Writers Strike & AI

[Biomega]

You're fully for replacing people with a faster, cheaper alternative.

No. I'm saying it's going to happen. Whether I'm "for it" or not doesn't matter. I'm not for "replacing people", because that's an idiotic and reductive way of talking about change and technological disruption.

What I'm "for" is recognizing reality and dealing with it, instead of being in denial and trying to fight something that's going to happen no matter what. Embrace change, and channel it productively - don't stand in front of it with your fingers in your ears and your eyes closed, hoping it'll just go away. You are not going to stem the tide, and you are not going to build a sandcastle wall to delay it - instead, find a way to make use of the tide, even if it means digging up the beach.

You haven't established that they have. In fact you admit that that's not currently possible

I'm saying it's going to happen. Our job now is to prepare for that. Not to try and defer an inevitable future by artificially propping up an industry that's sure to be disrupted eventually. I'm saying the foundations of the building are going to give way, and you're saying "but for now people need a place to live, so let's add a few more floors to at least give them a roof over their head". Instead you should be finding these people a new place to live.

but studios aren't trying to do that "in 5 to 10 years," they're trying to do it now.

Now is the time to prepare. I'm not saying the studios are in the right. I'm not saying the union is in the right. I'm saying both sides need to realize this is coming, and find a way to adapt sooner rather than later. The studios need to support that transition, and the unions need to support it, too. Each in different ways.

...and why shouldn't restrictions define what jobs do and do not exist?

Because that introduces distorting factors into market dynamics that ultimately make things worse for everyone. There's a reason market-driven economies tend to do better overall, and raise the standard of living more. There needs to be oversight, absolutely - far more oversight than is happening in many places, including the US. But that oversight needs to be regulatory and protective, not directive and deterministic. Governments need to make sure market forces don't go against social interests of wellbeing and equity, not arbitrarily define market forces themselves.

Fundamentally, in a market economy governments should make sure that people are treated fairly, equitably, and safely in their jobs - no one is guaranteed a job, only that if they have one, they're not being endangered or exploited. And just to be clear I do think that governments should do more to ensure everyone has a dignified standard of living but they should do that through other means, not through market intervention - things like UBI, assistance programs, etc. We need to dramatically rethink how societies treat work, but that does not include them artificially preserving jobs we have the technology to supersede. That's counterproductive and dangerous.

Like, if the unions have the ability to forbid AI, and AI will remain forbidden you've given zero reason as to why they shouldn't.

There's two main reasons.

1. It's unenforceable. There is no way to check the creative process. Studios could easily just do bizarre things like hire random people that do nothing but read out AI scripts and pass them off as their own. Nothing could practically monitor this. Nor could you effectively monitor AI training data. These are not feasible safeguards, because anyone in their basement can do this, and they will.

2. It's not in the consumers' best interest. Right now, AI isn't of the same quality as human creative work, but that won't remain the case forever. As it approaches human quality or surpasses it (as it will in some areas, though probably not all) you'll approach a cost to quality to quantity ratio that's more beneficial to consumers. It's not your choice to make what ratio you prefer - it's the consumers' choice. If they would rather see 3 TV series that are a 6/10 than 1 series that's a 9/10 then that's for them to decide - not for anyone else. And it's ESPECIALLY their choice if it's "would you rather pay $2 for a 6/10 series or $20 for a 9/10 series". That's how free markets operate, and if you don't allow that to play out, you risk massive corruptive biases by those who get to make that choice instead of the consumers.

apathetic unaffected people like you

I'm not sure you know what apathetic means. I'm not apathetic. I'm vigorously, even vehemently representing a position. It disagrees with your position, but that doesn't mean it's apathetic. I'm the opposite of apathetic in this. I'm unaffected because I'm not a screenwriter, so I'm not sure what that's about; did you mean "uncaring" or something? I care deeply about human wellbeing. I think my position is better for the writers in the long term. I absolutely think the studios should bear some responsibility in ensuring a transition for those jobs that are likely to go away or at least be dramatically reduced very soon. But I also think the unions should embrace that, because it's in the best interest of their members. They are doing them a disservice by trying to demand AI be banned or whatever - that's not solving this problem, that's just putting it off for a bit. I'm a big opponent of band-aid solutions, because they tend to make things worse in the long run and we are too prone to short-term thinking as it is. Saving 10,000 jobs now so we can lose 10,000 jobs later to me is worse than losing 2,000 jobs now so we can save 8,000 jobs later by transitioning them over into a new field. Because when it all comes down, the former has 10,000 people out of a job, and the latter has 8,000 people in new jobs.

You can't save everyone and everything perfectly and have it be all sunshine and rainbows. That's not reality. Hard choices have to be made, and plans have to be put in place for what's going to happen eventually.

When everyone can do something, nobody cares anymore. If everyone can make their AI script generator or art program kick out the same crap, then who will want to pay to see it?

No one.

And do you think that kind of technology is just going to go away? Do you think that if we pass laws now, progress on AI will stop and no one will develop it further, and we will just look back on the ChatGPT days going "wasn't that quaint when you could push a button and print out a novel"?

This is not going away. This is going to happen.

Granted, your sci-fi scenario of pushing a putting to get an entire MOVIE rather than just a script (which is what this debate is actually about) is much further into the future, but that, too, is going to happen. I'm just saying that we should embrace the fact that this particular genie is out of the bottle, and rather than wasting time trying to figure out how we can hide the bottle for a bit longer so no one notices it's out we should be thinking of how to change our lives to incorporate that reality productively.

Also: since this is purely about scripts (so far), let me tell you a secret - you can ALREADY make your own movie scripts. Sit down, turn on your word processor of choice, and write it. Nothing and no one can stop you. And yet somehow that does not seem to replace movie visits for you; how come? Maybe your analogy is a LITTLE flawed here, hm?

And you trust... studios, I guess, to "tap into the zeitgeist" and deliver to you whatever your heart so desires, content that until now you've been oh so dearly missing? Studios, the people churning out mindless sequels

I trust them as much as I already trust them, because it's not like the process works any differently with humans doing the writing. All that's different is the cost and the scope. But you know who's the one really making choices here? Not the studios, or the executives. It's the consumers. They vote with their wallets. Fast and Furious is a successful franchise not because it's quality cinema OR because the studios decided that's "the zeitgeist", but because consumers are willing to pay for it. If they refused to go see it, it'd die instantly. But they don't. Nothing about that changes with AI. In fact, you could argue it gets BETTER for consumers, because they'll have more selection. But they still get to choose what to watch and what not to watch - as it should be. And if consumers prefer films written by people instead of AI, that's fine too, and that's a choice THEY get to make. Not you or me or anyone else. I'm saying give them a choice; you're saying nope intervene, don't let them choose. Who's putting more trust in some authority there, you think?

and delaying that for as long as possible is bad... why?

Because you can't stop it. And it's more productive to plan for what's coming, rather than try and delay it by extending the status quo. That status quo is going away. We need to start planning for a new status quo, because if we don't, then it'll cause even MORE problems eventually.

Now is the time to act, because we're not there yet, and won't be for some time to come. The ship is heading for an iceberg, and I'm saying end the party now and start getting people to the life boats - you're saying but what if we just slowed down the ship, then we could party a lot longer. But that iceberg is not going away, and the ship is going to hit it eventually. And the more you party, the less prepared you'll be for when that eventually happens. That's the problem we're facing.

Again, your "make poorer quality stuff that appeals to as many people as possible, quicker" analogy doesn't make much sense in the context of fulfilling some need for media.

That's not my choice to make. It's the market's choice. "Quality" is subjective, and it's up to consumers to decide how much they value it. What I'm saying is that if you have the ability to make 3 new Star Wars movies every year but they won't be as good as 3 you make every 5 years, then that's a choice consumers have - do you want 3 good movies, or 15 not-so-good movies over those 5 years? I don't get to decide that for people. You don't get to decide that for people. THEY get to decide what they'd prefer. You're trying to effectively take such a choice away from people.

