 Holy shit. "…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." WTAF 😳 https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/13/23794224/sag-aftra-actors-strike-ai-image-rights 123 comments
@freeformz @jaredwhite Sigh. Right? Just... not even surprising. Their strike is the only thing that is going to make a dent in negotiations.  I can't see what you're replying to. I still don't quite understand how the fediverse works. Regardless, I completely agree! 😁 Edit: found it through your profile on the reply tab. I completely agree even more lol    @jaredwhite one of the many reasons why I feel everyone should watch that particular episode of Black Mirror. @joannejacobs I should watch it, but I stopped watching the show some time ago—not because I didn't like it, but because once it clicked in my brain that it was prophetic, not merely fantastical, it scared the living daylights outta me 😬 @joannejacobs Whoa…that episode *is* absolutely phenomenal. And bonkers in light of what's literally happening right now. Wait…am I real? 😂 This is what it is all about. If the actors and writers accept that AI can be used in place of them then they've effectively forfeited their future. I mean, if they're paying $50,000 per day, maybe, but can you imagine giving up your likeness, in perpetuity for an extra's day rate. AI has given media executives brain worms.  @jaredwhite   @chrisisgr8 The big media brands like hollywood just can literally replace everyone with machines - use ChatGPT for screenplay generation, and some other generative algorithm to transform this screenplay to an audiovisual stream. And it would be cheaper for studios to fire all people and use robots and algorithms instead, than agree for terms. "Organic" movies. series, comics, and books will soon be a luxury for rare hobbyists. @Susan_Larson_TN Gosh I did not asked for a screenplay example.... I just guessed how it would go...  @PeteZ Well, this would be used to scroll up watches counting - bots that simulate numbers of watches or downloads of a media to say that some content is popular, and it can exist even today to skew recommendations (ratings) algorithms.  @PeteZ @dozymoe @koteisaev @chrisisgr8 Fred Pohl's story "The Midas Plague" proposed something close to that, with robots set to consuming the products of robot labor. @dozymoe People can be fan of anything - a book, a computer or tabletop game, anime, even of just iPhone brand, or Sophie robot.  @koteisaev @chrisisgr8 @PJ_Evans Who cares? "Just few glitches to fix, boss, and we can double the profit in next 6 months!!!" @koteisaev @chrisisgr8 No, they're fooling themselves if they think anyone would watch the garbage that produced. AI is just like crypto, infested with ppl with too much money getting high on their own supply. @jaredwhite This sums up capitalism - they want workers as close to slavery as they can get away with. It’s a shit system designed to suck all power and resources to the elites. They just replaced monarchy with oligarchy.  @HellaPterodactylSkills @jaredwhite My friend of the internet... it is all the same picture (monarchy, oligarchy, capitalism...) @jaredwhite wow. I wrote in a blog post how a filmmaker told me (years ago): "I can't wait for it to be possible to use any dead actor in my films". My naive self didn’t think we’re already at this stage. Awful.  @ohhelloana @jaredwhite We aren't yet at that stage for principal performers, but it looks like we are reaching that stage for background performers (extras). Looks like they think they can stop hiring people, just CGI in scans of people who got paid for one day's work.  @ohhelloana@mastodon.social @jaredwhite@indieweb.social @jaredwhite this is totally shitty, but can't help to wonder how long until they don't even need to scan them, just make up 3d scans like you can do pictures. Us civilians, who enjoy all the TV and Movies, can show solidarity with the unions by cancelling our streaming subscriptions until the strikes are over. I've cancelled mine. ✌️ @jaredwhite Fuck Hollywood-Big Entertainment, their greed, shortsightedness and shareholder gluttony makes me sick to my stomach!  The billionaires have no intention of allowing the rest of us to remain ALIVE once they've finished training their robot slaves to do all our jobs The end game isn't to sell more stuff, it's genocide of all people who aren't "people like us"  @jaredwhite This may be a good time to remember that Luddites didn't smash machines because they hated technology. They smashed machines because they hated the way technology was being used to exploit and dehumanize workers to enrich greedy factory owners. @JamesBazan @jaredwhite Reminds me of a discussion I had with a work colleague a while back who was astounded that I wasn't on Facebook. His assumption was that I'd never been on it and therefore didn't understand it which is why I was, in his words, "scared of it". I said to him that I'd been on Facebook for ten years before deleting my account and I wasn't concerned because I didn't understand it, I was concerned because I do understand it.   Hell no. That's some major BS. The comic book "American Flagg" by Howard Cahaykin warned about that very thing in the 1980s. But leads as well.  @jaredwhite I think I'll just stop watching new media then. There's enough old stuff. I won't participate in this. @jaredwhite ... I'm sure there are tens of thousands of non actors in LA who'd be more than willing to spend 15 minutes to get 3d scanned and get paid an actor's daily wage. I doubt they would object to a lifetime license if all they'll be is background 'props' anyway. But then again... that's obviously not the real point with this proposal. It might be time for a more federated New Hollywood V.2 @lumiworx that's the question though, right? what's the point of even trying to become a working actor if only a sliver of big-name celebs get any parts and everything else is AI. We saw hordes of CGI orcs in Return of the King and thought it was cool. Now every part in any movie besides maybe a few leads could be insterted with AI. Where does it end?? @jaredwhite ... United Artists was formed to combat the big studios of the time for these very same reasons, but over time, it was gobbled up and turned into yet another studio conglomerate. The same thing could be created again with an eye on modern issues beyond just base pay, but maybe that wouldn't be enough. AI may need to be employed and controlled by the individual who's job it directly impacts, and kept out of corporate hands to curb its abuse towards employees and/or contractors.  