101–110 of 168 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For the same reason that you still pay for games, even when they run on your machine? There’s a lot that Netflix can sell, including proprietary code, creatively unique prompts, etc.
...you guys are paying for games?
> Among the striking actors’ demands are protections against their scanned likeness being manipulated by AI without adequate compensation for the actors. Ok, get a good lawyer and write that into any future contracts. Obviously this will only work for household name actors, but for everyone else it really doesn’t matter. We can already generate faces that are unique [1]. All that remains is deep fake tech getting goo…
The studios don’t want to sign such a contract. And so the actors are withholding their work until they do, among other conditions. Crossing the picket line, no matter how big an actor you are, will have you expelled from SAG, and when studios eventually sign whatever deal they do with SAG, any non-SAG actor will be barred from working with studios, based on the exclusivity contract that’s been in every deal since 1960.
One side will win. Based on history, it will be SAG.
Jokes on Netflix, if AI can generate shows why pay for Netflix when I'll eventually have a personal AI (provided by an open source project, because anything novel in this space is leaky) that generates an entertainment bubble for me?
For the same reason why people pay for Netflix right now instead of pirating: convenience.
Tom Hanks can generate millions so he gets millions, and Netflix thinks AI can generate millions too, so it's not hard to understand why they would pay a lot for that. I sympathise with the strike, but I think it's misguided to think they can win against AI. If AI ever gets good enough to replace writers or actors, then someone will make a ton of money doing that. Maybe in Hollywood this will be blocked by unions, bu…
Maybe, but I think SAG more than anyone else knows this, which is why their union rules are so strict. "Global Rule 1" is their rule that states that, if you are a SAG member, you are not allowed to work anywhere in the world without a SAG-approved contract. Similarly, if you are not a SAG member but work during a strike, SAG permanently bars you from joining the union.
Sure, you can argue that some other place in some corner of the world may start up to get around these rules, but that's a very, very tall order to then import those movies into places like the US without a huge amount of backlash.
Filmmaking is still mostly a relationship business, and even with AI actors and writers it's hard to see that changing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> other people making large sums of money shouldn't make you upset. Why not? It clearly shows that there is a screw loose. Or put differently: it reminds us of the fundamental truth that in society, people without power get as little as is available to keep them alive and sometimes less, and people with power (in this case, the power of a good negotiating position) get as much as is available to pay them. The world d…
Anyone who can create returns greater than their cost of capital creates value. A screw isn't loose. If you can figure out how to add value to the world, then you get endless riches.
> "People without power get as little as is available to keep them alive"
Consider using less hyperbole in your worldview. Today has the highest living standards of any time.
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?
Space exploration.
>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?
Should all actors earn the same amount of money? Even if certain actors make the studio millions while others don't?
Unfortunately the entire reason for the strike is studios will rarely, unless you are very top talent, deviate from the minimums. They would often try to go even lower, if they could. Hence the strike is to raise the minimums.
There’s 160,000 members of SAG. There’s maybe only 50 household-name celebrities acting in any one year? Those 50 are not representative of everyone who acts at all.
There is a lot of urgent important work to be done in this world. We don’t need luddites to fight for creating artificial jobs.
Nothing Netflix is or has ever done is urgent or important.
Millions of people enjoying their content will disagree. And I'm not even talking about completely transforming content streaming industry.