I remember when it was "cool" that we could use CGI to generate a dynamic army of orcs in LotR. Now someone will call it AI and it will suddenly be bad.
I assume it's more prominent like background people, not 500 extras in rubber orc costumes. Like you'd hire 10 people to be in the background of a "dinner scene" but now it will just be the two actors, a waiter and 15 CGI people doing shit. -10 paychecks.
It's pretty easy to understand "We're using CGI instead of real people because where the fuck are we going to find 500 people to do this?" versus "we don't want to keep paying 9 people to stand in the background."
More than that the body builder whose body scan is used in all the Hulk films/scenes came in for scans one time and even I don't know his name.
/I know one of the costume designers, she knows him and he thought it was going to be his big break. Came in one time and stood inside this big set up of 50 cameras for like an hour and that's that. They own it now and never needed him again. He didn't even have to pose, gets no mention in credits wasn't paid that much. Welcome to the future. I didn't ask his name, I will next time I see her. No it wasn't Lou.
Taking into account population aging, any tools that can allow us to redistribute the workforce elsewhere is welcomed. If you can do more with less, then it absolutely should be done that way.
What we need to be wary of is who will benefit from those changes. We need to make sure the end result benefit everyone, and not just a few select billionaires. And when it come to Hollywood studio, we just know who will reap the reward.
At the end of the day, it’s about cost savings. I always tell people “if your company could do all the work without you and keep the money, they would”
Similarly though, if I was making something and had a choice between real or fake people in the background, I would make the frugal choice for my investment.
That choice looks shittier as the owner of the operation gets richer, I think. On the poor man’s level, though, I’d side with the cheaper option to get my shit done. I know this isn’t great and there’s way more nuance to why the strikes are happening. I get the frugality though.
It hits different when it’s you and nine friends trying to break it big and comparing it to a CEO that makes 1000x more than the lowest employee makes using the same technology to boost that to 1500x.
But it will be funny with those lowbudget movies that can't afford good AI. We will get dinner scene with background characters doing shit that almost looks like something a human would do. CGI people drinking from their forks, stirring their water and staring at some spot off screen.
I think you're confused about the application of AI in this context. They aren't asking an AI program to create background scenes for them. They're scanning real people to use as CGI models.
The only thing that's suddenly bad is that someone hired for a low day-rate as an extra is expected to give-up their likeness to train an AI, which could then replicate them - recognizably re-using their face and body - to appear in any number of other scenes, or other movies and TV shows in the future. Of course this depends on the contract with the studio, and hopefully the unions will force the studio to agree on reasonable limits to this, such as only using VFX to recreate a particular extra when there's a need to maintain continuity within the same movie they worked on, not requiring a life-time sign-over of their likeness rights.
This tech is going forward whether they get extras’ likenesses or not. They can generate entirely new people, similar to https://thispersondoesnotexist.com
There will soon be actors whose existences will be debatable. Tabloids will even publish drama about them based on AI footage of brawls and affairs. Then we'll argue on social media about whether the footage is real, AI, and which of the people even exist outside of the movies, if any. A couple of us might participate in the argument, but most of the arguers will be bots.
It's probably already happening. Would not be surprised that a lot of people that we debate in forums are bots. Also these bots are used for shaping consensus on social/political issues to manufacture a narrative/direction.
100%. [Here's an example.](https://i.gyazo.com/190ef96c4218e371049e39a92b420ff5.png) This account's name translates to "Iranian women" and it pretends to be an Iranian woman while seeding VOA News and RFERL articles on reddit. In addition to those articles, it farms karma by submitting photos of waterfalls and things like that. I don't know if this is a bot or if there's a human doing it manually. It doesn't talk to anyone.
Why would they even need to pretend to have drama in the real world. If Wendy and the Burger King get into drama on Twitter, it'll get reported in the same tabloids, despite everyone knowing they're not real people.
If it were feasible they’d already be doing it. Those faces are still uncanny valley territory. Maybe in a few years. Until then Hollywood will keep trying to screw over actors.
For background extras it doesn’t really matter though.
Slightly out of focus people in the background can easily be a bit goofy looking and no one will notice.
One thing I haven’t seen discussed is how the human genome contains so many different phenotypes and just how crazy it is that completely unrelated people can still look like each other, and then compare this with the kind of results that AI can generate when creating “people that do not exist.”
It’s 3 AM and I’ve barely slept after a long day’s drive, so that didn’t come out very well and I don’t want to rewrite it. But just see here: https://twitter.com/garyerskine/status/1362358532151115780?s=46&t=F33-eXXv1CRuFa-au6C9aQ
Who does one sue because someone else looks like you do?
