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As Actors Strike for AI Protections, Netflix Lists $900k AI Job

theintercept.com

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Re: As Actors Strike for AI Protections, Netflix Lists $900k AI Job

#61

Post by bamfly »

tw04 wrote: post #36
mercurialsolo wrote: post #9

If you can create a likeness of Tom Hanks which doesn't need to be Tom Hanks exactly, who owns the copyright - the digital creator or Tom Hanks. Actors protesting AI protections remind me of factory workers protesting against automation setting in.

>Actors protesting AI protections remind me of factory workers protesting against automation setting in. And in hindsight: rightly so. Automation and outsourcing gutted the middle class in the US to the benefit of a handful of folks that didn't need anymore money. What's the end-game of automating every human job away if the spoils of that automation aren't shared widely?

The luddites lost, sure—but industrialization did make an absolute shit-ton of people miserable until the labor movement clawed back some of those productivity gains for the workers and curbed the worst abuses committed by capital.

If we don't see another wave of reforms soon—which is sure to require labor action!—a whole bunch of folks are in for another rough time (stretching to entire lives, as it did last time) which will not automatically get better through capitalism pixie dust or whatever.

The last time we saw a huge shift in human participation in the economy, it sucked absolute ass until a bunch of workers screamed and bled and died to make it somewhat better. That's what'll happen again if we don't catch it early. "It'll get better on its own, because markets" is magical thinking.

Re: As Actors Strike for AI Protections, Netflix Lists $900k AI Job

#62

Post by dehrmann »

capableweb wrote: post #26
Imnimo wrote: post #5

>So $900k/yr per soldier in their godless AI army when that amount of earnings could qualify thirty-five actors and their families for SAG-AFTRA health insurance is just ghoulish, How many actors could Adam Sandler's $250M Netflix deal pay for?

Considering how many people would do shows/movies for free in the start of their career, answer would be ∞

It's the same for music. Why would you bother developing something around AI-generated music when there's an unending supply of kids passionate about music who will generate content for free in the hopes of being discovered?

Re: As Actors Strike for AI Protections, Netflix Lists $900k AI Job

#63

Post by anigbrowl »

gedy wrote: post #28
ke88y wrote: post #7

Am I the only one who genuinely doesn't "get" the AI component of the actor strike? I'm generally in solidarity with labor, but clauses in a labor contract limiting the use of AI in an industry seems kind of insane and unsustainable. Is there any historical analog in the US labor movement?

I think it's mainly hitching on to a pop culture moral outrage, vs an actual pressing issue.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess you think that because you don't know any professional actors. It's hard work but it used to be possible to make a living as a working actor without necessarily being famous. That looks increasingly difficult. There's a lot of skill required to do the job well and those skills aren't just transferable to other work contexts.

Re: As Actors Strike for AI Protections, Netflix Lists $900k AI Job

#64

Post by wang_li »

mostlysimilar wrote: post #10
OO000oo wrote: post #6

I don't see what the problem is. This is perfectly legal. Private companies can do whatever they want with their own money.

Legal and moral are not the same. The law is largely beholden to massive corporations that are entrenched enough to abuse people in the pursuit of profit. One of the only levers we have to fight back is to call out these abuses and loudly call attention to them.

A studio creating pure AI personalities to star in their movies seems perfectly fine. There is no requirement that these AI generated performers are based on real people. Arguing against generalized AI in film and television is arguing against electric cars because it will put the ICE engine manufacturers out of business.

AI generated performers seems like a good idea. You can see the impact the passage of time has had on shows, e.g. Stranger Things. Why should a franchise be limited by the ability of a star actor to continue looking the same age decade after decade and eventually have to stop because the actor has aged out or just flat out died?

Re: As Actors Strike for AI Protections, Netflix Lists $900k AI Job

#65

Post by booleandilemma »

I think most successful actors are, by nature, narcissists. They're thinking about how their likeness is going to be used without consent.

What they're not realizing is we'll soon be at the point where AI-generated actors are created out of whole cloth - they won't resemble any existing people.

Eventually (in 20 years let's say), people won't care.

Re: As Actors Strike for AI Protections, Netflix Lists $900k AI Job

#67

Post by Mindwipe »

bertil wrote: post #32
lxe wrote: post #20

The headline is drawing all sorts of misleading conclusions. There's a PM posting for an ML team with a $300-900k market range. Nothing to do with actors striking.

One of the reasons actors are striking is because they are worried that their work will be replaced with deep-fakes, but also because they have already been offered that kind of contract at a rate they deem far too low (one day of work).

Yes, but the role seems to primarily involve working on ML as part of Netflix's recommendation engine and pulling out insight from customer data, rather than anything to do with generative AI.

It's misleading at best, actively dishonest at worst.

Re: As Actors Strike for AI Protections, Netflix Lists $900k AI Job

#68

Post by bena »

ke88y wrote: post #7

Am I the only one who genuinely doesn't "get" the AI component of the actor strike? I'm generally in solidarity with labor, but clauses in a labor contract limiting the use of AI in an industry seems kind of insane and unsustainable. Is there any historical analog in the US labor movement?

I would say that's because those that literally control the narrative have a vested interest in not providing the actor's side of this.

But parts of it are quite simple.

One thing they want: The actors want to be paid residuals for their likenesses.

Right now, if you want to make Breaking Bad, you have to pay Bryan Cranston for months of filming. He has to be on set, he has to hit marks, remember lines, sit for hair and makeup, etc. Everything that is involved in creating a filmed product.

What the studios want to do is pay an actor for a day's worth of work, scan them, perform some motion capture, do some voice work, then be able to use that digital representation in perpetuity. Feed that data into ActorGPT and get years of films and shows out of that data. And never have to pay that actor another cent.

Another thing they want: Be paid streaming residuals. Streaming has made things more complicated for everyone in a lot of ways. The old system was easy enough to grok. You made a show. You put it on air. Sponsors bought time during your show. You could sell a syndication deal and sell even more commercial time from your show. You could sell physical media of your show. You could track that data.

Then Netflix came along. I think originally, Netflix paid NBC/Universal a flat fee to be able to host The Office for a set number of years. There's effectively no residual on that. And the streaming model is a bit different. Most services don't have ads. And those that do, I don't think they're geared towards individual programs (yet). They're just sort of algorithmically inserted. So really, you're looking to where someone's $12.99 is going. What they're trying to do is determine what percentage of a streaming service's revenue should be paid back to the creators of the content. And what percentage of that percentage should everyone get.

But the various streaming services don't really release that data.

Re: As Actors Strike for AI Protections, Netflix Lists $900k AI Job

#69

Post by mucle6 »

tmpz22 wrote: post #58
thepasswordis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much money should Adam Sandler make?

Kylian Mbappe was recently offered $776 MILLION in salary for a 1-year deal as the highest paid soccer (football) player [1]. Jaylen Brown will be making $304 MILLION over 5 years for the Boston Celtics as the highest paid NBA player. Wealth inequality from predominantly ads-based (tv-deals) business models is a cancer to our society. [1]: https://frontofficesports.com/saudi-arabia-reportedly-offers...

The economy is not zero sum, other people making large sums of money shouldn't make you upset.

Those athletes are paid that much because the fans (customers) value them that much.

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