philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

‘This Is an Existential Threat’: Will AI Really Eliminate Actors and Ruin Hollywood? Insiders Sound Off

... The suits in Hollywood are clearly intrigued by AI, as are executives in every industry. About 96% of AI decision-makers at media and entertain­ment companies said they plan to increase their spending on generative AI technology in the next 12 months, according to a survey of 6,000 employees by enterprise search-engine vendor Lucidworks conducted between May and July. They add that they’re not looking to use it to eliminate workers; just 4% of those surveyed said they ex­­pect AI adoption to result in “job displacement.” ...

Forms of artificial intelligence, of course, have existed for decades (think spell-check programs or digital thermostats). What’s new — and, to Bateman and others, extremely alarming — is how rapidly gen AI has advanced to be able to create snippets of film or television that, if you squint, can look like actual humans in scenes produced by human directors. An AI-generated script can read like something written by a professional writer. A tipping point came in November 2022 when software firm OpenAI released ChatGPT, a chatbot that can spit out fully formed essays on a range of different topics. ...

“For years, everyone has known AI was coming,” says Jason Vredenburg, an associate professor at Stevens Institute of Technology who teaches American film history. “But when ChatGPT came out, everyone was shocked. They realized it was coming faster than anyone thought.” ...

What the industry might need is some kind of truth-in-labeling regulations for generative AI, similar to the way the FDA requires standardized food labeling, says Michael Huppe, CEO of SoundExchange, a nonprofit rights management organization for digital sound recordings. “Maybe you’ll end up paying more for a ‘human-only’ streaming service,” he says. ...

Echoing Russo’s thought experiment, Bateman predicts that rights holders will sooner or later let consumers insert themselves into classic movies — imagine yourself starring in “Citizen Kane.” Or maybe AI generates some kind of derivative work cobbled together from an AI database trained on existing stories and characters trending in your feeds. Either way, in Bateman’s doomsday outlook, the market for human-created entertainment will wither away, replaced by synthetic fare produced at a fraction of the cost.

“There’s no scenario I can think of where this doesn’t happen,” Bateman says. “Generative AI can’t make great films. But it can create a high volume of content and regurgitate sequels.” ...

See the full story here: https://variety.com/2023/digital/features/hollywood-ai-crisis-atificial-intelligence-eliminate-acting-jobs-1235697167/