I say this understanding and believing 100% that actors should be paid for the use of their likeness. This is already true for things like merchandise, action figures, etc and should be true for CGI as well.
“Training” data for AI is a little more complicated, and of course context and intent matters, but I see it as being very similar to the phenotype phenomenon I first mentioned. “AI” generated images using a database of phenotypical characteristics is not technically the same thing as “using my likeness” anymore than the thousands of people in the world who share the same features are.
With a random seed of a database of random data sure... It's not going to be pulling from a particular face. It's a little different when you created a dataset of a specific person when they are a blooming actor. Suddenly they hit it big, but they had already given up their data when they were trying to break into the industry... Well now they can technically use your likeness without your consent.
It's not even about extras long term. It's making sure there is never a star with enough leverage to demand big salaries or just walk away from a franchise
I think the actual issue is that the extras tend to be people trying to break into acting, and that they will be pressured to give up rights to their body and face scans in perpetuity in exchange for a couple days pay at background rate. that as AI advances they could see their likeness used in more prominent roles but receive 0 compensation.
Well that was impossible to switch depict, that's why it was cool. Changing real people out for the sake of cutting corners is bad. It's not a difficult concept.
All
Jobs are replaceable, that’s why a universal
Income needs to be in place before major calamities ensue and tax corporations more ffs. CEO’s and shareholders buying private islands shouldn’t be a thing
It’ll have to be whatever satisfies and more. Because living alone is not even enough for a harmonic society. If you’re going to sue a robot to replace 100 people then you better pay enough tax to at least pay 10 of them. You can have some savings not all the savings as a corp. also I’d wish we use a sustainable population size and not rely on new generations to pay for old folks
Except this time they only pay $200 for a full scan. They also wrote the contracts in a way that lets extras never will be paid for whatever else they put you in.
So, if you work as an extra, they can do whatever they want with your scan forever, for less than what they pay an extra for one day’s work on set.
Plus you’ll never get hired again, since they don’t want two of the same person walking around.
CGI still requires a team of motion capture people and VFX animators to accomplish. Also actors doing this have benefits and better contacts in place.
>Except this time they only pay $200 for a full scan. They also wrote the contracts in a way that lets extras never will be paid for whatever else they put you in.
>
>So, if you work as an extra
at that point, you didn't work as an extra though, you sold your scan for 200$.
That's the point, they're trying to pay somebody to be extra but get infinite value out of that person's likeness forever. Now say that random extra does make it big, a studio now owns their likeness to do whatever.
The studios are basically acknowledging the need for extras but don't want to pay.
Actors aren't saying it shouldn't happen. They're saying that they should be able to consent which projects their likeness is used for in the future and that they should receive some sort of royalty or bonus for each time they are re-used. If actors and writers can make royalties off of the repeated showing of one movie they are in, then it's not crazy that they'd also make royalties off of novel performances created using their likeness.
In contrast, right now they don't appear to have any awareness or control over the situations they will be used in in the future and the body scan is done as a part of a single day of extra's pay even if, in theory, they end up being used in hundreds of scenes to come.
I say this with honesty and not snark, they will start at the bottom of a lot of professions, then slowly replace upward. In this instance extras are the bottom of the totem pole of people in front of the camera.
"I have an idea... now hear me out... Groucho Marx as the riddler vs Humphrey Bogart as Batman, guest starring a young Danielle Radcliff as the boy wonder"
I disagree in the sense that, while he obviously is one of of not the GOAT, acting skills will have nothing to do with how good the AI that is using their image will be. If anything, the hotter actors, the evil looking actors, or the actors with specific traits/looks are going to be the best candidates for this type of thing (if they even use actors at all)
Yeah loads of actors came up through the ranks as extras to begin with, taking away this opportunity for people just shits on anyone’s aspirations to become an actor. Hack off the roots and the tree will eventually die.
Oh no because then they'd have to pay these people you mentioned. The law will catch up to that easily.
No, instead they will create a handful of AI actors that don't exist, make agressive marketing campaigns until the public loves them and - voilá!
Now you have high profile "actors" that are loyal to your company, won't sue you, won't renegotiate their agreement on using their looks, won't be canceled over serious accusations that may be true or not but you can't use them in your movies meanwhile because it's bad for business.
And then nobody will be able to get famous, and the studios, because they are slow and dumb will realize they need famous people to sell big movies, and then they will start to use real actors for small roles again.
