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Actors say Hollywood studios want their AI replicas — for free, forever
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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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.
*Since those jobs can't pay enough what's wrong with replacing them with AI? Then they wouldn't be working in such poor conditions.
Maybe they could learn to code to be prepared for 'Jobs of the Future'
Once you AI has the ability to make "movies" then everyone will have the chance to make their own, something few people have the ability to do now. Isn't that gain much higher than a catering company closing?
They're not doing it to 'make ends meet.' That implies they're struggling to survive, not thrive.
Maybe once they start getting screwed over by copyright and patent laws, they'll stop advocating for them.
Then we can have AI movies, real movies, and any blend of the two. Only problem is nobody can use the government to protect their ideas.
It will result in cheaper products and services all around the world, at the expense of those making way too much money right now.
Do you know how much a lot of those positions make? A lot are in the $15/hour range if they're lucky. That's for a Production Assistant, others are very much in that range to. Given that numerous studies have shown that's not enough to live on depending on the state, it very much means they're struggling to survive.
Right. Do you know the difference between a need and a want?
It's not like these people are surviving off of peanut butter sandwiches.
Please, tell the starving kids of Africa those in LA aren't making enough money.
What's your point here? Are you just chaffed by the terminology? The point is there's a lot in the industry that are making a substandard wage. And now those at the top want to even take that away to make a few more pennies.
My point is that I don't care for people who want more money. Those who need it should come first.
Greedy, entitled people have been conflating to the two to fool others into thinking they always 'need' more. Just look at these comments. Some people really don't know the difference between want and need.
So… you want the rich to get richer because why bother to save anyone but the poorest of the poor?
No, I think copyright and patent laws need to die.
This will stop both parties from getting richer at everyone else's expense.
But this is about companies not wanting to have to pay for entry level actors ever again, making it even harder to get into unless you’re already rich, also meaning less jobs for everyone but those already rich. Meaning the entertainment industry pockets even more and wealth inequality (and thus likely the velocity of money in related areas) in the entertainment industry gets even worse than it already is. Yaaaay.
Then they should work together to end copyright and patent laws altogether.
Sorry for the wall of text but I just don't get your motivation for that thinking besides not being able to accept that life will never be fair.
We have means to protect our physical property. Copyright and patents are just a form of protection for intellectual property. If we get rid of patents and copyright, we could use the same argument to allow burglaries and theft.
Copyrights are to some extend a way to stop others from profiting of your work but its also a register of originality. A good real world example is researching blues and soul songs. Since a lot of them predate copyright laws (or, due to African American origin were less likely to go through copyright procedures during time of segregation) figuring out who the genius behind a melody or poetic lyrics was, gets quite messy.
Patents are a different story. They often refer to ideas that are not set in motion yet. This can be due to limitations in the patent holders ability to act upon his idea. Limitations are often monetary or lack of networking and experience. A patent guaratees that the person who came up with something has enough time to develop a plan to bring his idea into reality. Furthermore, if a person sees no way of reaching this goal he can sell or open the patent to let others try. Most (corporate) patents aren't for things but for procedures anyway. Everybody can think of some magical device that does whatever and patent it. But figuring out how to do a complex process in great detail and efficiency is where the real value of labor lies.
If we abolish patent law - as soon as an idea is formulated the entity with the biggest capability would scoop it up because they already have a foot in the game and the necessary funds to back it up. Essential somebody could come up with a solution to humanities problems and would have to buy his own invention from somebody else. This would either induce secracy and demotivate progress, or be the exact opposite of what you wanted. The people that need money would be left in the dirt by people who already have it.
We already have the reality of Chinas very loose interpretation of copyright and patent laws (especially foreign ones) for consumer goods. And as a consequence, Chinese off-brand goods aren't exactly the creme de la creme of quality manufacturing. The term "Chinese Knock-Off" is tied to a balant copy of unprotected originality. While all the high quality Chinese made parts are a product of enforced contracts and quality control procedures most of which are detailed in aforementioned patents.
I'm aware of the issue of corporation sitting on patents or investing in R&D just to be the first to patent something without actually using the new technology to avoid making their current tech (and income) obsolete. But these issues pale in comparison to the consquences of abolishing patent law.