If your thesis were true then studios like Asylum would be rolling in the dough.

You keep making the mistake of thinking that I'm saying these choices are better - I'm saying HAVING OPTIONS is better, not which of those options is better. Consumers get to decide, each for themselves. What I'm saying is it's wrong to withhold the CHOICE between A or B from people, not that I think choosing A over B is better.

My own preference when it comes to quality is irrelevant. Consumers should have choices, and consumers should be responsible in making their choices. My own choice doesn't enter into this discussion, because that's not what it's about. It's about the mechanism of having a choice, not about my choice preference.

The law makes a legal distinction between work produced by humans and non-humans, for one.

The law hasn't caught up with the status quo, let alone the future. There are no robust laws yet for this kind of content production. That's part of the problem.

For two, AI does not take "inspiration." It is not a brain or a mind. It can only ever be taught on copywrited works for which it had no inspiration.

That's because you're preferencing a biological function without thinking about its technological analogues. Think about what "inspiration" is, or "training" for that matter. We do exactly the same thing that AI does, only in a more sophisticated way: we process input information and come up with ways to recombine it in unexpected ways. We read novels and watch movies and look at pictures all day every day, and then we take all that (and more) and come up with new things based on the sum of our experiences. We can't just create something truly new, either - good luck trying to imagine a new color, for example. We're confined by the parameters of our reality, and our experiences within that reality. AI basically does the exact same thing, except we have to manually feed it those parameters, and it's still not nearly as good as we are at recombining things, especially in fragmented form. But it's getting a lot better. Very quickly.

The only real difference is that AI isn't subject to the same limitations, because it's able to process information MUCH more quickly and for much longer periods of time.

Actually, yes. And I make a comfortable living from having done so. Doing an art role, mind you, that AI is not so easily poised to replace, so I'm not even personally worried about that facet of it.

And let's say AI were to reach a point where it COULD replace what you - where a consumer looks at something you made, and something AI made and goes "you know what, I'd rather have the AI one". Where's the problem in that, other than you now not getting paid by that consumer? How is it different from you vs. another human artist? You can say it's unfair because the AI can make 1,000 things in the time you make 1, but why does that matter to the consumer? They just want to pick the one they like better. And the solution there isn't to go "alright let's ban AI" because you can't stop it and the consumer will just go on the internet and get the same thing through back channels, or make it themselves on their home computer; the solution is to get you into a new job where you can still make a living doing something that's still valuable. Or, much better, to have done so 5 years before this you vs. AI choice happens in the first place, so you're not unemployed from one day to the next but had a chance to get into a new career 5 years before your old one ended either way.

But being an artist does give me an actual appreciation for the artistic process and what artists actually do and invest into their work.

And you can value that, personally, as much as you like. As can everyone else. And you have to accept that not everyone will value this the same way you do. ESPECIALLY if there's a different price tag on the finished product. That's a choice consumers get to make, you don't get to make it for them. You can try and convince them of the "actual appreciation for the artistic process", you can educate them on it and why you think it has value, but if they ultimately go "you know what, don't really care, I like the AI one better" that's THEIR CHOICE. You can hate it, but it's theirs to make. And that autonomy is sacrosanct - people get to and forever should get to make their own choices for themselves.

And why my eyes glaze over whenever I see an AI-generated album cover or other piece of work. Using AI generated work to brand your product is no different, creatively, than finding any old free image online and using that. Showing someone a "cool AI art piece you made" is no different than showing them a glorified pinterest board.

That's a subjective interpretation of how AI works, but that's not super useful in a discussion. Tests have already shown that if you don't tell people something is made by AI, they may not be able to distinguish it. People have won arts prizes with AI artwork (and then come out and admitted it, and given back the prize, to their credit) - meaning professionals in the business who evaluate works for their artistic value decided that these pieces were "better" than human pieces. You can look down on AI and its production process all you like, but the results seem to speak for themselves. And don't forget: this is BABY AI. It's only just begun. This is nothing, NOTHING, compared to what's to come.

I firmly stand against Benjamin and the idea of "aura" - art isn't a mystical craft endowing objects with power. It exists in the observer first and foremost, not the artist. If something has an effect on you, it's art - who or indeed what made it is irrelevant. That's why a leaf on a pond can move you just as a painting of a leaf on a pond can, even one is a confluence of nature and coincidence and the other comes from an artist's mind. AI is no different to EITHER.

For a human.

AI is not human.

Also, copyright infringement is still definitely a thing that humans can commit.

You're drawing this distinction without good justification. The process is similar, even if the actor isn't. Only the volume is different. And I'm totally onboard with protecting against copyright infringement for both humans and for AI - I simply think there should be no special pleading for (or against) either. If a human reading a bunch of novels and then getting inspired to write their own is okay, then so is an AI being fed a bunch of novels and spitting out one - and if you want to complain about plagiarism for either of the two, do it the same way. Plenty of human novelists have been accused of plagiarism, too (and often justifiably so, and often despite their protestations, isn't that right SUZANNE COLLINS?!). Same rules apply - you outright copy, you doing a no-no. But the mere fact that you've consumed materials does not a copyright infringement make.

Well that's because the people creating this have no real interest in the ethics of what they're doing.

Or that they disagree it's unethical, just as they disagree it's unethical for a human writer to read a bunch of novels and then write their own in inspiration. There's a line for copyright infringement, and that line is NOT drawn at "has seen other people's work".

again, a discussion that gets had "sometime later," right?

No. Not "sometimes later", but someplace else. That discussion is happening. Just not here.

[JDL49]

Oh and also all the AI algorithms are trained off of stolen work, as I said.

Funny how that just keeps getting ignored.

If it doesn't infringe on the copyright it's legally fair use and that is the case here.

[cityguy193]

None of the posters in this thread that actually support replacing writers with AI....actually know the extents of current and near future iterations of AI.

Im sure they are also working in meager fields that are actually in danger of being replaced with an intern w/ AI.

[Endus]

You're fully for replacing people with a faster, cheaper alternative. For some reason you've arbitrarily chosen "well it's because of technology" that makes it okay, and it's wrong for a union to fight against that. Why should they be able to fight for any job, then?

Biomega seems to be pretty much on the same position as I am; the encroachment of technology is inevitable in the long term. Measures to protect jobs today have a limited viability past the short term, because these decisions aren't being made at the international level, but just the national, or regional union levels. So if you're got a global economy run by multinationals, when confronted with worrying legislation in Nation A, they just move operations to Nation B where it's still legal. The only way around this is global treaty pacts, and there really doesn't seem to be much interest in that on the AI front, particularly as a lot of nations recognize the value of machine learning algorithms with regards to military applications, where it's particularly critical to not fall behind your rivals.

These algos aren't going away. Their use will continue to be refined and improved upon. This isn't about whether this is good or bad; the genie's out of the bottle and you can't cork it back up. You can't globally "unlearn" an entire branch of technology. Look at the difficulty we've had just keeping nuclear tech out of the wrong hands, which absolutely has required massive international treaty work and military and diplomatic pressures to enforce.

And AI isn't gonna destroy a city. There isn't the same call to action factor.


But for me at least, this is where I point out that we're at the edge of the complete collapse of the capitalist economic model. It's choking the global economy to death as we speak. That capitalist system, the desire to structure the economy on the exploitation of the workers for the profit of the capitalist class, that is what creates the problems we have with AI. It literally has nothing to do with the technology itself; that tech just makes exploitation easier, because they're stealing content to train the algos faster than the law can protect it, and technology is the perfect ideal for an exploitation model since technology has no rights and much reduced upkeep. Yeah, I fully agree that workers losing their jobs in an economy where the cost of living is skyrocketing and not having work means great hardship is all terrible. That's why we need a different economic model, one which supports citizens as its primary structure, rather than the capitalist system whose primary structure is profiteering exploitation of labor by capitalists who contribute nothing to the system in productivity.


