicated using AI.

"You wouldn't steal an actor, would you?"

It's almost like we need an entirely new legal framework to ensure the non wealthy a standard of living while being continuously devalued over time by me technological developments. Artists already sell their souls to survive in this "market."

I love how they do this right after the Black Mirror episode comes out. Black Mirror is really doing a good job of getting us ready for the future.

The future is here and it fucking sucks.

Machines create art while people deliver packages.

FWIW, this is kinda happening right now, albeit in a sort of "innocent" garage project sort of way. There are mods for Skyrim that take the voice work created by skilled actors, and use it to generate convincing additional dialog that they never consented to nor got paid for. Laura Baily is already seeing herself being AI'd by her own fans.

And this is with homemade software. Wait until the good stuff comes out.

If Tiktok simply added a perfect Biden and Trump voice filter that one action would likely fuck up our politics more than all of the Russian interference in 2016 combined.

The difference is they almost certainly can't make money off of those. I hope that forward looking games negotiate contracts with their actors for mods using their performances to be commercial, and they get part of that revenue. It would be great for the modding scene to be able to have "voice-acted" content that fit into the game without the resources that the studio has.

I agree with the actors but this article isn't great.

Actors, writers, and multimedia artists are all having their jobs threatened because of low-return, high-yield AI and generative products that do not have the ability to replicate human work and should not be utilized in order to do so.

If AI can't replicate human work then there wouldn't be a problem. If the AI were terrible, products made with it would be as well.

The entire fear is that AI can (or will soon be able to) do a decent job at these tasks.

AI being insufficient is temporary, the question is how temporary.

You're right that it'll get better, but I agree it likely won't be the same as a human. The difference is it'll cost nothing in comparison. That's the threat. If they can get the job done 80% as well with a fraction of 1% of the cost, they're probably taking it. They don't want to use AI because it's just as good or better, but because it's a hell of a lot cheaper.

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I don't think they even need it anymore. AI can create realistic human faces. I don't understand this proposal

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that paying someone $200 for a scan is cheaper than creating a person from nothing, and that's the only reason they want it.

I don't think it is cheaper even now. Once you set up everything you easily produce millions of random faces. Another commentor suggests it might be a legal issue on data used for generative AIs. He might have a point

I think it's both a legal issue and a financial issue. They need consent and compensation to scan people/faces/etc. to train the AI models.

Extras are part of the union (SGA-AFTRA). This is why SGA is striking (well one major reason). This is why all major statements from SGA have been that they are starting with extras but will continue on to marginalize and exploit others in the union. Because thatā€™s what capitalism does. It is how it functions if left unchecked.

The unions know that do-nothing parasites that own the studios and other businesses want to get labor cost down to essentially nothing. And they will do everything possible to get it there including openly stating they have more money than god and will simply wait out every single writer and actor until they go bankrupt on strike.

If they sign this as an extra, then get famous five years from now...

Their likeness is already sold. And the studio they sold the likeness too can use that instead of the actor.

They may even be able to "lease" the likeness to other studios.

Maybe itā€™s not so much about the technical part, but more on the legal part? Sure, they can use generative tech to do this and continue to improve upon it, but they donā€™t have permissions yet and this proposal is just to cover their bases. Hopefully SAG can shut it down completely, as one can presume that this looks like a ā€œdoor-in-the-faceā€ technique, and the industry will keep tuning the proposal until some actors give in and have big enough checks, which could then cascade to affect the whole industry.

You're right, there's no reason they can't just make a fully artificial human likeness that doesn't require anyone to sign over rights. That only leaves one other rational for this, which is that they want to trick desperate actors into handing over their likeness so if they get famous in the future they can control them.

Good point. I believe this is the best explanation

It's common in Hollywood for a studio to ask for right in perpetuity for any digital asset. That is so that if they remaster a movie they have everything they need to make it without having to get lawyers and contracts involved.

The directors cut is technically a different movie than then regular one and is different from an 8k remaster in the future.

That's a very different issue to someone making an entirely new movie, with that scan as a "character" though.

Not different at all. Actors do mo-cap work all the time and the performance data is owned by the studio and can be reused on different movies without royalties. The studios are trying to extend that. I see both sides. If the actors don't take a stand it could be tragic.