Like many I have loved movies my entire life and have an interest in the glitz, glamour and murkiness of Hollywood. For a few weeks now, I have been reading a few articles here and there about the joint strike action taking place in Hollywood by both writers and actors. Alongside the issue of pay, profit distribution and streaming, concern over the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI)I within the film and entertainment industry has emerged as a highly interesting issue. In a recent press conference earlier this month, Fran Dresher, president of the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), revealed that in SAG-AFTRA’s negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), it was discovered that some studios were advocating for the idea of scanning background/extra actors, paying them a single daily sum and then using their images in perpetuity presumably without additional pay for the actors involved (Hughes, 2023; Roundtree, 2023).
While this type of scanning, also known as VFX photography, is not a new practice or technology within the film industry, it seems to be something that sits uneasily with many actors with some fearing how studios will use their digital images, especially after their death (Lee, 2018). In an interview with Rolling Stone many actors who have participated in VFX felt confused as to exactly what they were being scanned for with many stating there was a lack of paperwork and/or clear explanation as to what their images were going to be used for (Roundtree, 2023). There seems to be a real and palpable unease within the industry that some actors may be replaced by their digital doppelgangers. As Cheyenne Roundtree writes:
Many voice their fear that those images and/or scans could be later used to train AI programs and develop full-body replicas in their likeness … Matthew Kershaw, Vice President of Commercial Strategy for AI firm D-ID, tells Rolling Stone he understands the concerns around the use of AI when it comes to making sure talent are confident that their images and rights are protected. “I suppose it’s a bit like the invention of the motorcar – no one was going to go back to horses,” Kershaw says, pointing to the implementation of traffic lights, street crossings, and safety provisions to help navigate the change. “What is going to be liberating also needs to be thought through, and you need to have safeguards and protections around it,” he adds (Roundtree, 2023).
In light of the media interest in this story, AMPTP responded to the expressed concerns of SAG-AFTRA and stated that its AI proposal had been misrepresented by SAG-AFTRA and that it did offer protection around the issue of digital replicas for SAG-AFTRA members though many within SAG-AFTRA remain sceptical of the protections AMPTP are offering in relation to VFX and AI. (Roundtree, 2023; Maddus & Rubin, 2023). AI is also worrying those who work in the fields of scriptwriting and voice acting (Smith, 2023). Although deeply concerned about AI’s impact on the future of scriptwriting, The Writers Guild of America, which represents TV and film writers, has not called for a ban on AI, as it was expected to, but urged caution and proposed that chatbots and AI could help with writing scripts so long as writers get to maintain the credit for the writing to ensure that writers and not software manufacturers receive residuals for the writing work (Smith, 2023; Maddus, 2023). Some voice actors are also fearful of how AI might affect their livelihoods. Tim Friedlander, president of the advocacy group, The National Association of Voice Actors, states that some voice actors have expressed concern that their voices are possibly being used to create synthetic voices or “train synthetic voices for machine learning” which might result in unlicensed versions of their voices being used without their permission and therefore depriving them of income and work (Smith, 2023).
As important as these matters are to the writers and actors who need to make a living wage from their craft and to protect the legacy of their work and images, the use of AI in the film industry goes beyond the issue of pay, rights and revenue streams. Other less defined almost existential queries arise as we contemplate AI and its potential contribution to the cultural zeitgeist of our present and our future. For example, what is an authentic expression of a story and of a character and how does its manifestation affect or not affect connection with an audience? If one day, AI could be trained to reproduce in a convincing manner, human mannerisms and expression, would that be as compelling to audiences as real acting done by humans? I know one of the reasons why I love film, theatre and opera is witnessing someone inhabit a role, to watch and observe and be convinced of, the emotional morphing of someone into someone else.
If a digital representation of a human executed the perfect habitation of a role, would it still feel the same for me knowing that no struggle or turmoil to inhabit a role by a real life actor was undertaken in order to portray this character? Would my investment in their narrative weaken as a result of this? Would it change or affect my connection to the story being told knowing that the portrayal of this character on screen was done through an AI program? It can be argued that in many ways, art just doesn’t exist on a surface level, limited to what the eye sees and what the mind observes. I think the value of art and artistic creation is linked in a rather intrinsic manner, to human struggle, effort and endeavour.