Focusing on the algos is missing the actual problem. Trying to fight the emergence of a successful and practical new technology system is a fight doomed to inevitable failure, over the long term. And once you lose that fight, if you've focused all your efforts on that rather than economic reform, all you've managed to do is delay the onset of that inevitable hardship. You need to plan for the long term economic reform while fighting for short-term protections in the meantime. While recognizing those short-term battles aren't ever anything more than delay tactics.

Spending all your time bailing water out of your canoe rather than trying to do something about the hole that's letting water in faster than you can bail isn't gonna save you, not unless you've got a dock or shore nearby you can reach before you sink. Saying "you need to worry more about the hole" isn't expressing a lack of concern that you're sinking.

[Kaleredar]

No. I'm saying it's going to happen. Whether I'm "for it" or not doesn't matter. I'm not for "replacing people", because that's an idiotic and reductive way of talking about change and technological disruption.

What I'm "for" is recognizing reality and dealing with it, instead of being in denial and trying to fight something that's going to happen no matter what. Embrace change, and channel it productively - don't stand in front of it with your fingers in your ears and your eyes closed, hoping it'll just go away. You are not going to stem the tide, and you are not going to build a sandcastle wall to delay it - instead, find a way to make use of the tide, even if it means digging up the beach.

Seems pretty defeatist to me. Here's a quote from a film not written by an AI: "Nothing is written."

I don't really care if "progress" like this is stymied or stood in the way of. Hell, I'd say it's the vested interest of the people up to and including suing the pants off the people developing the AI, if said developers can be found legally liable for copyright and intellectual property infringement, and unlike you I have no problem with these people fighting for what they're owed.

And if they're successful, more people will have jobs and more creatives will have their voices heard, and we as a society will have lost nothing. This AI isn't a faster car, or a table more people can afford. It's best hope is to be a convincing simulacrum of what humans can produce, its time and monetary savings passed on primarily to the rich and wealthy seeking to further enrich themselves.

I'm saying it's going to happen. Our job now is to prepare for that. Not to try and defer an inevitable future by artificially propping up an industry that's sure to be disrupted eventually. I'm saying the foundations of the building are going to give way, and you're saying "but for now people need a place to live, so let's add a few more floors to at least give them a roof over their head". Instead you should be finding these people a new place to live.

People are trying to shore up the foundations. You're saying "listen, we can't stop the termites eating the wood. It's not possible. Who are we to hire exterminators? Termites are inevitable. There's a shack across the road. You'd best go there. Your landlord is still going to be pulling the same rent, though."

Now is the time to prepare. I'm not saying the studios are in the right. I'm not saying the union is in the right. I'm saying both sides need to realize this is coming, and find a way to adapt sooner rather than later. The studios need to support that transition, and the unions need to support it, too. Each in different ways.

And I'm fine with the unions opposing it for as long and as vociferously as possible. They seem to be fine with it too.

Because that introduces distorting factors into market dynamics that ultimately make things worse for everyone. There's a reason market-driven economies tend to do better overall, and raise the standard of living more. There needs to be oversight, absolutely - far more oversight than is happening in many places, including the US. But that oversight needs to be regulatory and protective, not directive and deterministic. Governments need to make sure market forces don't go against social interests of wellbeing and equity, not arbitrarily define market forces themselves.

Fundamentally, in a market economy governments should make sure that people are treated fairly, equitably, and safely in their jobs - no one is guaranteed a job, only that if they have one, they're not being endangered or exploited. And just to be clear I do think that governments should do more to ensure everyone has a dignified standard of living but they should do that through other means, not through market intervention - things like UBI, assistance programs, etc. We need to dramatically rethink how societies treat work, but that does not include them artificially preserving jobs we have the technology to supersede. That's counterproductive and dangerous.

This "oh but the free hand of the market..." is not a particularly compelling argument. This isn't some Ayn Rand dream where the market dictates what's right and wrong in the world. Bad but profitable business practices can and have been fought against (up to and including outlawing) in the past, and I think the world would be a better place if that were done so even more. Unions fight against them all the time.

There's two main reasons.

1. It's unenforceable. There is no way to check the creative process. Studios could easily just do bizarre things like hire random people that do nothing but read out AI scripts and pass them off as their own. Nothing could practically monitor this. Nor could you effectively monitor AI training data. These are not feasible safeguards, because anyone in their basement can do this, and they will.

2. It's not in the consumers' best interest. Right now, AI isn't of the same quality as human creative work, but that won't remain the case forever. As it approaches human quality or surpasses it (as it will in some areas, though probably not all) you'll approach a cost to quality to quantity ratio that's more beneficial to consumers. It's not your choice to make what ratio you prefer - it's the consumers' choice. If they would rather see 3 TV series that are a 6/10 than 1 series that's a 9/10 then that's for them to decide - not for anyone else. And it's ESPECIALLY their choice if it's "would you rather pay $2 for a 6/10 series or $20 for a 9/10 series". That's how free markets operate, and if you don't allow that to play out, you risk massive corruptive biases by those who get to make that choice instead of the consumers.

That's not particularly true either. Because finding out that studios were actively and surreptitiously perpetrating union violations would land a studio in a whole heap of trouble, including possible legal issues vis-a-vis contract violations and potential misreporting to shareholders and other financially interested parties.

In essence, could they lie? Sure. Anyone can try to lie about anything. But they could find themselves in pretty hot water if they were caught.

Again, right now studios could be hiring scab writers to start writing scripts and screenplays in secret, and then when they eventually do come to an agreement with the unions pass them off as "scripts written before the strikes" to try and get a head start on production. Nothing physically stopping them from trying that. But if they were caught? That would send the strikers right back to the picket lines, with potential legal and civil penalties to follow.

I'm not sure you know what apathetic means. I'm not apathetic. I'm vigorously, even vehemently representing a position. It disagrees with your position, but that doesn't mean it's apathetic. I'm the opposite of apathetic in this. I'm unaffected because I'm not a screenwriter, so I'm not sure what that's about; did you mean "uncaring" or something? I care deeply about human wellbeing. I think my position is better for the writers in the long term. I absolutely think the studios should bear some responsibility in ensuring a transition for those jobs that are likely to go away or at least be dramatically reduced very soon. But I also think the unions should embrace that, because it's in the best interest of their members. They are doing them a disservice by trying to demand AI be banned or whatever - that's not solving this problem, that's just putting it off for a bit. I'm a big opponent of band-aid solutions, because they tend to make things worse in the long run and we are too prone to short-term thinking as it is. Saving 10,000 jobs now so we can lose 10,000 jobs later to me is worse than losing 2,000 jobs now so we can save 8,000 jobs later by transitioning them over into a new field. Because when it all comes down, the former has 10,000 people out of a job, and the latter has 8,000 people in new jobs.

You can't save everyone and everything perfectly and have it be all sunshine and rainbows. That's not reality. Hard choices have to be made, and plans have to be put in place for what's going to happen eventually.

You are apathetic in the notion that you don't particularly care what the result of the position you're arguing is. Especially because your "ultimate good" here seems to be dictated by "well if the market wills it..."

Your resolution for the writers is that they not be writers anymore, with perhaps some tiny remaining fraction to become what I can only assume are glorified copy editors. I doubt they agree with that assessment.

In fact, they're actively disagreeing with your assessment by putting their own comfort and financial security on the line by striking.

But it's nice to think you know what's better for an industry than the people in that industry. Like I said, I'll side with their assessment on the matter, and sympathize with them more than some stuffed shirt studio heads and producers or some nebulous "the market."

No one.

And do you think that kind of technology is just going to go away? Do you think that if we pass laws now, progress on AI will stop and no one will develop it further, and we will just look back on the ChatGPT days going "wasn't that quaint when you could push a button and print out a novel"?