Then we need to find out who those people are and never buy anything at a store that ever bores them agaon @jaredwhite There is a false capitalism/tech culture of fatalism - as if for some reason human decisions are predestined like natural acts and cannot humanly be opposed, stopped, banned. Capital is now seeking to make workers unnecessary. Society will crumble if people can't work and have livelihoods. We must all oppose this crap with all our might.   @jaredwhite if these studios still had writers, they would have been told that this kind of plot is way too unrealistic for any movie 😩😩 Seriously how does real life continue to be dumber than any fiction? @jaredwhite all the actors and writers should band together and create their own production company with favorable terms in a contract and undercut the AMPTP instead of putting up with this nonsense If they break the union I wont watch anything new. Ever again except art house cinema and productions owned and run by actual people Well that blew up. I don't have a SoundCloud, but I do have other stuff I publish related to generative AI…however you really should just go to the source and support the work of the DAIR Institute. @timnitGebru, @emilymbender, and the rest of the crew there have been sounding the alarm for a long time now and some have paid the price for it. We owe them a debt of gratitude. @jaredwhite @timnitGebru @emilymbender They now have images that are in the public domain for most of the entire population of the world. It's time to eat the rich  @jaredwhite Nobody but a sentient, autonomous Italian suit would think up this shit... It is shit like this that is why I believe entertainment industries should either be entirely government funded, or at the very least, VERY heavily regulated. @jaredwhite They will probably generate ai people for this. The tech is already in play. Another job lost to the machines.. @jaredwhite it just means they want to use technology to rob you. It also means they don’t have deep knowledge of technology because they can make a better you with superpowers and they can save time and money on that scan. Or you. There is an old science fiction story* that has android copies of actors, running "pre-recorded" performances on stage. But even that dystopian vision had actors owning their likeness and performances, and being paid residuals every time "they" appeared on stage. *The Darfsteller, by Walter M. Miller Jr.  @jaredwhite  @jaredwhite Hollywood movies already suck it's wacky they want to make them suck even more by replacing actors with AI @jaredwhite But who will watch the movies & shows when the people in the audience are replaced in their jobs by robots.   @jaredwhite isn’t this what Keanu Reeves presented kinda in the Unreal Engine 5 ‘Matrix Demo’? :thinktink:  @jaredwhite Obviously, they think bit-part actors, and extras, can live on the US$200 payment for eternity, too. Actors striking is real-time Reality Biting! @jaredwhite@indieweb.social pretty sure I just watched this episode of Black Mirror... @jaredwhite AI is coming and no one can stop it. What needs to be done is figure out what the displaced workers can do to make a living.   @jaredwhite I become increasingly grateful for my childhood memories. I also become increasingly sad for future generations who will miss out… 👎 @jaredwhite The point here, when the bad guy gets the job he asks for his cut, he's the villian. When we work we get a set fixed amount regardless of the profits. I want to be the bad guy. This is a joke. @jaredwhite Some years ago, a friend of mine who was a pretty regularly employed actor as "atmosphere" on office-set sitcoms went to an audition that was only a body scan and a waiver. That was when he left Hollywood and became a successful photographer @jaredwhite Celebrities are protected from having their images stolen in California by the Celebrity Rights Act...this needs to be extended to everyone and federalized. This would have the additional effect of making nonconsensual deep fakes illegal. @jaredwhite They tried the same thing with musicians when recording technology became viable. @jaredwhite If Hollywood gets their way there will be no more actors and they will be all replaced with mediocre AI. Stand with the actors. @jaredwhite Let's keep in mind, Hollywood studios proposed this. If you are given a shitty contract, don't sign it. Hopefully noone or at least a very small amount of actors sign this, where this method is not going to become a standard. Anyways, about time to regulate AI, starting from the application in creative aspect. @jaredwhite This totally sucks. It's also a completely logical argument under our capitalist system. Get the most you possibly can for the least you can possibly pay. Just to be clear, I agree with you and it's horrible. I'm saying this because most people don't understand this is what we sign up for when we continue to allow capitalism and specifically corporations to take over our government, society, values, etc.  @jaredwhite Some time soon, everybody will be able to generate convincing entirely artificial humanoid characters, and background actors won't be needed anymore, not even to be scanned and turned into a computer model. @jaredwhite In the early days of the recording industry (Edison) famous musicians were hired and paid their normal performance wage. Then they were told to sing or play into the machine, and the records were sold for millions. The performers only got their normal day's wage. Pretty soon the well known musicians refused such terms, and demanded a percentage. Artists and labels have been fighting over royalties ever since. Something similar will happen here.  @jaredwhite That proposal is so outlandish that it seems like the studios cannot possibly be arguing in good faith. @jaredwhite if this isn’t followed by a general strike of _all_ creatives, regardless of sector or specialty, then I just don’t know anymore @jaredwhite@indieweb.social That sounds vile. I will be the first to admit that I have only a thumbnail sketch grasp of how any of that sort of thing works, but couldn't they just make stuff up? Average height person, average facial characteristics, maybe a few tweaks here and there. What I mean is can't the software already generate pseudo-humans and skip paying a real person altogether? |
Gregory's Server
@jaredwhite oh fuck right off. They are unbelievable.