The imperfect and sometimes tortured way that humans learn to inhabit a role and then execute it is part of the art of acting. It’s why we value it creatively as a society. Acting is fallible, messy and taxing on the actors involved. I marvel at the sometimes bland exteriors actors give off in promotional interviews for their movies compared to the searing intensity of their performances within a role. It makes you realise how much must get consumed and burned up in the creation of the portrayal of a character. How much value does the neurosis, fragility, brittleness and vulnerability that humans bring to art and creative work worth? How much of this is part of art and artistic expression itself and moreover, part of the connection we feel to the art and creative work we consume?
Another area that I recently observed as having been impacted on by AI is a field far closer to home for me. It is writing. After finding out a little about AI writing tools such as Jasper AI and language model based chatbots like ChatGPT I soon realised that because these models and programs learn through their AI assistant and users interacting with it, AI could more than likely write like me, if not now, then one day. In the near future, I could more than likely have ChatGPT write my blogs and would you, as my reader, know? In this moment of technological revolution, I may have just become redundant, or at the very best, I have come closer to becoming redundant. I don’t use Jasper AI or ChatGPT so I do not know what their limits are nor at what stage of learning they are at so perhaps I have a little while yet to still be useful as a purveyor and examiner of ideas. But very likely AI will one day write a better blog post than I am capable of since it can draw on the vast amounts of knowledge available online and offer far more smooth, grammatically correct writing. But it wouldn’t be me writing and perhaps that is the difference and value of what I offer as a human trying to think and write about these ideas in a manner that I hope is both interesting and coherent.
My ideas and expression are imperfect and clouded by my perspective. My blog posts will never offer a completely fair, thoroughly researched and exhaustive account of anything. I try to offer well thought out thoughts informed by frankly ad hoc research that I often do on the hop and if you wanted some real information on a subject, your own research would probably be a better option than only just reading my blog post. But perhaps because my writing and thinking is flawed due to it being human based, this is what makes it worth reading. It is my own thoughts and perspective I offer. Maybe the connections we feel to the creative content that we consume are formed because of its imperfections and an understanding and empathy for the struggle of those who offer such things, to do their work well. When asked about the notion of AI writing an entire script, Ben Mankiewicz, a primetime host of Turner Classic Movies states, “I find it very hard to believe that it’s ever going to get the humanity that makes a screenplay great.” (Smith, 2023).
If in the long run, we can survive ourselves and the system we have created to live under which seems to be actively destroying the single planet we have to call home, what is the future for AI in relation to its contribution to the collective cultural pool? More importantly, it can be asked, does the output of the work of AI in the fields of writing, art, music and entertainment reflect and represent us as a human society? Where is the line between machine and human in regards to creative endeavour? If it has been made by a machine, can it be said to be an embodiment and representation of human emotion and stories? On some level, because of how AI programs learn, the answer is yes it can be but without an active human hand present within the creative process, will it be as relatable?
This brings us to a large question, why do we create? I feel the answer is fairly obvious: we create because we are expressive beings. A more pertinent question for me is why do we seek out creative content? Why do we watch movies, livestreams and YouTube, read books, listen to music, look at art and read online blogs and articles? Sometimes it’s because we are trying to learn new things but oftentimes it’s also because we are seeking out something ephemeral from our fellow humans. A connection and a desire to feel something, to be stimulated or inspired by emotion, ideas or thoughts.
The predictions about the impact of technological revolution on our society and how we interact with it are never complete or resolute. Remember how computers were meant to make offices paperless? There is no doubt that work will be lost to AI. I have read anecdotally that some writers have already been losing writing work to AI as some former clients turn to AI to generate marketing copy instead of employing a writer. We are at the beginning point of AI. What it is capable of seems to be rather immense and as such, it is quite improbable that we can predict at this present stage what its impact will be, both positive and negative. As David Smith writes for The Guardian:
AI is already earning comparisons to the agricultural revolution, industrial revolution and internet revolution. It is moving fast and gathering speed. The most profound effects for Hollywood and elsewhere have probably not yet been imagined (Smith, 2023).