This is not going away. This is going to happen.

Granted, your sci-fi scenario of pushing a putting to get an entire MOVIE rather than just a script (which is what this debate is actually about) is much further into the future, but that, too, is going to happen. I'm just saying that we should embrace the fact that this particular genie is out of the bottle, and rather than wasting time trying to figure out how we can hide the bottle for a bit longer so no one notices it's out we should be thinking of how to change our lives to incorporate that reality productively.

And I say don't. Stop it, confound it, prevent it, fight it at every step of the way with as many people as possible. Because there's truly nothing to be gained, not so long as the people in charge of making the decisions are interested not in artistic merit or innovation, but instead are in favor of paying as few people as possible as little as possible to create the bare minimum to make a profit. And that's the inevitability, especially when you're saying to hand them tools to do it as effectively and efficiently with as little resistance as possible. Because ultimately, even if you don't intend to, that's the ultimate result you are arguing for.

Also: since this is purely about scripts (so far), let me tell you a secret - you can ALREADY make your own movie scripts. Sit down, turn on your word processor of choice, and write it. Nothing and no one can stop you. And yet somehow that does not seem to replace movie visits for you; how come? Maybe your analogy is a LITTLE flawed here, hm?

Film studios don't hire people to write screenplays just to look at them all sitting on a shelf. Their intent is to make them into films.

I trust them as much as I already trust them, because it's not like the process works any differently with humans doing the writing. All that's different is the cost and the scope. But you know who's the one really making choices here? Not the studios, or the executives. It's the consumers. They vote with their wallets. Fast and Furious is a successful franchise not because it's quality cinema OR because the studios decided that's "the zeitgeist", but because consumers are willing to pay for it. If they refused to go see it, it'd die instantly. But they don't. Nothing about that changes with AI. In fact, you could argue it gets BETTER for consumers, because they'll have more selection. But they still get to choose what to watch and what not to watch - as it should be. And if consumers prefer films written by people instead of AI, that's fine too, and that's a choice THEY get to make. Not you or me or anyone else. I'm saying give them a choice; you're saying nope intervene, don't let them choose. Who's putting more trust in some authority there, you think?

Studios have to be far more circumspect with their projects and their collaborations with the creatives when each project reflects a significant investment of time and money. People already have problems with their output not being good enough, and your chosen result is to reduce all of the things even remotely keeping them liable to a creative force at all.

And again, your opinion that forms the fundamental basis of your argument that is essentially "the paying public has a market-given human right to more crappy star wars sequels greenlit based off a checklist, so we should actively contribute to the volume" doesn't sway me.

Because you can't stop it. And it's more productive to plan for what's coming, rather than try and delay it by extending the status quo. That status quo is going away. We need to start planning for a new status quo, because if we don't, then it'll cause even MORE problems eventually.

Now is the time to act, because we're not there yet, and won't be for some time to come. The ship is heading for an iceberg, and I'm saying end the party now and start getting people to the life boats - you're saying but what if we just slowed down the ship, then we could party a lot longer. But that iceberg is not going away, and the ship is going to hit it eventually. And the more you party, the less prepared you'll be for when that eventually happens. That's the problem we're facing.

Eh. Blow up the iceberg. Or perhaps more accurately, melt it down so it harmlessly pings off your hull.

That's not my choice to make. It's the market's choice. "Quality" is subjective, and it's up to consumers to decide how much they value it. What I'm saying is that if you have the ability to make 3 new Star Wars movies every year but they won't be as good as 3 you make every 5 years, then that's a choice consumers have - do you want 3 good movies, or 15 not-so-good movies over those 5 years? I don't get to decide that for people. You don't get to decide that for people. THEY get to decide what they'd prefer. You're trying to effectively take such a choice away from people.

And I'm saying to leave that responsibility in the hands of the creators.

You keep making the mistake of thinking that I'm saying these choices are better - I'm saying HAVING OPTIONS is better,

Not the options you're offering, or more accurately suggest people just accept.

not which of those options is better. Consumers get to decide, each for themselves. What I'm saying is it's wrong to withhold the CHOICE between A or B from people, not that I think choosing A over B is better.

My own preference when it comes to quality is irrelevant. Consumers should have choices, and consumers should be responsible in making their choices. My own choice doesn't enter into this discussion, because that's not what it's about. It's about the mechanism of having a choice, not about my choice preference.

Again with this "free hand of the market" libertarian-tint.

The law hasn't caught up with the status quo, let alone the future. There are no robust laws yet for this kind of content production. That's part of the problem.

And frankly I have zero problems with instating laws heavily prejudicial against the use of AI in creative roles.

Especially given the, you know, stolen nature of it all.

That's because you're preferencing a biological function without thinking about its technological analogues.

Conversely: you're ascribing a computer program to a biological function. You can make a little gray box with a speaker that quacks like a duck. Doesn't mean it's a duck.

Think about what "inspiration" is, or "training" for that matter. We do exactly the same thing that AI does, only in a more sophisticated way: we process input information and come up with ways to recombine it in unexpected ways. We read novels and watch movies and look at pictures all day every day, and then we take all that (and more) and come up with new things based on the sum of our experiences. We can't just create something truly new, either - good luck trying to imagine a new color, for example. We're confined by the parameters of our reality, and our experiences within that reality. AI basically does the exact same thing, except we have to manually feed it those parameters, and it's still not nearly as good as we are at recombining things, especially in fragmented form. But it's getting a lot better. Very quickly.

The only real difference is that AI isn't subject to the same limitations, because it's able to process information MUCH more quickly and for much longer periods of time.

Again. Quacking speaker box. Not a duck.

And let's say AI were to reach a point where it COULD replace what you - where a consumer looks at something you made, and something AI made and goes "you know what, I'd rather have the AI one". Where's the problem in that, other than you now not getting paid by that consumer? How is it different from you vs. another human artist? You can say it's unfair because the AI can make 1,000 things in the time you make 1, but why does that matter to the consumer? They just want to pick the one they like better. And the solution there isn't to go "alright let's ban AI" because you can't stop it and the consumer will just go on the internet and get the same thing through back channels, or make it themselves on their home computer; the solution is to get you into a new job where you can still make a living doing something that's still valuable. Or, much better, to have done so 5 years before this you vs. AI choice happens in the first place, so you're not unemployed from one day to the next but had a chance to get into a new career 5 years before your old one ended either way.

I mean personally I'd find as many people to fight it in as large a way as possible for as long as possible. Art industries seem to be pursuing more and more unionization, likely to get in front of this as much as possible and wrangle it while it's in its infancy. Which, I will note, is their right. And I don't just mean some nebulous "free hand of the market" right like you keep invoking, I mean an actual legal vested right to unionize.

Suffice to say I didn't get into art to not do art. Perhaps you have a job you'd more readily abandon to an AI replacing you so you could go off and bag groceries or what have you, but I don't, and clearly the other creatives similarly invested feel the same way.

And you can value that, personally, as much as you like. As can everyone else. And you have to accept that not everyone will value this the same way you do. ESPECIALLY if there's a different price tag on the finished product. That's a choice consumers get to make, you don't get to make it for them. You can try and convince them of the "actual appreciation for the artistic process", you can educate them on it and why you think it has value, but if they ultimately go "you know what, don't really care, I like the AI one better" that's THEIR CHOICE. You can hate it, but it's theirs to make. And that autonomy is sacrosanct - people get to and forever should get to make their own choices for themselves.

The only "price tag" we're realistically talking about here is the price tag paid out by the studios making the film. At the end of the day, I see no real reason to expect that a film made with AI replacing writers or other creatives would have a ticket that costs the consumer less, or that watching AI-contributed shows would mean you pay a lesser subscription fee to a streaming or cable service. That would be an idle hope on your part.