And to bring the discussion back to the topic of the post, the issue goes even further. The copyright doesn't just involve a persons idea or product, but their whole likeliness. Actors already have to put in the work to maintain their apperence and somehow the studio now gets to own all of that. Its already hard enough to break into the industry even as an background actor, but now the studio scans you and says, "thanks, your services are no longer required, go devote your life to another skill or craft". Money aside, ownership implies that the studios can use your likeliness hower they please. What stops a studio from saying "Either you will show up for 20h shoots for the next week with minimum pay and shut up about it, or we will release a video of you raping a child."? Because as history has shown Hollywood is moraly so far above that. If not for solid copyright laws, those would be plausible consequences.
On the other hand, if studios could save a few bucks and not pay their actors, would streaming services suddenly become cheaper? Would ticket prices at cinemas go down? Be real here. Somebody will line their pockets and its not the people who need the money.
Nobody ever said life is fair.
If you're having trouble understanding my point, I can put it in clear and concise terms for you.
The disparity in wealth should shrink instead of grow.
I didn't read that wall of text. If you agree with the above statement, copyright and patent laws need to die. I assume you think the disparity in wealth should grow instead of shrink, that's why you're defending making money off of imaginary property. Please correct me if I am wrong in my assumption.
You should, it's a good read. But I now see where you're coming from, I spend some time writing an argument and you didn't value that time. A patent or a copyrighted product doesn't mean anything to you because you don't value the time behind it.
If you're still up for a read, I wrote the following before realizing you'd probably skip it.
I'm not going to correct you on your assumption of my intention because you are making a strawman argument here. But I'll put my personal opinion at the end none the less. I'm going to try to correct your understanding of copyright and patent law. These laws are in place to protect wealthy entities to steal ideas or products from the poor because they have the actual funds to put them to use.
You're metaphorically suggesting stopping air polution by burning all the oil fields down. You have cause and effect mixed up. Copyright and patent laws are what keeps the wealth gap from expanding further.
But as I see your point. Every idea or product should be open to everybody. I should be able to put some other artists songs on a CD and sell them as my own. Or print out a couple pictures I found on google and sell them as artwork at a street corner or put them on t-shirts when times get rough. My competitor should also know how I managed to increase part yield without affecting quality to stay competetive in hope that they won't use their higher production capabilities to outbid me at every corner essentialy failing my business and bringing them one step closer to monopoly. That will surely close the gap in wealth.
"If everything is free to use by everyone, what's my motivation to create something new? I can just wait for the next guy to come up with it and then take it for myself." said everybody, everywhere, all at once.
The wealth gap is a simple problem but our greasy little fingers made it complex. Partially mathematical partialy mental. Money flows to money 1% of $100 is $1 and 1% of a $10,000,000 its $10,000. Hard to loose if you get more bang for your buck. And we are still animals that are hoarders at heart. We just switched berries and meat for dollars and dimes. We take more than we need - sometimes because we expect hard times coming - sometimes just to show that we can. I don't think the wealthy should get richer and the poor poorer. But poor people should be able to get rich by profiting of their own creativity. Copyright and patents allow that. We had millennia to solve this issue and nobody came up with something and lived to tell. If life wasn't actively working against entropy we'd be a warm sphere of chemicals orbiting the sun. Wealth distribution is in a way entropy and life is actively working against it too, if you want to get philosophical. Its like salt- and freshwater divided by a membrane you get pressure between them, you just need to make sure the membrane is possible to cross.
It's just not that easy.
Sure, you know what. I'll read it just because you said.
I'm not even joking.
Hey man, now that I read back what I wrote, I don't know why I was being so pushy and aggressive. I respect your difference in opinion. Thinking about it, I actually found it hard to choose my word as to not accidently prove you right, so there must be something to you argument. I'm now thinking about how Philips is cavaliering the integrated ambient lightning for TVs through a patent which pisses me of honestly and I wish they couldn't (because their TVs are kinda meh). You're alright.
I worked sound on movies. Not big budget ones, but they were still movies made by studios.
It didn't pay well.
