Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theintercept.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 168 posts

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

#111

Post by wiseowise »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #78
m_0x wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing you need to understand about people that make comments like that is that they don't care about anything unless (or until) it affects THEM personally. The second it affects them, now it's real, now it's "OH this shouldn't be legal". Those people lack empathy.

100% agree. So many of the responses here are of the "why can't they just eat cake?" variety. Actors are striking because (a) they want to still have a viable career and (b) studios still need actors, and AI still needs humans for training. Do I think any of these commenters would be OK if the script was flipped and instead the deal was "We will pay you a thousand dollars to train this AI programmer for a week so we…

a) Disagreeing with Luddites isn't psychopathy b) Article is complete bogus, nobody is talking about replacing actors with AI

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

#112

Post by restion »

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?

automation and outsourcing gave lower prices on products for literally everyone

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

#113

Post by thebradbain »

costanzaDynasty wrote: post #25

Stop blaming AI for the last decade of insulting and attacking your customers while offering quantity over quality. You've also diminished all your IPs to the point that fans don't care. Any criticism was shouted down. But the rot was there and audiences have moved on.

Your complaint is at the studios, including Netflix, then. They’re the ones who own the IP, they’re the ones who decide to use it. The actors have absolutely no say in whether Disney decides to make another Marvels movie or not.

Actors are the ones looking for a gig, often any gig, but when they have a choice, the highest paying gig. And believe me, every actor and writer in Hollywood wishes studios would invest more in mid-budget B movie not based on any cinematic universe: those are what paid many people’s bills.

As Union members, actors have a contract with studios that they negotiate every 3 years. Every three years since the last strike in 1960 they’ve reached a deal (and the result of that strike was the creation of revenue sharing for cable and film tv with actors and writers, which they are now hoping to apply to streaming).

No deal? Fine, studios have the right not to sign. But actors have the right to withhold their work. Eventually a deal will be reached.

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

#114

Post by wiseowise »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #33
sb8244 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine that your likeness as an extra is sold for $250, used in future films via AI deep fake, and you never get paid again. That's my understanding of why they're striking.

People here are being complacent. I’m willing to bet all my money that a savvy startup will log all your keystrokes and train an AI model on all the code you’ve ever written - for your employer or otherwise - and create an AI agent that can code just like you. You will no longer be needed. And it will be far easier to implement than an AI actor. All of it will happen within 10 years. Which, as far as job security goe…

What makes you think that? Seriously, what kind of job do you do on a day to day basis to even remotely consider possibility of this?

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

#115

Post by singleshot_ »

andsoitis wrote: post #51
tw04 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

> Automation and outsourcing gutted the middle class in the US What statistics can we look at that shows that the middle class is smaller and less well off than before (“gutted”)?

The one where my life as a child was awesome, but now I live in a nightmare hellscape, I guess. N = 1, as they say.

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

#116

Post by costanzaDynasty »

thebradbain wrote: post #113
costanzaDynasty wrote: post #25

Stop blaming AI for the last decade of insulting and attacking your customers while offering quantity over quality. You've also diminished all your IPs to the point that fans don't care. Any criticism was shouted down. But the rot was there and audiences have moved on.

Your complaint is at the studios, including Netflix, then. They’re the ones who own the IP, they’re the ones who decide to use it. The actors have absolutely no say in whether Disney decides to make another Marvels movie or not. Actors are the ones looking for a gig, often any gig, but when they have a choice, the highest paying gig. And believe me, every actor and writer in Hollywood wishes studios would invest more…

No it's also with the actors, directors, producers who are equally as guilty in driving off the audience. All who were the most vocal and venomous of the amen chorus.

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

#117

Post by matwood »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #86
matwood wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a bit of it. The more immediate term is a studio who can feed in all the scripts they have ever received then have a single writer use an LLM and make more scripts. Eventually they wouldn't need a writer, just a person good at prompts. The problem is the writers have zero leverage. We just came out of a time of huge overspending on content where we all have thousands of hours we still haven't watched. Adding A…

Just to be clear, there are 2 different strikes, the writers' strike that you're referring to, and the actors' strike that the parent is referring to. AI issues notwithstanding, I do think you make a valid point that over the past 10 years we just binged on a huge amount of content. For workers it's a double-edged sword. I read somewhere that there are actually a lot more members of the union (can't remember if it wa…

Good point. I viewed the strikes as joint strikes.

And yeah, 0% rates made it dirt cheap for companies like Netflix to churn out a new series every single day in some cases. Studios other than Netflix and Amazon are probably happy for rising rates and the strikes to pause the insane amount of content spend that has occurred over the last decade. Obviously the writers and actors are going to get hit in this reset.

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

#118

Post by ke88y »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #33
sb8244 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine that your likeness as an extra is sold for $250, used in future films via AI deep fake, and you never get paid again. That's my understanding of why they're striking.

People here are being complacent. I’m willing to bet all my money that a savvy startup will log all your keystrokes and train an AI model on all the code you’ve ever written - for your employer or otherwise - and create an AI agent that can code just like you. You will no longer be needed. And it will be far easier to implement than an AI actor. All of it will happen within 10 years. Which, as far as job security goe…

> I’m willing to bet all my money that a savvy startup will log all your keystrokes and train an AI model on all the code you’ve ever written - for your employer or otherwise - and create an AI agent that can code just like you. You will no longer be needed.

1. I write very little code myself these days, and I'm pretty certain that LLMs are a very long way off from doing my type of science.

2. The type of code that LLMs can automate today is, to be frank, a waste of human capital anyways.

3. Good. Programming is a bottle neck for a lot of efforts that would substantially improve the human condition. Freezing software engineering at 2023 is weird and regressive.

I'm all for upending wage-based employment and huge parts of financial capitalism. Luddite labor movements aren't the way forward.

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

#119

Post by ke88y »

nathanfig wrote: post #30
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?

Not unlike software engineers objecting to their code being used to train their AI replacements.

Which I also don't understand.

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

#120

Post by thebradbain »

costanzaDynasty wrote: post #116
thebradbain wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your complaint is at the studios, including Netflix, then. They’re the ones who own the IP, they’re the ones who decide to use it. The actors have absolutely no say in whether Disney decides to make another Marvels movie or not. Actors are the ones looking for a gig, often any gig, but when they have a choice, the highest paying gig. And believe me, every actor and writer in Hollywood wishes studios would invest more…

No it's also with the actors, directors, producers who are equally as guilty in driving off the audience. All who were the most vocal and venomous of the amen chorus.

Producers are often studio executives, who are on the other side of this debate.

Directors are not on strike, as they are the closest of the unions with studios and have never been on strike in the history of their union.

I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make, this year Hollywood is on track to exceed its pre-covid performance at the Box Office worldwide and domestically. Netflix/etc are growing more than ever.

It seems like all signs point to this sector being on the up and up.

Post reply on HN