So now your "free hand of the market" starts eclipsing into "wishful trickle down profits," if you're still arguing some "public financial good" here.

That's a subjective interpretation of how AI works, but that's not super useful in a discussion. Tests have already shown that if you don't tell people something is made by AI, they may not be able to distinguish it. People have won arts prizes with AI artwork (and then come out and admitted it, and given back the prize, to their credit) - meaning professionals in the business who evaluate works for their artistic value decided that these pieces were "better" than human pieces. You can look down on AI and its production process all you like, but the results seem to speak for themselves. And don't forget: this is BABY AI. It's only just begun. This is nothing, NOTHING, compared to what's to come.

I firmly stand against Benjamin and the idea of "aura" - art isn't a mystical craft endowing objects with power. It exists in the observer first and foremost, not the artist. If something has an effect on you, it's art - who or indeed what made it is irrelevant. That's why a leaf on a pond can move you just as a painting of a leaf on a pond can, even one is a confluence of nature and coincidence and the other comes from an artist's mind. AI is no different to EITHER.

I don't need some trite dadaist philosophizing about the nature of art. I took AP art history back in high school too.

I'm not, first and foremost, arguing that it'll make works of art "worse." (I do think that, but that hasn't been what I'm arguing.) Its involvement devalues the role of creatives in the creative process to be more easily and predatorily exploited by higher ups in the process, weakening their position in the industry for the direct financial benefit not of the consumer, not of themselves, but of the CEOs, studios, and other financial big wigs. That is currently what AI stands to do, and so long as it stands to do that, it should be opposed as vehemently as possible.

Talk to me maybe when it's exclusively put in the hands of creatives who know how to wield it. Until then, fight it at every step.

You're drawing this distinction without good justification. The process is similar, even if the actor isn't. Only the volume is different. And I'm totally onboard with protecting against copyright infringement for both humans and for AI - I simply think there should be no special pleading for (or against) either. If a human reading a bunch of novels and then getting inspired to write their own is okay, then so is an AI being fed a bunch of novels and spitting out one - and if you want to complain about plagiarism for either of the two, do it the same way. Plenty of human novelists have been accused of plagiarism, too (and often justifiably so, and often despite their protestations, isn't that right SUZANNE COLLINS?!). Same rules apply - you outright copy, you doing a no-no. But the mere fact that you've consumed materials does not a copyright infringement make.

...AI does not function in the way a human brain does. You are ascribing "magic" to a computer program, here, and saying that because its final result looks pretty to you that imbues it with special meaning that should absolve it of any legal issues it should otherwise be beholden to.

Simply said, it is not the process by which human beings integrate, absorb, and adapt information. An "AI" is a verifiable, traceable set of steps and actions from which you can accurately and with a clear through-line trace every single image, script, whatever, that was ever fed into it and furthermore trace how those aspects were reconstituted into the thing it spat out at you.

These AI programs are programs. Nothing more. Programs (of commerce, no less, these people make money after all!) fed images or writings created and posted by people who weren't them and who did not give them permission to use it in their program.

I argue that it's no different than using an unlicensed image as the splash screen, or thumbnail, or anything else, for a game you're trying to sell. What's the difference? That people might not know? That it's just a small part of the final product? That makes it okay? It's a 1) unlicensed image that you 2) utilized to create your product, without which said product would not exist in the form that it does. If you did that to a lot of people by stealing a lot of assets, does that make it better? Because that game made with stolen assets is more similar to an "AI image generator program" than the AI is to a human brain. Because two of those things are computer programs, and the third one is not.

You are saying effectively "but this is a special computer program that should be allowed to do that!"

I disagree.

Or that they disagree it's unethical,

just as they disagree it's unethical for a human writer to read a bunch of novels and then write their own in inspiration. There's a line for copyright infringement, and that line is NOT drawn at "has seen other people's work"

I don't particularly care whether they think they're ethically entitled to steal other people's work for their own profits for the use in their own computer program. Call it the original sin of AI generation that's tainting everything it touches.

No. Not "sometimes later", but someplace else. That discussion is happening. Just not here.

And you're for being rather relaxed on the AI program creators in this regard, just so the record is straight, correct?


Suffice to say, I air on the side of labor, rather than the ruling class. You seem to be saying "ah, but should not the market be the prime beneficiary?" To which I say... no, it shouldn't be, nor would it be anyway. Because these tools exist to benefit the ruling class above all, here. I see no reason to believe that this will generate a product that is more affordable to the consumer, of higher quality, or that fulfills some end-product not already fulfilled really at all, let alone in a way worth the damage it causes.

And even if it is inevitable... I'd rather have fought the damage and allowed people to do what they love for as long as possible, rather than inviting its harm in and telling people to kick rocks.

[Endus]

If it doesn't infringe on the copyright it's legally fair use and that is the case here.

Are you trying to claim no paid-content-trained AI model is taking in any revenue in exchange for services?

Because once you're taking in revenue, your work is commercial, and that's not falling under fair use. Especially since you're shoving most or all of the work into your model's training suite. These all trip big red flags against claims of fair use of copyrighted material. And aren't the only potential points where it could be seen as infringing behaviour.

It isn't a question of whether any AI-produced work necessarily infringes on any specific copyright.

[Kaleredar]

If it doesn't infringe on the copyright it's legally fair use and that is the case here.

...Where has it been decided it's fair use?

- - - Updated - - -

Biomega seems to be pretty much on the same position as I am; the encroachment of technology is inevitable in the long term. Measures to protect jobs today have a limited viability past the short term, because these decisions aren't being made at the international level, but just the national, or regional union levels. So if you're got a global economy run by multinationals, when confronted with worrying legislation in Nation A, they just move operations to Nation B where it's still legal. The only way around this is global treaty pacts, and there really doesn't seem to be much interest in that on the AI front, particularly as a lot of nations recognize the value of machine learning algorithms with regards to military applications, where it's particularly critical to not fall behind your rivals.

These algos aren't going away. Their use will continue to be refined and improved upon. This isn't about whether this is good or bad; the genie's out of the bottle and you can't cork it back up. You can't globally "unlearn" an entire branch of technology. Look at the difficulty we've had just keeping nuclear tech out of the wrong hands, which absolutely has required massive international treaty work and military and diplomatic pressures to enforce.

And AI isn't gonna destroy a city. There isn't the same call to action factor.


But for me at least, this is where I point out that we're at the edge of the complete collapse of the capitalist economic model. It's choking the global economy to death as we speak. That capitalist system, the desire to structure the economy on the exploitation of the workers for the profit of the capitalist class, that is what creates the problems we have with AI. It literally has nothing to do with the technology itself; that tech just makes exploitation easier, because they're stealing content to train the algos faster than the law can protect it, and technology is the perfect ideal for an exploitation model since technology has no rights and much reduced upkeep. Yeah, I fully agree that workers losing their jobs in an economy where the cost of living is skyrocketing and not having work means great hardship is all terrible. That's why we need a different economic model, one which supports citizens as its primary structure, rather than the capitalist system whose primary structure is profiteering exploitation of labor by capitalists who contribute nothing to the system in productivity.


Focusing on the algos is missing the actual problem. Trying to fight the emergence of a successful and practical new technology system is a fight doomed to inevitable failure, over the long term. And once you lose that fight, if you've focused all your efforts on that rather than economic reform, all you've managed to do is delay the onset of that inevitable hardship. You need to plan for the long term economic reform while fighting for short-term protections in the meantime. While recognizing those short-term battles aren't ever anything more than delay tactics.

Spending all your time bailing water out of your canoe rather than trying to do something about the hole that's letting water in faster than you can bail isn't gonna save you, not unless you've got a dock or shore nearby you can reach before you sink. Saying "you need to worry more about the hole" isn't expressing a lack of concern that you're sinking.

