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Actors say Hollywood studios want their AI replicas — for free, forever (www.theverge.com)

submitted 1 year ago by developerjustin@kbin.social to c/tech@kbin.social

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No, this is not a Black Mirror episode.

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[-] 0xtero@kbin.social 38 points 1 year ago

The music and film industry have been exploiting this for decades and changing the entire model to a system where artists don't hold copyrights or get compensated for their work, content or (soon) bodies. Art does not enter the public domain anymore. Greed is all there is.

Burn it all down.

[-] Bipta@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

[-] ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 30 points 1 year ago

A typical point that I severely miss from most discussions about AI is what it means for future artists or, in this case, future actors. And therefore what it means for us as a society.

By taking the art from the artists, regardless of whether it's an actor, illustrator, author, etc.., the way it is done currently, we will see much fewer people who will even try to learn these skills, or share them. At some point there won't be anything new anymore.

[+] nicetriangle@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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[-] ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 4 points 1 year ago

These are my thoughts exactly as well. I find it especially infuriating how in some discussions and articles about AI people try to spin a tale of artists being these allegedly elitist "bourgeois" individuals. And with AI now supposedly "the little man" can finally unfold their creative potential. In truth I suspect it's more the other way around.

It looks to me like the only kinds of people who could afford to get into my line of work in the future are people with rich parents or something

Someone from a not so well-off background but with dedication and grit was more likely to get their feet into illustration, für example, then they are now.

Instead people who already probably come from a privileged background (PC, technical knowledge, money to pay for AI credits) can just swarm the market without needing to dedicate much time at all.

[-] nicetriangle@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

I saw a comment on reddit a while back on the topic that I thought really hit the nail on the head in terms of the typical discourse I keep seeing on AI with respect to art and other creative work

“If they [tech bros] don’t value art that's fine, but it’s sad that people who don’t value art are the ones who think they should be deciding what direction art goes in.”

[-] effingjoe@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

Maybe I'm overlooking something, but isn't the actual change that doing these things will no longer be a viable way to earn a living?

[+] nicetriangle@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

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[-] effingjoe@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago

but isn't the artistic field already a lottery when it comes to making a living doing it? Maybe I have the wrong impression, but I feel like if "I very likely won't be able to make a living doing this" actually discouraged new art from getting created, it already would be doing that.

[-] Zeppo@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago

Only if you’re looking at the very top of the profession, like people who hit it big as stars. There are a lot of other levels of employment and success short of Banksy or Beeple level.

[-] Ferk@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

My hope is that deep-faking tech might actually help lower levels of the profession, even if it's at the expense of those at the top who get huge amounts of money because of how famous their face is.

Imho, Studios don't even need to copy a famous actor's face.. just create a face of a person who doesn't exist and make it into a new famous character by stamping it into a good (even if not top famous) actor.

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[+] nicetriangle@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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[-] effingjoe@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

That's fair; the person I first responded to seemed to be discussing the "fine art" part.

How worried are you personally about these more advanced machine learning tools? Just a month or so ago I was playing a Pathfinder (rpg) video game and didn't care or any of the built-in avatar images, so I hopped onto one of the websites that make an image based on a text prompt to make me an image that matched my character and it took a few times to get the right wording but in the end I got a pretty good image out of it. I vaguely know how it works. (vaguely is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence) and it still seemed kind of like magic.

[+] nicetriangle@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

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[-] effingjoe@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

the clients (no offense) tend to be less professional

I don't know what you mean by this precisely, but the "pretty good" end result I mentioned had a hand that melted into the sword-- so if you meant "low standard" then yeah, guilty as charged, haha. However, more interesting to me is that I would have never in 1000 years have paid someone to do that for me-- I just would have been low-level annoyed that my character and the avatar looked different the entire game.

I find the "they didn't have permission to train from" argument is complete bunk. That's not a right granted by intellectual property laws; there is no "right to control who learns from a work".

What needs to happen is society (especially US society) needs to stop linking "working" and "enjoying a comfortable life". Technology is coming for all our jobs, and the sooner we accept that and prepare for it, the better we'll be when it happens.

