We've talked previously about AI and Music - but let's turn our AI attention towards something in the news recently. The SAG has come to terms with producers (and of this writing is about to take a vote) on a new deal which covers aspects of artificial intelligence and its use to replace human actors.


The Issue

Issues related to artificial intelligence (AI) in Hollywood and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) have become increasingly prevalent. As AI technologies advance, concerns about job displacement for actors and technicians arise. The use of deepfake technology raises ethical questions regarding the manipulation of actors’ likenesses without their consent. Let's face it, not having your likeness used without consent sure seems like it would be a basic human right. (And let's not go down the road of deep-fake pornography.)

SAG faces the task of adapting regulations to address these emerging challenges, ensuring fair compensation and protection for its members. Balancing technological innovation with the preservation of artistic integrity and job security remains a complex issue in the entertainment industry.

In its recent tentative agreement with producers, the Screen Actors Guild has recognized AI in movies as an inevitability and there's some push-back from actors claiming SAG is giving up too much on this issue. Here's a great writeup in Mashable you should check out.


Predicting The Future

I can't claim to be a futurist. Or even an AI expert. World-class AI experts and futurists will both get a lot of this wrong. But you don't have to be Nostradamus to predict that if Hollywood studios CAN screw somebody, they WILL screw somebody.


Podcast Episode

This week Justine Bateman made a great appearance on The Town With Matthew Belloni podcast. (If you are at all interested in the business of the entertainment industry, it's the best podcast out there on the subject.) You may remember Bateman is an actress on Family Ties among other things but she has since become a producer-director and heavily involved in tech, with a UCLA degree in computer science and has testified in Congress on net neutrality.

She's been probably the most outspoken critic of AI replacing humans in film and tv productions, and she's been trying to educate actors about what is likely to happen if they ratify the SAG-negotiated deal on Dec 5, 2023.

At the risk of mispresenting her main points, here are my paraphrased bullet points of likely results of increased AI in movies.

1. Actors will flat-out lose jobs.
2. This also results in fewer crew jobs. Even if the same amount of live filming happens in movies, without the actors we're losing wardrobe, hair, makeup jobs. And very likely means less filming period, so fewer crew jobs across the board.
3. Less live actors means fewer/smaller union dues payments going to SAG itself.
4. Even if you wanted to sue for your likeness being used, the provability that YOUR face was being used as opposed to 7 billion other humans is legally difficult almost to the point of impossibility.
5. Producers can use AI and just get turnkey approval; they just declare they're using AI, pay whatever service fee there is - but no individual negotiation with actors about the use.
6. "Background actors" (aka "extras") are being increasingly marginalized by increased AI, so fewer chances for budding actors to get experience this way.
7. Other unions such as directors and writers have negotiated with the word "human" (as in "human directors") in the contracts. Not so, apparently, for actors. So what can be defined as an actor gets very muddy.
8. At the very least AI generators need to disclose list of what films and actors were used for the model of their synthetic actors. SAG is not doing that or arguing for it.
9. The new agreement apparently does nothing to tackle the issue of retroactively replacing actors' faces in old films.

It's a great discussion. I urge you to listen to it in full:



In Increments

Computer scientist and futurist Ray Kurzweil has been on this beat for decades. I remember reading his book The Age Of Spiritual Machines he seemed, in my mind, to be defending cyborgs or synthetic beings - although I think he was just being pragmatic.

In that book I recall that we all get scared by the idea of sentient androids. But the road to get there happens in small increments. Each little bit of progress seems sensible. Would you argue against a robotic arm to replace a veteran's severed limb? Probably not. Would you oppose technology that helps a blind person "see" (even if it's in another, new way)? No. But that's how we get to cyborgs, through a long series of small advances.

We're already on the way with AI in movies and nobody seems that upset. What about digital crowd scenes instead of extras? Watch Gladiator from over 20 years ago; they're already there. What about de-aging Robert Deniro in The Irishman, did anybody complain? OK, bad example - that looked creepy. Tupac hologram? Special effects to let one actor play identical twins? We're ok with a lot of this as tiny advancements keep happening. Andy Serkis being the go-to actor for motion-captured characters? What's the line we cross where this is too much?

I would argue that the audience isn't going to defend the use of actors. Actors are going to need to do it themselves. That said, how hard can SAG really dig in on this right now when tens of thousands of Hollywood actors and workers are suffering and need to get back to work? The lack of easy answers is depressing.


Is Is Bad?

Are producers in their offices twirling their moustaches thinking of potential ways to screw actors? No.

And there probably are some very creative and actor-friendly directors or producers who will use AI very inventively for things that were not previously possible and make great art.

Of course, producers want to do everything cheaper and faster. That's also how or why everybody I know working in Hollywood production are working longer days for less money now. Factory owners also always want employees to work faster and cheaper. Any powerful boss with great lawyers usually wins out over individuals in the workforce. That's why labor unions started in the first place.


Colorization Parallels & Differences

On the aforementioned The Town podcast. Matt Belloni postulated that every effort to halt technological advancements in entertainment has failed. That's probably true.

Although I do remember the days of Ted Turner pushing to colorize movies when he bought movie studios and film libraries. Based on my recollection, people seemed way more outraged in the 1980s and 1990s about classic film colorization that people are about A.I. now and it was a far smaller issue. Nobody was losing a job due to colorization; it was purely aesthetic.

But the outcry really did seem to slow or halt the trend of colorization. Though perhaps because things just didn't quite look right. Or that they were trying to enhance or modernize things that were already beloved, as opposed to augment a new product and fool the audience.


The Takeaway

Again, if anybody reads articles like this 20 years in the future we're all going to seem naive and ignorant. Things will turn out differently than most of us predict.

All I know is that if I was an actor in SAG, I would be pissed right now.