Seeing as their "justification" seems to rely on "well the free market makes it right," I don't ascribe to their thinking, plain and simple. Free markets didn't dictate the five-day workweeks, no child labor, and maternity leave. Those things had to be affected for the common good, much in contrast with what the "free market" at the time might have wanted. And the "free market' is continuing to do a lot of harm actively. Putting another bullet in its chamber and aiming it at yet another industry is not my idea of a good idea.

As it stands AI is poised to be used to remove and replace workers with the monetary savings from doing so being passed on to the owners of capital. Not the creators themselves, and not the consumers. That's money that's going to sit in some account or buy a multi-millionaire another yacht. That's a prime reason as to why creatives are combating it (in addition to all the stolen aspects of it.)

Solve that first, then maybe we can talk. I'm not much for creating problems and then hoping that some beneficent solution arises later. And if the problem is "inevitable," then minimize and isolate it for as long as possible so that the solution can be as close to being in place as it can be.

[Twdft]

The thing is - most of the audience won't care so long as the end result is good. The only thing that matters is the end product.

I for one will not waste my time watching the ramblings of a non-sentient machine. Come back when AI develops a sentience and can produce stories from their lived experiences.

[Triceron]

I for one will not waste my time watching the ramblings of a non-sentient machine. Come back when AI develops a sentience and can produce stories from their lived experiences.

To be honest, you probably wouldn't even know unless you were told. It wouldn't be used 1:1, and would obviously be edited for a final result, but it could be used to do a lit of the grunt work like filling in dialogue or coming up with different story hooks and paths for a story to go in. It's ultimately going to be a tool that will change the dynamic of 'a room full of writers'.

[Twdft]

To be honest, you probably wouldn't even know unless you were told. It wouldn't be used 1:1, and would obviously be edited for a final result, but it could be used to do a lit of the grunt work like filling in dialogue or coming up with different story hooks and paths for a story to go in. It's ultimately going to be a tool that will change the dynamic of 'a room full of writers'.

There is only so much time in a day, and if I can't be certain about it it's probably time to find a DnD group and make up my own stories.

But I am 100% certain that if AI is allowed into making movies/tv there will be studios not using it and making damn well sure we know they're not using it. I can even see legislation demanding studios to disclose if AI was used, just the same as food labels. Streaming services killed linear TV for me completely, there'll be something else if streaming doesn't deserve my attention anymore.

[Rennadrel]

I know this was partly in jest, but I'm not actually sure they don't realize that. Or that they even CARE that they are. Because what matters to them is the risk of losing their livelihood. It's like telling coal miners that they're part of an industry that can't die fast enough because it's devastating to the environment - they probably KNOW, but what they actually CARE about is how they're going to put food on the table and a roof over their family's heads.

Of course there'll be some degree of self-delusion going on almost inevitably, but I'm not convinced that if you asked someone who writes for Alligator Patrol or whatever if they think their job is making top-end quality entertainment they would really say yes and mean it. What they MIGHT do is say that it doesn't matter and that they're a writer just like the guys over there writing the next Dune movie and we're all in this together and we have to show solidarity and art is art and being a creative is being a creative and you can't be unfair or show preferential treatment and they deserve a job and a living too and they're all human being and your blood is as red as mine and so on and so forth.

These people are invested and literally have their lives on the line - their opinions and needs matter and should be listened to, but it's real tricky to have a balanced, objective perspective on the debate if you're in that position. Understandably so. The vast majority of human beings would probably not be comfortable looking at something and going "yes you know what, I deserve a smaller piece of this, here, take it away". If they'd even be capable of it at all. That doesn't mean their viewpoint doesn't matter, and it doesn't mean they don't have valuable arguments to consider, but they also have MASSIVE biases that need to be accounted for.

We've seen these stories play out numerous times before in the past and no one stood up for the people impacted when their jobs were on the line. Automation and outsourcing internationally has been impacting the blue collar sector for over 30 years and no one has stood up for those people. My hometown was one of the largest agriculture equipment manufacturing locations until the 1980's, both Massey Ferguson and New Holland combined employed something like half the city and when they started pulling out and shipping those jobs off to Asia, the city had an economic collapse. Yet no one stood up and fought for those jobs. The difference is that those people couldn't just up and start doing their own thing by creating their own projects by banding together, way too much capital is required for that. If the WGA doesn't like how their people are being treated, then fuck the big studios, start your own and create something new. Because at the end of the day, that seems to be what the market wants more of, is originality and stories that haven't been tried before. But some of these writers and producers these days, I honestly question whether they have the talent to even do that considering how much they can't make adaptations faithful without injecting their own personal bias into the characters and story.

Unfortunately, we can't stop technology, but I think if you are exceptional at what you do, it would be extremely hard for technology to replace you. I don't think AI will be able to understand the complex human emotions and thoughts that we can produce, and all that nuance of what makes us truly human, will never be replicable by a computer.

[Biomega]

"listen, we can't stop the termites eating the wood. It's not possible. Who are we to hire exterminators? [...]"

Your flaw in this assumption is that you CAN exterminate them. That would be a very different situation. But the entire problem here is that you can't.

All your rebuttals basically boil down to some naive hope that somehow this is going away. It's not going away. That's the problem.

So to take your termite metaphor: the termites are going to eat the house eventually, period. There's no stopping them. Extermination is not an option. You are saying "okay let's put down poison anyway, and then maybe the house won't collapse for another 5 years". I'm saying "the house is going to collapse and we can't stop it, so better move into a new place now while we still have time to find one". And 5 years from now when it all crumbles, you will sit in front of a collapsed house desperately trying to find a new place to live; and I'll already be in a new place. And sure maybe it's not as nice as the previous one - but it'll be something, because I had time to actually find a new home; and you bought yourself some more nice years and are now homeless.

This "oh but the free hand of the market..." is not a particularly compelling argument.

I agree. Which is why I'm not making that argument. I was very clear about the role of oversight in the market. I was very clear about it not happening nearly enough in the areas where it needs to happen.

But that wouldn't allow you to make a snide counterpoint like this, so you just ignored it. Or you didn't understand it, I can't tell.

That's not particularly true either. Because finding out that studios were actively and surreptitiously perpetrating union violations would land a studio in a whole heap of trouble, including possible legal issues vis-a-vis contract violations and potential misreporting to shareholders and other financially interested parties.

And again you deflect to something that was never in contention, that I never posited or endorsed, and that I in fact was vocally and vigorously against. But you seem to not know how to counter my actual points, so you conjure up some imaginary ones that look easy to defeat. They are. They're patently absurd. Which is why it's never something I said or supported.

You keep drifting off into derailment with these weird tangents. Please stop.

You are apathetic in the notion that you don't particularly care what the result of the position you're arguing is.

Apparently me writing an entire paragraph explicitly stating how I'm not apathetic because I'm defending my position means "you don't particularly care".

TIL.

Your resolution for the writers is that they not be writers anymore, with perhaps some tiny remaining fraction to become what I can only assume are glorified copy editors. I doubt they agree with that assessment.

It doesn't matter if they agree. What matters is what's going to happen. Those jobs are going away (well many of them anyway). That's a reality that's not going to just disappear. It's the same as in other industries: automation is going to reduce the demand for human work over time. The only question is how much and in what time frame, not whether or not it'll happen - because it will. You can be in denial all you like, but that doesn't change reality.

I'd rather these people retrain for different jobs now than lose their current jobs and then be unemployed down the line. But they can't (all) remain in these jobs. That's not an option they're going to have. You keep pretending like it'll all turn out fine in the end; but it wont'. These jobs are not coming back any more than all the other jobs we've lost and been losing over the past 100+ years or so since automation began reshaping our economies. That's reality, and the sooner you try and deal with it, the better your chances are of maintaining your standard of living in the long term. If you want to trade comfort now for unemployment later, fine, choose that for yourself - I'm saying it's a disservice to people to negotiate with that goal in mind, and they're better served losing some comfort now but still having a (new) job later. Because the fairytale scenario of them just keeping their comfort forever is not reality and trying to promise them that it could be is grossly immoral.