I'm sure you did less work for more money than the vast majority of people struggling in Africa.
You chose to stay in LA, one of the most expensive cities in the world.
So people should make less money in more developed countries because people in Africa do? What are you arguing for here? A person making $30 instead of $15 an hour isn't going to affect Africa in any tangible way. Global wealth inequality is a much larger issue than Hollywood, and I'm not sure why they would even be brought into the same argument.
I'm arguing the disparity in wealth should shrink and people like those in the article are just passing a bunch of money around at the top.
We have the excess to help those less fortunate, but we'd rather further ourselves because it's what's cool. It's a cultural issue centered around the idea that those who have more deserve more and those who have less don't matter.
People like you get really mad whenever anyone suggests anything to the contrary and that's why these problems don't get solved. People like you don't care to solve them.
The people mentioned in the article are background actors. Extras. Look it up, they only get paid $100-200 a day. Even if they were an extra every weekday of the year that's $26,000 a year. These people aren't getting rich.
I'm not mad. I agree with helping elevate Africa economically to help it become a more developed part of the world. I just don't think that a thread about background actors being digitally copied to stiff them on potential poverty wages is the best use of your time for your attempted efforts to help Africa.
They still have more wealth and higher quality of life than the vast majority of people ever to walk to the Earth.
Have you noticed how all of these people always need more money? It's because the moment they get more, prices go up and they're right back where they started. All of these happens while children go without food, water, electricity, shelter, and education. These problems will not be solved by doing the same thing we've been doing.
The solution isn't to make more. It's to spend less. When that becomes sexy, these problems will be solved overnight.
Please explain to me how people in poverty in the US spending less money helps people in Africa.
Prices won't be able to rise and we'll have more excess to give to those who need it.
It's a pretty simple concept if you put forth even the slightest amount of effort into understanding it.
Ask the opposite. How does paying Americans more help global poverty? Oh yeah, it doesn't. Lol. That's all according to plan. That's what I mean by "passing a bunch of money around at the top."
We focus on 'space tourism' before children have food and water. These problems will never be solved if people keep listening to your rhetoric, which unfortunately they do.
Wake me up when the problems get solved doing something I don't suggest. I'd love to admit when I'm wrong so long as the problems get solved. But you're just repeating history because you haven't learned from it yet.
Have you met "people"? Almost no one is going to give excess money to developing countries without knowing there are logistics in place to make sure the money goes to good use.
So I guess these background actors should stop expecting wages and just die from poverty? Or are you expecting the money "passing...around at the top" to trickle down to everyone in the world. Money "at the top" doesn't have any actual fucking value. It's fake currency that sits in bank accounts as large numbers. It doesn't help anyone in the world, especially developing countries.
You are arguing about human rights equality in a thread about Hollywood actor unions. Is your time spent here helping anyone at all?
"These problems will never be solved".
"Wake me up when the problems get solved".
You are actively participating in not helping people of Africa my man.
Wow, you really took out the mental gymnastics to avoid admitting people with more wealth than average should have even more.
It's okay. Just say you think the disparity in wealth should grow instead of shrink and we can go on with our lives.
We don't have to be on the same side.
Are no point did I say or even suggest that. I don't think billionaires should exist.
Well you can be sure of that, but it would be a lie. Days on set can be 20 hours. And then you have to come back and do another 20 hour day the next day. And you get paid very little for doing it unless you're on a big budget film, which I never was.
Might want to see how people live in Burundi before you call it a lie.
And keep in mind, you're only subjected to this conditions so people richer than you can be even richer at your expense. (Long hours, low wages, high rent)
This is what I mean by passing a bunch of money around at the top. It doesn't even matter if you make more money because it's just going to end up in the hands of landlords and investors. All of does is drive up inflation, making it so the truly poor people never benefit from our excess.
Right, so if I want to complain, I have to be a dirt farmer in Burundi. Otherwise my life is too luxurious.
No. I suggest you re-read what I said.
I am literally saying the opposite of that when I say "I'm not in the all or nothing camp."
Edit: You got 8 upvotes for being wrong, lol. People are really upset when rhetoric goes against the status-quo.