(no subject)

[olivermoss]

* I do not like the words 'informed consent and meaningful compensation for AI' in SAG's current Insta post or their AI Consultant recommending that SAG-AFTRA members don't sign the deal. I need more info right now, but things are looking a bit worrying.

But I need more information before having an opinion, so I will spare you version 952 of my 'de-skilling is a major problem' soapbox for now.

A trans artist I've supported is now able to afford tabling fees and can meaningfully grow his side hustle. Is that due to me? Dunno. Will he stay an artist long term? Dunno. But, if we don't support artists, wont be none. Those market sectors are crucial to the health of the economy / community / artistry.

* Dan Olsen just put out a short video on crowd logistics?. Wow, I didn't not expect to be catered to like this today. Going to grab a cider and watch that. Then back to fic editing.

* There is actually a flashback in the story I'm writing, the one that definitely isn't an 11k and counting omegaverse fic, that I could post as a stand alone story. There is nothing omega-y about it, it would just work on it's own. Might still be a weird / confusing thing to post, tho.

Comments

[delphi]

Mm, don't love that wording either. Thank you very much for the link to the new Folding Ideas video, though - I ended up missing it in my subscriptions. Good luck with the editing!

[olivermoss]

The full details are out now, and I still have questions.

Thanks!

[mistressofmuses]

That feels like kind of a weasel-y way of phrasing it in the contract... like, not that they can't use your image for AI, but they just have to make you sign a form first. "Meaningful compensation" seems extremely vague.

Support for artists is extremely important, and I'm glad that you likely helped an artist get the opportunity he needed to make more of a go of it!

HMMM on the fic. If you think it stands better on its own than within the larger story, then I'd say post it.

[olivermoss]

The full info on the contract and an infographic on AI stuff is out and I am still not sure of things. It at least sounds like professional copyrighted performances can still be used to train. I still have questions and worry that SAG AFTRA just didn't have their ducks in a row as much as WGA.

I might develop that flashback into it's own thing afterwards.

[mistressofmuses]

That's unfortunate. :/ That does sound like they didn't have as firm a stance on AI, or didn't understand *all* the potential ways it could be abused.

[olivermoss]

Yeah, hoping to be proven wrong but this isn't great. But also I can see some of them members pushing for the ability to sell their data that way, mostly ones who didn't quite get it. They didn't have ongoing communication with their membership about the risks like the WGA did.

[mistressofmuses]

I suppose there's still certain feeling of ownership for a physical performer, when it'd still be their face and performance being AI'd into a movie they never actually worked on, whereas a writer's work being taken to train an AI to produce scripts is a more invisible process on the output, and so lacks even that implied acknowledgement of the input they used.

(Of course... there isn't a guarantee that they're actually using an actor's whole image, as I understand - they could likely choose to use it to do a "this person does not exist" type thing, where their AI extras are amalgams of all the actors they've taken data from.)

I think that in reality, the situations for actors and writers are equally terrible. As an actor, that's your face and voice and physicality that you're signing away! You're stealing your future ability to work on a project AND ensuring no other person is hired for it either! (Which is the same broad issue for writers - if an AI can do it, no writer is going to be hired.)

But I can see actors being generally less informed about the bigger implications of AI, where writers as a whole tend to know a lot more about IP and copyright and theft. (And I'm not saying actors are dumb or anything! Just that it's not something they're likely to need the same base understanding of.)

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I'm mostly worried about the de-skilling problem where new actors wont get the bit parts and other things they need to get experience. It's kicking a few rungs out of the ladder.

And, these rolls don't need to be someone's likeness. Let your work be training data and, yeah...

I really don't think AI is where people think it is in terms of digital actors. But the industry is going to do a lot of damage to itself finding that out.

Yeah, they aren't dumb but there has been serious fails in terms of both developing policies and communication.

[mistressofmuses]

Right? When actors have to get a certain number of jobs to even qualify for a SAG card, removing a high number of the jobs that most people start with, as extras and bit parts is going to make it that much harder for people to get started at all. (And sure - this isn't going to immediately make extras obsolete, but it still cuts down on the number of jobs available.) And yes, when there's no functional way to work up through those bit parts, or to work on a larger-scale production (because the big production companies are the ones all using the AI), then it is going to create those huge gaps and de-skilling.