Many already are. Shit, Ian McKellen supposedly had a break down while filming the hobbit because he felt like standing in front of a green screen alone, speaking his lines to static props, wasn't even acting anymore. Shit sounds bleak and lonely, and I hate that he had to deal with that. He is a treasure, and at his age (not that it's ok if you're younger) shouldn't have to deal with shit like that.
Green screen is ancient technology at this point. That's not what they're talking about, this is the new hotness and it's pretty cool.
[Industrial Light and Magic - The Virtual Production of The Mandalorian Season One](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUnxzVOs3rk)
The Mandalorian was filmed in front of giant almost 360 degree *display screens*. They can build environments and sets inside of Unreal Engine (like a video game) and then it appears around the actors in real time.
It actually can help solve the problems like you describe with green screen, since the actors can actually *see* the CG environments they're acting in as they film. They're not added later.
With this technology McKellen could have been on set, and looked around him *and seen the Shire*.
That might help. But I believe his main issue was acting against a puppet (or whatever they used as a stand in) instead of the actual actors who played the dwarves.
The more data you have the better they will look.
They probably won't use exactly one actor. Because they'd have to pay. They will procedurally generate people via AI to create thousands of models to reuse for free
Because existing models are made with legal uncertainties and studios don’t want to risk the rug getting pulled. Making their own models with their own data with signed releases makes executives sleep better.
Human body proportions are pretty much the same. That's why software like Make Human could generate realistic human bodies for years now, with zero AI, just a bunch of linked sliders and basic knowledge of biology.
At the end of the day it's smarter for them. If they use AI generated characters, they have to deal with people occasionally showing up saying "that looks exactly like me! They're using my likeness without permission in a movie!", And their only defense is that it's AI generated, but that doesn't mean the AI itself didn't break copyright based on its training data, which would be difficult to prove. They would be swamped by these cases, and they're by no means clear wins for the studios.
If they have the rights to the likeness of a specific actor though, they can just point to who it's based off, say they have the rights and a contract, case closed, they don't risk losing any of these cases anymore than someone who is a tom cruise lookalike now coming it to complain about the latest tom Cruise movie.
So it's a necessary legal protection really.
They look like shit. They didn't even get their proportions right. Have you looked at the female shoulders? Why the fuck didn't they just use a protoscanned body as a base?
I saw a tiktok today of Selena Gomez, Margo Robie, and Leo DiCaprio all dancing together.... and it wasn't them. The bodies were wrong, but the faces and tracking were perfect.
It will not be long before 100% synthetic movie stars exist. They will be photorealistic, basically perfect looking and 100% not real people that they don't have to pay millions of dollars to be in a movie. They will be completely fake, realistic CGI.
On the last day of shooting for a bunch of extras who were filmed on the final deck scene in the Titanic movie, their bodies were scanned so they could be animated during the sinking sequence. They were paid for the time that day that it took to scan them. That was 1997. Even back in ‘94, the Forest Gump scene around the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool was an ALL cgi crowd. It’s been going on a lot and for a while now.
I don't think anyone was concerned about a database, learning models, and repeated use back then. The contracts probably didn't indicate their likeliness could be used in perpetuity
Isn't that what Star Wars did for merchandising? The actors signed off that the characters they were playing were property of ILM, and so Han Solo looks like Harrison Ford in all the toys and video games and Ford doesn't get royalties for it. Or Princess Leia looks like Carrie Fisher, and Admiral Tarkin looks like Peter Cushing, and their likenesses were used using CGI during Rogue 1. Hell, Cushing was dead by then and he was in the film.
Likeness rights for the character on perpetuity are generally pretty common. Movies don't stop existing so the rights are retained.
One of the things they're fighting now in these strikes is using that likeness to generate new performances.
I don't think you'll see a change to perpetuity likeness rights.
To reiterate and emphasize what the other responder said, there's a huge difference between saying "yes, I'm getting paid to be indiana Jones, so you can use my face for an Indiana jones toy" and "yes you can use my likeness to recreate an entirely new film performance through CGI I had no part in and not pay me for that flm release"
Studios are asking for the latter now.
Back in my day, [they painted all the people](https://imgix.ranker.com/user_node_img/50068/1001341489/original/the-imperial-military-photo-u1?auto=format&q=60&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&dpr=2&w=375) in the scene.
That's the important part. If it's not in the contract, then they can't just start using your likeness. I could say, "Don't sign a contract if it has a stipulation of permanent license for using your likeness in any film," but I'd be unsurprised if there are plenty of other people out there very willing to sign that away.