In fact, they're actively disagreeing with your assessment by putting their own comfort and financial security on the line by striking.

And they're free to do that. It's their choice. I'm not trying to force anyone to do anything, I'm presenting an outlook that I think can help them make better decisions - whether or not they actually MAKE them is up to them. Not me. I just lay it all out, they'll have to be the ones to choose.

And I say don't. Stop it, confound it, prevent it, fight it at every step of the way with as many people as possible. Because there's truly nothing to be gained, not so long as the people in charge of making the decisions are interested not in artistic merit or innovation, but instead are in favor of paying as few people as possible as little as possible to create the bare minimum to make a profit.

But that's, again, a completely different debate. I'm 100% in favor of unions fighting for fair pay and safe conditions. No one should be exploited, and unions exist to give workers a way to fight for that more fairly. That's a good thing, and something that's not in contention here in any way. But unions also need to realize that economies shift. Their duty is to their members in the short AND long term. It's shortsighted and dangerous to not realize that some jobs are going away to some degree, period. Unions need to be proactive in helping members cope with that, not make promises that somehow this going to all just blow over. Because it won't. THAT is the debate, here - not whether or not unions should exist, not whether or not there's value in fighting for appropriate pay, or any of the other tangents and derailments you keep conjuring up because you have run out of ideas on how to argue against what's ACTUALLY at stake.

Studios have to be far more circumspect with their projects and their collaborations with the creatives when each project reflects a significant investment of time and money. People already have problems with their output not being good enough, and your chosen result is to reduce all of the things even remotely keeping them liable to a creative force at all.

You make it sound as though people will stop all oversight, just turn on the AI, and go "let it rip!". That's not how any of it works. In the short to medium term, all AI is going to do is replace human writers to some degree - but it'll still be subject to approval, still be subject to pitching and planning, still be subject to all the mechanisms of viability evaluation that already govern these kinds of productions. Maybe in the LONG term we'll have a system where AI can spit out entire movies on command without a need for writers or actors or directors or anyone at all - that's conceivable, but the time frame for that is in all likelihood too far in the future to have predictive value. And if and when that happens and if and when that replaces the entire entertainment industry, that's just another economic shift we adjust to. And then studio executives will also need to find new jobs, just as writers do now. It's the same thing, just further into the future. And you can cry about "the human touch" or "artistic integrity" all you want, but all that's going to happen is that the position of creative arbiter shifts from executives to consumers - they'll push the button to generate a movie, and then decide if they like it or not. And that'll be that.

And again, your opinion that forms the fundamental basis of your argument that is essentially "the paying public has a market-given human right to more crappy star wars sequels greenlit based off a checklist, so we should actively contribute to the volume" doesn't sway me.

The paying public has a right to choose WHATEVER THEY WANT for WHATEVER REASON THEY WANT. Your continued insistence that somehow, someone should be vested with the powers of deciding what a public should or shouldn't get only leads to corruption down the line. Markets exist to service consumers - they're the mechanism meant for delivering to them what they want, by letting them express their choice and preference. Does it always work perfectly? Fuck no. There's loads of problems. But it's still better than some arbitrary authority going "nonono, THIS is what you want" and not letting them choose at all.

Eh. Blow up the iceberg. Or perhaps more accurately, melt it down so it harmlessly pings off your hull.

OH GEE HOW COME I DIDN'T THINK OF THAT?! JUST MAKE THE PROBLEM GO AWAY? GENIUS IDEA!

You should talk to some sick people and tell them "why choose between chemo and radiation, have you not considered just MAKING THE CANCER GO AWAY instead?" I'm sure they'd appreciate this brilliant solution to their dilemma that they somehow completely missed. Save their day!

I'm not even sure anymore if you're trolling or if you genuinely think this is an answer here. You're like one of those people looking at the Trolley Problem going "uh, stop the trolley maybe?" and thinking they're so clever - when in reality all they're demonstrating is a complete inability to understand the mechanism of these kinds of thought experiments and metaphors.

I can't even.

- - - Updated - - -

The difference is that those people couldn't just up and start doing their own thing by creating their own projects by banding together, way too much capital is required for that. If the WGA doesn't like how their people are being treated, then fuck the big studios, start your own and create something new. Because at the end of the day, that seems to be what the market wants more of, is originality and stories that haven't been tried before.

While that would certainly be nice in theory (and I personally would absolutely appreciate some more originality in production), you've pretty much answered yourself why it doesn't just work like that - the barrier to entry is pretty significant, and you need capital to overcome it. It's all well and good for writers to go "fuck it, we'll just quit and go write for our own stuff" but from there to releasing a product stretches a giant gaping chasm of bills and mortgages that they can't just hop and skip over with enthusiasm and drive. That's a problem. It's a systemic problem, even, where the market works counterproductively by putting up more barriers than you'd want - especially because at the end of the day, quality only gets you so far. Marketing is what you need most. And good luck trying to compete in marketing against big studios and companies. Your brilliantly written film will wither on the vine if you can't get the word out to people, and that's where the REAL barriers bare their fangs. This sucks. It's not a good state. But it's very difficult to change. It SHOULD be changed, but it's very difficult to do. Which is why many people simply give up.

Unfortunately, we can't stop technology, but I think if you are exceptional at what you do, it would be extremely hard for technology to replace you. I don't think AI will be able to understand the complex human emotions and thoughts that we can produce, and all that nuance of what makes us truly human, will never be replicable by a computer.

Never be perfectly replicable, perhaps (and I'm not even sure tbh).

But the thing is, it doesn't have to be perfect. People are fine with "eh, kinda, close enough". ESPECIALLY if it's cheaper and faster. People are already doing bias testing and research like that which has in its preliminary results shown that a lot of people can't actually distinguish between (good) AI products and human-made products. And AI is only going to get better and better at this. And you may have some philosophical objection or raise some aesthetical concerns, but the reality is that a LOT of what human creative work entails can, in fact, be reduced to rules and formulas; can, in fact, be learned and taught; and can, in fact, be replicated mechanistically. Not all of it, and not all of it to the same degree, but it can be.

And many artists know this. There's plenty of books on how to do this already, there have been for years. Writers like Ken Follett have been open about this forever, breaking down their own process to an almost silly degree - "every X pages I need to do Y" and things like that is literally something these people have been talking about way before AI. This is not some kind of mystical creative force at work here - it's rules and formulas that you can identify and learn and apply, and a lot of people will readily fall for them.

So I agree with what you said: if you're truly exceptional, you have nothing to worry about. But by the very nature of that statement, that can only be very few people. And all the rest who are NOT "truly exceptional"... they better find something else to do.

[Triceron]

There is only so much time in a day, and if I can't be certain about it it's probably time to find a DnD group and make up my own stories.

But I am 100% certain that if AI is allowed into making movies/tv there will be studios not using it and making damn well sure we know they're not using it. I can even see legislation demanding studios to disclose if AI was used, just the same as food labels. Streaming services killed linear TV for me completely, there'll be something else if streaming doesn't deserve my attention anymore.

I mean you can be anti-AI and I get that and understand that.
IMO, it isn't something to fear or stop. I see AI as a tool, one that's already being used elsewhere in the industry to improve performance and fill gaps in technology. It's a matter of time when it can actually do the art itself.

Look up DLSS and how it is improving render frame rates. Instead of your graphics card rendering out every frame at a lower Framerate, AI is now being used to fill in 7/8 frames using a very rough render, and doing it accurately, as faithful as a full render. This speeds up Framerate considerably and can allow lower performing graphics cards to achieve the same results as a high performance card.