I agree with Matthew Kershaw, Vice President of Commercial Strategy for AI firm D-ID, that safeguards and protections will be needed around AI as it rolls out but this seems easy to say and difficult to define. How do we know what safeguards and protections we need in relation to AI if we do not know how it will grow, learn and impact on us? I don’t think we should not seek to develop AI but who will define for us as a society what protections and safeguards are needed around AI? Ethicists? Government? Surely it would be reckless to leave it to those who are developing AI to determine their own safeguards and protections. Industry has often shown reluctance to properly self-police and self-regulate. Nick Bilton who has been covering the development of new technologies for over twenty years, writes in Vanity Fair:
GPT-3 is far from perfect. It can be wonky, repetitive, even racist. As TechCrunch noted in 2020, GPT-3 language models have associated the word Islam with terrorism, and female pronouns with the word naughty. That’s because it’s crawling text that has been written by humans in the past. These platforms are learning not from other A.I. entities but from us —which has its upsides from a creative standpoint, and its downsides from a humans-are-jerks perspective. Dall-E’s own documentation warns that words like personal assistant and flight attendant will generate images of women, and words like CEO will likely give you white men … The question is, will the creators of these platforms be able to discover the negatives before this tech is released into the public? (Which, let’s be honest, has never happened before in technological history.) Perhaps it will take years to foresee all the potential outcomes of these services. There’s a fun irony in the thought that the only thing saving our jobs from being replaced by algorithms is the fear that humans will do terrible things with the technology (Bilton, 2022).
Many of the articles I have read about AI end ominously. I think we are in danger of technological advances outstripping our ability to have the time to think about the ethics and impact serious and far reaching technological advancements like AI will have on our society. We rush into the future because there is money to be made by the few and many of us, despite ourselves, still nurture hope in our hearts that the future is still a bright, hopeful and better place than where we are today and surely wondrous technology will be part of that amazing future. I would like to think this too but my honest opinion is that without seriously dealing with climate change, I don’t see how we can have much of a future at all. But if we were able at some stage to ensure the long term health and safety of our planet and climate, I think we need to give studied thought about what makes us connect to artistic and creative endeavour and whether AI can fulfil what we seek when we look for the thing within art and creative work that soothes our souls and inspires us. Within this thought, you surely will find the value of a human.
References:
Bilton, N. (2 June, 2022). The New Generation of A.I. Apps Could Make Writers and Artists Obsolete. Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/06/the-new-generation-of-ai-apps-could-make-writers-and-artists-obsolete
Hughes, W. (13 July, 2023). SAG accuses studios of wanting to scan extras' faces so they can own them forever. A.V.Club. https://www.avclub.com/sag-accuses-studios-of-wanting-to-scan-extras-faces-so-1850638753
Lee, C. (12 December, 2018). Digital Doubles Are Revolutionizing Hollywood. But Why Do Movie Stars Hate Them? Vulture. https://www.vulture.com/2018/12/why-do-movie-stars-hate-being-digitally-scanned.html
Maddaus, G. (21 March, 2023). WGA Would Allow Artificial Intelligence in Scriptwriting, as Long as Writers Maintain Credit. Variety. https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/writers-guild-artificial-intelligence-proposal-1235560927/
Maddaus, G. & Rubin, R. (13 July, 2023). SAG-AFTRA Declares Double Strike as Actors Join Writers on Picket Lines. Variety. https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/sag-aftra-double-strike-wga-amptp-1235669492/
Smith, D. (23 March, 2023). ‘Of course it’s disturbing’: will AI change Hollywood forever? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/mar/23/ai-change-hollywood-film-industry-concern
Roundtree, C. (22 July, 2023). Hollywood’s Fight Against AI Puts Background Actors in the Spotlight. RollingStone. https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/hollywood-actors-strike-ai-background-visual-effects-sag-aftra-1234792405/
