1y ago

Actors say Hollywood studios want their AI replicas — for free, forever

www.theverge.com Actors say Hollywood studios want their AI replicas — for free, forever

No, this is not a Black Mirror episode.

“This ‘groundbreaking’ AI proposal that they gave us yesterday, they proposed that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get one day’s pay, and their companies should own that scan, their image, their likeness and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity on any project they want, with no consent and no compensation. So if you think that’s a groundbreaking proposal, I suggest you think again.”

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Can we replace the studios execs with AI instead?
- We'd probably get better movies like That.
- That will put cocaine dealers out of work.
  
  and ruin the economy's of most of central/south america

Sounds like they want to put actors out of work, while painting it as a good thing. Ai is already at the point where it's being exploited by the wealthy to fuck the poor even more, and it needs to be legislated. Nip this bullshit in the bud.
- What examples can you give where the rich is fucking the poor by using AI right now?
  
  Artists were the first to take a hit. Then you're gonna lose writers people who write game dialogue and such, you're gonna lose service people, etc. Those are all ways the rich are trying to make the poor obsolete
- How is AI fucking the poor? It's just preventing the pseudo-wealthy from keeping up with the actual-wealthy.
  I have no sympathy for either group.
  
  Then you obviously don't know how a movie is made and who is involved. Once you have a full AI movie, you won't need any of the hands on set that definitely aren't rich... Grips, caterers, assistants, makeup, wardrobe, etc. Those aren't "pseudo-wealthy". They're working a 9-5 to make ends meet.

Isn't this already covered with the Back to the Future 2 lawsuit? They can't use an actors likeness without thier explicit permission. Just because it's "ai" doesn't make it any different, ai is just a SFX.
- SFX
  VFX, SFX are things that are actually happening on Set.
  
  "It's just VFX, guys!"
- The explicit permission would be in the new labor agreement, I think...
  
  True, good call. I completely spaced on that. Pretty shitty thing to do. "You know that thing that's illegal for us to do? Put it in the contract that we can do it!"

Aw Hell No! Actors should setup a trust for their image likeness that lives on forever. If Hollywood every uses their likeness the fees go into that trust.

Its always funny how the US are likey some third world country where entrepreneurs/rich people always try the worst ethically possible thing first, asking shamelessly.
In europe, entrepreneurd and corps arent saints but they dont start with the worst shameless proposal possible.
I guess the difference is knowing shame
- The difference is accountability.
  
  Why not both
- Remember that Nestle exec who wanted to make water not a human right?

SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher said that “If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble, we are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines.”
Can’t stop smiling now that I know what Fran Drescher has been up to :-)
- Thankfully not audio work.
- She is not in any way the first person I would expect to be president of SAG-AFTRA. Maybe she'll be president one day. It happened before.

Do you know why Star wars, Indiana Jones, The breakfast Club ect, are fantastic. The acting. We humans can only be tricked for so long witha a placebo. These films I mentioned, you can tell the hard work that went into them, the love and detail. Also taking someone's life right sounds like digital slavery.
- Star Wars had mediocre acting at best. The special effects and story were what made those movies.
- Isn't Star Wars the franchise that really kick started the trend of bringing dead/younger versions of actors back as CGI replicas?
- The quote is about background performers. Nobody notices their acting and they usually aren't even professional actors.
  
  People don't notice or remember things that look natural. Those background actors will absolutely stick out like sore thumbs when they're not backed by real performances.

No shit? It's basically slavery but not as morally objectionable.
It's still morally objectionable, but not as much.

The age of generative AI is upon us, and you can't stop progress. There's no putting that genie back in the bottle.
Generative AI, like your image and speech, are just tools, it's your responsibility to use it for good or bad, and it shouldn't be owned by anyone else.
But since the cat's out of the bag now, so the next best thing is that this power should belong to everyone. There will be bad actors of course, but security through obscurity has rarely ever worked, if more people are exposed to AI generation, then they will understand what it can and can't do, and thus can better look out for themselves.
Besides, StableDiffusion is pretty fun.
- The big difference is the keeping it forever part of the proposal. Background actors have already been digitally inserted into movies for a while and only get a days pay to get the scanning and motion capture done.
- I mean, sure, let’s use it and have fun. No one is really arguing total bans. But you have to pay people when you use their likenesses. Otherwise, you know, Metahuman exists.
  
  Of course. The law already protect the right of people's likeness when used commercially, but there are still some questions surrounding that.
  For example, whenever somebody makes one of these ultra-realistic sketches of celebrities based on photographs on the Internet like on r/art and tries to sell them, should they also pay the original photographer and the original subject? Supreme Court recently said yes 7-2 in their latest ruling on "Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith", with Kagan being a notable dissent. Give it a read, food for thought.

If you've not seen it there's a film about exactly this... The Congress

less the cost of maintaining the hardware and software - might end up saving the film industry a lot of money in the long run, having to no longer hire or pay actors... or someone could steal/pirate their IP and release their own AIgen movies. or perhaps the public won't pay to see movies with fake actors

That's a great idea. Let's tax the studios accordingly on their increased profits, spend the tax dollars on creating a welfare floor for the acting industry so they can live their best lives acting in whatever they want, and let's legislate around it so it isn't used for malicious purposes like slander, fraud or blackmail. We get movies starring favorite actors in a market still dictated by demand, the studios keep making millions like before and the actors can still make a nice living. Everyone wins. Oh, except the ultra greedy.
Add to that the fact that hollywood is dominated by pedophiles, rapists and psychopaths, and it is obvious to see the laughable corruption in the US government will allow them to take a big fat shit on everything decent once again.
Eat the rich.

I see no problem here.

There may be a group of entertainers i have less sympathy for than actors, but i'd be hard pressed to think who it might be.
- If these same studio owner types could AI your job away and send you into poverty, they would. And eventually they will. So I'll stick with the actors on this side, not to mention this is about background actors, who 99% of the time are regular people with regular jobs who use background acting as a side gig, and they want to ai away their jobs.
  
  Man if AI could take my job i'd let it have it and then feel bad for it.
- Why?
  Most of the actors I know are really nice.
  
  Because they don't need more money.
  They need to spend less. It's not about putting food on the table. It's about living as lavish a lifestyle as possible to show off in front of your peers.
- I agree.
  I really don't care for people in LA complaining they don't have enough money.

133 comments