[-] nicetriangle@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't know what you mean by this precisely

By that I mean that some dude looking for a game avatar or whatever isn't as likely to be someone used to contracting people to do professional creative work for them. Professional clients who are accustomed to hiring creatives to do work for them are more likely to:

be quick to provide feedback and respond to emails
have feedback that is clear and actionable
communicate professionally
pay on time
be willing to pay a down payment and sign a contract
comprehend the hard work that goes into this stuff and value my time accordingly
don't try to push a project (either intentionally or otherwise) into what is known as "scope creep" wherein they jockey for additional work outside of the initially agreed upon scope of work

And lots of other little things like that.

Am I saying that you are like that? No. But having done creative work for north of 15 years this is my informed opinion based on a lot of experience in this field.

I find the "they didn't have permission to train from" argument is complete bunk. That's not a right granted by intellectual property laws; there is no "right to control who learns from a work".

That's your opinion and you might feel differently if you had spent years working hard to achieve something in this specific field.

What needs to happen is society (especially US society) needs to stop linking "working" and "enjoying a comfortable life". Technology is coming for all our jobs, and the sooner we accept that and prepare for it, the better we'll be when it happens.

This I fully agree with. And I wouldn't even necessarily have a problem with AI destroying creative jobs if it meant I was now more free to pursue a life of spending time doing things that I was passionate about because some kind of UBI or whatever was making that possible for me and others.

Like I kinda mentioned earlier, I don't think society is in a good place to fight for this on at least the short term. Basically not until things get really bad. What I expect will happen for now is most all of the windfalls from automation will be siphoned up to to the upper class and corporations and wages will continue to stagnate for the working class and income inequality will continue to skyrocket.

[-] effingjoe@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

That's your opinion and you might feel differently if you had spent years working hard to achieve something in this specific field.

It's not really an opinion; it's just not a right granted by IP laws. I know that people that are financially dependent on this type of work really wish they had this right-- and I fully accept that if I were in the same boat, I would probably also wish I had this right, but that doesn't magically add it to the law.

All the lawsuits you see popping up are hail marys (maries?); they'll very likely all lose.

some kind of UBI or whatever was making that possible for me and others.

Something like this, set at a level that allowed a comfortable life (versus an austere one) would totally flip the whole employment dynamic. The pay for the worst jobs would skyrocket, because no one wants to do those jobs-- they only do them now to stave off starvation and homelessness.

siphoned up to to the upper class and corporations and wages will continue to stagnate for the working class and income inequality will continue to skyrocket

I can't help but agree, with sorrow. I imagine it won't get better (in the US, at least) until it impacts the wealthy-- as in, there aren't enough people getting paid to buy the stuff that is getting created by automation. Capitalism needs money flowing to the bottom (traditionally, a wage) to sustain itself. If that flow of money dries up, the whole system collapses. We can either fix it by abandoning capitalism, or by patching capitalism by finding a way for money to flow down other than by wages. (A UBI, for example)

[-] nicetriangle@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In my earlier comment in this thread I said my dilemma with using AI for my work was an ethical one, not a legal one. Ethics/morals inform laws for sure, but I think you'd agree that not everything that's technically legal is also ethical. Especially so in a country like the US.

I think a lot of people would also agree that ethics are to some extent individual. Meaning that what I find ethical or not is going to differ from others. So whether or not this is all legal doesn't mean that it's going to jive with my personal view of what is ethical.

That dilemma is my own. Whether or not congress people who have a weak grasp of both technology and the arts think one way or another on the matter is a poor ruler for one's own moral code of conduct in my book.

In any case, good chat. I appreciate that while we don't agree on everything we kept it civil. Now back to work for me (before it gets taken by a robot).

[-] effingjoe@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

I understand that you may not reply because you feel the discussion has run its course, but I wanted to clarify that I was, indeed, not following that you were speaking from a personal morality standpoint. Sorry about that.

[-] nicetriangle@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

No worries

[-] Ragnell@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I find the "they didn't have permission to train from" argument is complete bunk. That's not a right granted by intellectual property laws; there is no "right to control who learns from a work".

Yeah, but is an AI LEGALLY learning? Or is it just a machine that spits out output based on its inputs? In that case, use of the work as input isn't allowed under the copyright, which is that the work be used by reading it.

All these comparisons between what an AI is doing and what a human does when reading/learning/etc are not a given in a court of law. We don't have any rulings yet that an AI is actually "learning" like a human when it is "trained."

"Training" an AI is building a tool. A tool that can be used to profit. Can artistic works be used to build a for-profit tool without permission?