Yup. I think a lot of people are imagining that the scanned likeness will be used wholesale, so it looks like John Doe, who was an extra in one Disney property, might show up in the background of a few more Disney crowd shots, still looking like John Doe. Instead, I think it's a lot more likely that it's all going to be AI generated faces and movements that were trained on all the people conned into agreeing to be part of the training set.
And if the AI output doesn't look like an actual person, then how likely is it that they'll be using data from people who didn't actually agree, because it's sufficiently anonymized by the time they're using it? And of course they can't *show* you the training set, because it's proprietary!
(Yeah, I'm being paranoid and borrowing trouble when there's plenty already to be had. I just don't trust that *ethics* are AMPTP's prime concern all of a sudden.)

And it's true - there was that horrifying clip going around a while ago with the horrid AI background characters in whatever Disney streaming thing that was. There's been a lot of stuff - props, costumes, animals - replaced by CGI, but it often has at least a hint of uncanny valley to it still. Even so, it's certainly improved over the last decade and isn't as glaring as it once was. I think it'll be really obvious and unsettling and will get roundly mocked when companies use AI in place of background extras... for now. Either it gets better, or they use it more subtly, and eventually people don't notice it at all. OR it'll keep sucking and they just won't care because it's worth the couple bucks they saved, and it's not keeping anyone from seeing the movies. OR it'll turn out to be utterly unviable and will fade away as the nonsense fad it deserves to be remembered as... and they will *still* have fucked a lot of stuff up to get to that point.

[olivermoss]

Less people able to get SAG cards means less union members, that's less revenue and less voting power. There is a dues cap (that they have talked about lifting but hadn't afaik) so it's not like the top earners are paying in loads. It basically gave studios the power to massively nerf the unions, if they want to.

Yeah, exactly, people are talking on twitter about getting paychecks for projects they didn't have to do any work for. But they aren't going to clone Clooney, they are going to make a bunch of virtual background people. It'll suck. It will make for a worse product, but all that's been going on for years not is people putting up with less and less and buying into 'but big tech needs this'

Worse product, short term thinking, etc...

I assume the test shows with AI background actors were using the easiest angles and lighting for the programs to work with. It was basically lab conditions. In practice, it'll be much worse and US TV will stop feeling like such a premium product. They are attacking the foundations of the industry and why US live action is so popular world wide.

[mistressofmuses]

It really does lay out an upsetting path toward fucking the union long term. Preventing new people from joining the unions at all would certainly do a lot to undercut their funding in terms of dues, as well as the membership rolls.

Yeah, it's not the leading stars or speaking roles that are going to be getting AI'd - at least for now. It's the background actors in the crowd shots or walking through the space station hallway.

Those test ones that people were mocking were really bad... but as their process improves and they can pour more resources into developing that AI, since that's the basket the eggs are in now? I think it'll be less overtly horrible looking pretty soon. Probably still uncanny and weird and obvious when you're looking, and the people who recognize it will know it's there and hate it, but it'll likely be within tolerance for a lot of people who don't pay as much attention to what's going on outside of the focus of the shot, or don't care too much that some of the stuff looks a bit crap.

Because that's exactly it - people are willing to accept a worse product, and this will be one more vector for that. And when just a few production companies are behind such a vast majority of the projects that get made, well, it's likely the sort of thing that a lot of people will shrug off as "welp, just the way it is", or will get used to.

I think it will be extremely short-term in terms of success. It'll make things look hideously dated basically immediately, but especially as they age. But it feels like an awful lot of things are already made with the intent to be mega hits (or modest streaming filler) now and nothing else, so I'm not sure that "will be comically dated in just a few years" is much of a deterrent, because these big companies are already making things that aren't really designed around their staying power.

[olivermoss]

The contract is for three years. Hopefully, they will start to see where the real dangers actually are and be more organized next time. They went into the strike a mess, because they don't strike as often or work with professional researchers, etc. The influencer guidance was a hot mess they never resolved.

[mistressofmuses]

I hope that those three years provide some clarity on the whole issue, and whether there are loopholes being exploited. A lot of damage can happen with three years of fuckery, but hopefully they'll be in a better-informed position, and more union members will understand the potential pitfalls when it comes around again.

You're right that there were some issues all through the strike - the influencer stuff was especially messy.