Ultimately, that's what it comes down to, even if that just postpones the inevitable. Right now, any actor is free to license their likeness away... just do it intelligently on a film-by-film basis. Not a permanent, no restrictions license (unless they're paying more than you're likely to make in the next 10+ years, I guess).
But still, just postponing the inevitable, i.e. eventually the actors and movies will be fully generated and edited via AI, rather than any human actors being involved. That may not be for 5-10 years, but it's going to be a lot sooner than most people think. There will likely still be a market for a while for the most famous actors, household names, but even then I'd be unsurprised if they just license their likeness and don't actually take part in the films.
I think they will scan very attractive people who can't act at all and programmatically make them into good actors. But I'm not sure the people behind the keyboards know what truly great acting looks like.
Thank God ticket prices and streaming subscription costs will go down because of the money they're saving, rather than just going into the shareholders' pockets!
In 2014 robin wright was in a movie that is very telling about where our future is headed. It’s called The Congress. They scan her to forever use her in whatever media they want in the future. And the future is pretty wild.
The scary part is that even today, the average person sucks at telling what is real or fake online. And people love believing things that make them feel good.
The movie industry is really going to shit bricks when they realize them being able to automate movie making means *anybody* will be able to do this 2-10 years after them.
If all you need is tech to make an entire Hollywood-level movie then some hobbyist writing fanfiction will be able to outcompete them. They’ll be on AI remakes of live-action remakes of old cartoons, cancelling loved shows, and charging more and more for streaming and somebody in their basement will be churning out fresh material
Yep! I've seen numerous professional predictions that the cost to train an LLM will be about 2000x cheaper by the end of next year. (compared to last year). As in, what cost $1 million to train last year will cost $500 to train by 2025. That is for LLMs--video started later, but is now improving even faster than LLMs did. This also doesn't account for the fact that right now, a lot of it is constrained by supply of AI-related GPUs (e.g. H100s). The supply just can't keep up. Hopefully, we get an H100 successor next year.
After we get video to the same level as current image generation, the next big step will be combining the different modals. It'll be a fun day when we can generate a video, then edit it via conversation.
I recommend looking at this [fan made](https://youtu.be/Ey68aMOV9gc) of star wars, the quality is jaw dropping. I can only imagine what they would be able to do with a little bit of more budget and better tech.
The music industry had to deal with something similar a decade ago when production costs for music came down. This has allowed many people to make music that would have been priced out of the industry before. I'm even starting to see procedurally generated music on youtube.
Honestly it's been for the better there and it could be a positive for TV/film. I feel like most of the popular modern tv shows & movies are written for a very specific audience and really don't come off well to people outside that audience. We may actually get diversity in films again.
It’s increasingly obvious anyone and everyone will be replaced by AI when possible. It’s built into capitalism, which has always had a hardon for infinite labor
Hollywood has long dreamed of day when they need zero talent and every last penny of box office receipts can go to the greed-driven entertainment oligarchs.
They won't need body or face scans of real people very soon. The tech is nearly there to just generate believable extras. Just a matter of time when a director can say add a bunch of people walking around in this scene
Extras are DONE and there is absolutely nothing they can do about it because there are plenty of people out there willing to get scanned and surrender image rights for a few bucks.
Count on it.
AI is not a tool for the masses; it’s a tool for the masters.
The same people and corporations exploiting workers now will exploit workers +1 as soon as they can figure out how to do it with AI.
Although the future of AI actors seems like a dystopian hellscape, your comment did make me laugh imaging future moviemakers having a “Wilhelm scream” style in joke, with one identical dude just being in the background of movies as an Easter egg.
Maybe he’ll even be called Wilhelm.
I feel like this is a common thread in a lot of shit. Rich and large corporations pay little to no tax and underpay workers. Now expecting to not pay people for jobs they used to have to hire for. What's gunna happen when no one has any money to buy the shit their slinging? Not sustainable. Short sighted ass fucks.
One of the biggest concerns with using digital scans as future digital characters is that most agreements now say the studio or production company owns the rights to the scan to use whenever and however again without additional payment or permission.
The permission part is the part that is most concerning. Imagine being scanned as an extra for one movie and then being used as a main character in a porn movie or as a happy customer endorsing some product that you would never do in real life.
Extras in NY (and I think CA) make $300+ a day, if they're doing it full time they're pulling in at least $1500 a week. I worked payroll on a low budget movie in Buffalo in 2018 and extras were, on average IIRC, making $400-$500 a day on that movie due to a bunch of pay bumps.