This is something that needs to be decided, and it will be decided in a way that whatever the rules are for AI can't be applied to a human. Meaning if there is a requirement for permission for use in machine learning, that won't change that a human can learn from it. So the comparison is pointless, because there is no way the courts are going to rule that these things are legally indistinguishable from people.

In the meantime, back to the original, there ARE precedents for use of performance because of recordings. That's why the studios wanted that in the contract, they KNOW they cannot manipulate a person's performance through AI without their express written permission. Is it REALLY so hard to believe this can be applied to writing or art? That they can't use writing or art without the artist's express permission.

We may see a new kind of copyright soon that specifically disallows use for AI, and another that is open for use with AI. Something to replace Creative Commons on the internet.

[-] effingjoe@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

There simply isn't a right to control even training. That's just not a thing. It would need a change to the law.

[-] Ragnell@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

All right, I am not a lawyer but I've been around the internet long enough to know there is arguably a right to control learning and training. Because the Fair Use copyright law SPECIFICALLY allows for educational use. That means the default is that otherwise, it would not be allowed.

A judge could easily rule that AI training is not covered under Fair Use, as it is being used to create a profitable tool.

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[-] ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

No. Before you could actually live (albeit barely) on being a designer or an illustrator, small gig actor or author for articles, musician for jingles, etc.. Even when you weren't the best and famous already. Artists are already seeing this slipping away and with further advances in AI you really do need to be one of the already famous people to do these types of art as a viable job.

[-] Zeppo@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

That’s the problem - it take a lot of practice and experience to get really good at graphic design or illustration. When people are paying you to do it, you can afford to do it all day. If not, you need to spend the majority of your time doing something else, so it takes longer to advance in skill. I see this in my own field with hobbyists/people who do art on the side vs people who do it full time.

[-] ParsnipWitch@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

Most artists can't earn their entire livelihood by their craft alone. Even those considered good, in most cases, need a main job.

But even the little money you make from your art can at least pay for art supplies (which are very expensive). Learning to be a good in your craft costs an enormous amount of patience, time and money as well. With no money at all to be made out of it, no commissions, and your work immediately flowing into the AI pipeline, new artists will be further discouraged from even trying to hone that craft.

[-] effingjoe@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

You may very well be right on the money here, but I find it at least plausible that a market for "human-made" art becomes a thing if computer-made art becomes a thing.

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[-] delawen@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago

We are doing all the AI thing wrong. We were supposed to be replacing hard repetitive manual work with technology. Not replace the art creation.

puts on Obi-Wan's beard

"Technology, you were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the need for work, not join them! Let us focus on culture and enlightment, not leave us with the hard manual work!"

[-] awsamation@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

The problem is that replacing art is an entirely software task. You don't have to figure out a robotics issue for actual manual labor to be done. And for white collar work, art doesn't have an objectively correct finishing point, spreadsheets and reports do.

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[-] delawen@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago

Don't worry, this is only a problem until they can fully generate actors from scratch. It's just a matter of time.

[-] Supernova@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

So much this, creating actor's looks and personality from scratch to fit the demographics is an Hollywood exec wet dream.

[-] LennethAegis@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

"I'm thinking, muscular, gruff looking white man who loves his kids".

[-] mPony@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Years ago a music studio generated an Asian pop artist. (I can't provide details about it because when I web-search for it I get a hundred results telling me how I can do the same thing myself.)
It's already been done, it's _being _done now, and we're not far away from it being relatively undetectable.

[-] donuts@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

The little secret of AI is that it can't generate shit from scratch. It relies on a large and diverse training dataset in order to make anything at all.

[-] JackbyDev@programming.dev 9 points 1 year ago

To put it in perspective they want to have a background actor on set for one day, scan them, then use that forever and not just for that movie. And only pay them for one day of work.

[-] Guadin@k.fe.derate.me 4 points 1 year ago

That's fine. Than we will only buy one movie and get all the other ones for free, since we already paid for one...

[-] awderon@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

The actors should get license fees everything their likeness is used. The movie studios already rake in a ton of money.

Book authors also get royalties when their books are published, why not use a similar system.

[-] donuts@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Working people need to all be ready to reject a new wave of AI-powered exploration, the scope and scale of which we have never seen before.

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this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023

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