To make a comparison, if AI is used as a tool to create story prompts and fill in story details, you might think 'oh that's not creative and it's stealing work', but at some point you have to realize we humans enjoy hearing the same stories over and over again in new ways. We have such a long history thay every story imaginable has been told, and what we have today are derivatives of the most popular archetypes. Like many of our modern Superhero stories today are built off classic mythology snd legends going as far back as the Epic of Gilgamesh, of superhumans and demigods. It's all derivative and merely spun in a new way. And in turn, comic book characters get reinvented all the time, modified and collaged to feel fresh and new. And that's actually what AI can do, right now.

It might not be able to give you something completely unique, but it can create what humans already expect to see in a good story. Because story telling is fundamentally structured, and even many TV shows can be considered formulaic. When fans watch a particular series, they want more of the same, not something new every time. And what AI can assist in is creating formulaic content (or at least an outline) that stays consistent to the source material.

Chatgpt already does this.


The point I'm making is, AI won't replace writers, but it will replace 'a room full of writers'. And it will not be as obvious as 'losing jobs' as it will be 'less writers are necessary' for the work that might need to be done on a certain series.

But thay is also not a bad thing since it may create more niches for new jobs and roles, like writers being to go independent and making a living straight off youtube and pouring their creativity into their own self-developed, AI assisted show rather than be another cog in the machine in a room full of writers. Look at all the people who make a living off of making youtube content who aren't working in a 9-5 day job. This is all possible because of the shifts in technology and industry and entertainment. And of course, nothing lasts forever, so there shouldn't really be any fear of a change in technology.

[minteK917]

Are you trying to claim no paid-content-trained AI model is taking in any revenue in exchange for services?

Because once you're taking in revenue, your work is commercial, and that's not falling under fair use. Especially since you're shoving most or all of the work into your model's training suite. These all trip big red flags against claims of fair use of copyrighted material. And aren't the only potential points where it could be seen as infringing behaviour.

It isn't a question of whether any AI-produced work necessarily infringes on any specific copyright.

I agree with like every post of yours in this topic, now this post is kind of harder to guess. Its one of those things a court has yet to rule on honestly, because this part of the process training an AI is like super abstract when it comes to copyrights that I can see it going both ways. As far as I am aware right now, copyrights only accounts for a final form of something and two of the biggest factor is looking at the intent and value in differential between the material.

Logically if we just look at copyrights and the process of training, I dont think there legally any tracks here yet. (I could be wrong). The situation is more akin to you privately training usin Disney material, lets say you train yourself for a decade on just looking and drawing mickey mouse pictures. Then you draw a bunny mascot that you sell, for some reason this bunny is so good you end up making a huge company to compete with Disney. Does Disney get to turn around and say that you have learned to compete with them by using their copyrighted material as a training and base for your skills, that you later sold in a non copyrighted violating form. Probably not? The concept of learning is outside the law as far as I am aware and this issue is only really applicable to AI because we logically would not put this onus on humans, even if we only learn by copying as well. I am interested to see if it will eventually be part of laws.

[Gumble]

I for one will not waste my time watching the ramblings of a non-sentient machine. Come back when AI develops a sentience and can produce stories from their lived experiences.

So you haven't watched any shows or movies for the past 6 years or so huh? If you told me that they were made by a "non-sentient machine" I'd tell you to upgrade it.


Also..... I really, really HOPE the AI stays a "non-sentient machine".

I've seen too many movies and read too many books about what could happen if it DOESN'T stay that way.





Also, side note, I do so appreciate Endus. I read his post thinking "holy heck, Endus is posting something that makes sense and is realistic and......... oh there he goes demanding that AI make us all socialists" and I hear the USSR Anthem playing as the mad ramblings continue.

Never change man, never change.

[Endus]

Also, side note, I do so appreciate Endus. I read his post thinking "holy heck, Endus is posting something that makes sense and is realistic and......... oh there he goes demanding that AI make us all socialists" and I hear the USSR Anthem playing as the mad ramblings continue.

Never change man, never change.

If you hear "socialist" and think "Stalin/USSR" and nothing else, the problem isn't on my end of the discussion, here. Kick off the McCarthyist brain-rotting propaganda.

[Draco-Onis]

The point I'm making is, AI won't replace writers, but it will replace 'a room full of writers'. And it will not be as obvious as 'losing jobs' as it will be 'less writers are necessary' for the work that might need to be done on a certain series.

But thay is also not a bad thing since it may create more niches for new jobs and roles, like writers being to go independent and making a living straight off youtube and pouring their creativity into their own self-developed, AI assisted show rather than be another cog in the machine in a room full of writers. Look at all the people who make a living off of making youtube content who aren't working in a 9-5 day job. This is all possible because of the shifts in technology and industry and entertainment. And of course, nothing lasts forever, so there shouldn't really be any fear of a change in technology.

That is not what will happen because unless there is protection for that writer to go independent the AI model will just gobble up his creative work for free and he will be made obsolete. The real danger with this "AI" which is no more than a parrot is the death of creativity, it is sad those jobs get lost but these AI models will make humanity stagnant by killing those jobs.

If AI was able to think for itself that would be one thing but it only exists by swallowing tons of creative work for free and repackaging it. It's the equivalent of these non creative remakes / sequels and spin offs that people hate so much we will be getting these until eternity in a world where AI takes over those jobs.

[Ereb]

Actors are overpaid anyway. So can't say I feel any sympathy for their cause. It's like politicians or big time CEOs complaining about their pay. F*ck them. Should I feel sorry for them when they can only afford 6 Ferraris as opposed to 7?

You realize 99% of all actors get paid very low wages right? Nobody is crying about Tom Cruise my naive friend

[exochaft]

You realize 99% of all actors get paid very low wages right? Nobody is crying about Tom Cruise my naive friend

If they're in the guild and their ratio of money-to-hours worked, they actually make quite a bit compared to your average American (or probably anyone in the world) based upon their rates. Actors can make more money in a couple weeks than most Americans can in a year. Not everyone can be Samuel L. Jackson making $8-10mil for doing an after-credits scene in a Marvel movie, but the minimums are thousands of dollars per day (depends on the tier and 'work' required).

Now, this is completely dependent upon whether the actors have work or not... but acting for the vast majority of actors is a part-time job; even the big name stars are essentially part-time workers. It's actually a more recent trend that said actors (and writers, too) think that their craft is something akin to full-time employment, because what typically actors/writers would do is get other employment in between acting/writing gigs. The whole "struggling actor bussing tables waiting for their next gig" a stereotype for a reason, because it's fairly close to the reality of things that's been that way for decades.

What it boils down to is this: the actors/writers want full-time pay and benefits for extremely part-time (and quite often mediocre) work. If you had any other guild, union, or profession making the demands the actors/writers are asking for, they'd be laughed out of negotiations immediately. It'd be like a part-time McDonald's employees asking $200-500/hr on top of full benefits, demanding a quota of guaranteed employment even if there's no actual work or job openings for them... all while said employees are generally mediocre to terrible at their job to where a cheap machine could probably replace them. If the money and demand is not there, there will be no employees or employment opportunities no matter how much one demands the world on a platter.

To be fair, there are some aspects of complaints (such as residuals and production/streaming companies hiding their numbers while affecting actors'/writers' pay) are legitimate complaints. However, the legitimate complaints aren't the main sticking points keeping negotiations from completing... it's the frivolous and unreasonable demands.

[JDL49]

Are you trying to claim no paid-content-trained AI model is taking in any revenue in exchange for services?

Because once you're taking in revenue, your work is commercial, and that's not falling under fair use. Especially since you're shoving most or all of the work into your model's training suite. These all trip big red flags against claims of fair use of copyrighted material. And aren't the only potential points where it could be seen as infringing behaviour.

It isn't a question of whether any AI-produced work necessarily infringes on any specific copyright.

The burden of proof is on the copyright owner. If they can't prove infrigement it's fair use. There's no other choice.