Hollywood is on strike. For the first time in more than six decades, both writers and actors have walked off the job. They are protesting, principally, the disruption to residual payments in the age of streaming. But they also are fighting to prevent studios from using actors’ digital likenesses without their consent, a prospect they rightly believe will threaten their livelihoods and their reputations as artists.
It’s a delicate time. The arrival of ChatGPT last November sent ripples through the creative industries. The chatbot’s ability to churn out believable, detailed text material had scriptwriters wondering if their skills would one day no longer be needed.
Then, as artificial intelligence started displaying jaw-dropping capabilities in generating images and video, people started to envision something even more disruptive: What if AI could eliminate the need for real filmmaking entirely? The technology to make this a reality isn’t quite ready, but it is developing at an intense pace thanks to billions of dollars in venture capital funding and big tech R&D.
On Thursday, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, chief negotiator for the striking Screen Actors Guild, said during a press conference that studios were already gearing up for the time when the work of “background performers,” or extras, would involve being scanned, getting a single day’s pay, after which studios own those likenesses for the rest of eternity.
Studios challenged that characterisation, saying their proposals included “groundbreaking” provisions that would allow of the use of AI but give actors ultimate consent on how any digital replicas would be used.
One dystopian (and highly entertaining) take on how this might play out has come via Black Mirror, the future-gazing Netflix series that in its latest season includes a portrayal of actors’ worst nightmare. In the episode, Salma Hayek, playing herself, unwittingly signs away the rights to allow her digital likeness to act out absolutely anything — with disgusting results.
The series is designed as a dark comedy. But in creative circles, the lack of agency over one’s actions is an immediate and serious concern. At Bloomberg’s Technology Summit last month in San Francisco, I met with Hilary Krane, chief legal officer at Creative Artists Agency. The company represents thousands of film stars and other creatives. As Krane put it: “If we’re in a world where technologists believe that the likeness of human beings does not belong to those human beings, because they're reducible to zeros and ones, we've upended a major pillar of our economy.”
Krane is right. An actor’s right not to be in a production should be heavily protected, not just for financial reasons but on artistic principle. Building a body of work, and deciding what to include in it and when, is a deeply personal process. Until studios start to grasp this, they will be airing a lot of reruns.
The threat to artists doesn’t just come from movie and TV studios trying to exert control and cut costs. It’s also from the coming torrent of AI tools that will mean just about anyone could recreate a person’s likeness and have them appear to engage in performances or acts without their consent. Just this week, an AI-generated image depicting actress Jennifer Lawrence proliferated on Twitter, receiving more than six million views. This is the very tip of the iceberg.
Likewise, the now-conjoined writers and actors strike represents just the beginning of dealing with the repercussions of AI in film and TV. Over the course of decades, compromises will need to be made: It would be naive to try to prevent AI from playing a large role in the future of film. But creatives should have input in how and why AI is used.
We are a long way from being able to craft compelling entertainment solely from AI. Indeed, that day might never come.
Writing in Vanity Fair earlier this month, John Lopez, who is part of the Writers Guild of America’s AI working group, described Hollywood as essentially being in the business of capturing the “miracle of human connection into a moving image.” There’s no doubt that machines can easily grasp the technicalities around the second half of that aim. But human connection? You won’t find data that can explain why great creative works work.
If and when the time comes, and studios start churning out cheap AI-powered entertainment, we may well find that people instinctively vote
with their wallets, rewarding productions that maintain the essence of great filmmaking, with all its human complexities.
Dave Lee is Bloomberg Opinion's US technology columnist. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.
Credit: Bloomberg
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