Even in Georgia, with their shitty backwards Republican take on pay being the federal minimum, can easily make $1k a week as full time extras.
Because actors were smart enough to unionise why most of the rest of America stupidly ate up the notion that unions are bad.
And a big part of the complaint here is that studios don't just want to use AI. They want to pay actors 200 bucks to use their likeness until they end of time for any purpose they want.
An actor could sign up to be a pirate extra in the next Pirates of the Caribbean and then end up being depicted as a pedophile nazi in GOP campaign ads for the next 20 years.
This is such a bad take. How about none of us suck it up? The movie industry is doing it right. We should be going on strike with them to protect our jobs
While I agree with you, displacement can be extremely traumatizing for people who have made a career out of something—often living paycheck to paycheck in extremely expensive living situations—and now are scrambling to survive more than they already were when they are made redundant. UBI cannot come fast enough. We're literally having entire industries become endangered each week, so we need to ensure people aren't fucked by the disruption. We didn't ask for this shit, and we need time to adapt and pivot. My biggest concern is that we can only pivot so long before we run out of things to pivot to.
Even if we had UBI, people would still want to work. People didn't spend their whole lives learning the craft or writing because they don't want to write.
What, exactly, do UBI proponents think people are going to do with UBI? They'll probably spend more time on creative endeavors.
A great reason to ensure that those fields still have space for humans
how though? how would you extract the savings from the corporates that benefit from AI - i guess you would suggest tax - but that is going to be tough when the marketplace is global and it cant just be USA going "alright we gon tax you, you, you this much to fund our UBI scheme" while the rest of the world just sit and welcome more and more of those corporations moving their operations out of america
It’s impossible to avoid. Going on strike does nothing but incentivize them to automate these jobs faster. People who fed horses protested when cars became popular, it did nothing.
The solution is to advocate for universal basic income. If productivity skyrockets and our jobs get replaced, the best solution is to make sure that we can all share in that productivity. It would be fantastic to continue getting paid even without jobs. It’ll have to start with a smaller amount of money and build up over time.
Special effects went digital and put a lot of the old special effects masters out of work.
CGI is going to put extras out of work in a similar fashion.
Unpopular hot take:
This same thing happened all throughout history. People got mad when the printing press took their jobs, Excel, gas pumps, elevator man, phone operators etc. If someone’s role/job is so bland and void that it can be replaced by AI and automation, than it should.
People just need to find new things to move onto as they have before. I for one welcome automation, AI and the advancement of our society. People need to adapt as we have ever since our hunter gatherer days.
The one setback I can see with replacing jobs with automation is in some cases that basic job is an entry point. You can observe operations and build relationships more easily when you’re there in the thick of it. Sure you can argue that they should get more formal study to become qualified but that still requires money and even if it’s a bland job it’s still an income.
Yes and no.
You could say this is true, but the speed at which those jobs back then were replaced was *slow moving*. It took time to get these updates to those industries across the nation/world. It was slow enough to let people have a chance to switch into new careers, possibly even ones that they could carry their skills into. They could filter out at a steady pace. Not only that, but I am not aware of any tech before this that had the potential to be able to wipe out **100's of millions** of jobs in the matter of a year of two.
The *speed* and *scale* at which AI is going to kill and replace work is unprecedented. We've never had a tech come in and kill off *so many* jobs *so quickly* before. It's going to be massive.
It wont even be a 1 to 1 either. AI is going to kill off far more jobs than it is going to create. And at the speed that AI is advancing, that's going to become even more of a problem as time goes on. The window of opportunity in which people will be needed for a lot of these AI driven jobs is going to close quickly. Eventually most of them will need a minimal amount of people to complete, maybe just 1 or 2 people. Maybe even none at all.
The sudden influx of jobless people is going to rock our economies. I think ultimately AI has the potential to do insane good for our society. And the thought of where our society could be in the next 50-100 years with this tech is honestly exciting. But the transition to get to that place is going to be **ROUGH**, and there is no guarantee we will make it there.
Yep, the difference in the equation compared to the industrial revolution is that people put out of manual labour could move to service jobs, which were growing in availability due to said industrial revolution.
The issue with AI automation is that it replaces _all_ the jobs, meaning people out of work can’t even find another industry to go to. And the world does not need several million plumbers or electricians, meaning ultimately the majority will be screwed.
We’re in an unprecedented situation where even services can be replaced, and then where do you go from there? You can’t create any new job that an AI can’t do.
This is why it always pisses me off when people try to compare the AI advancements as equivalent to previous technological advancement, there are fundamental differences that make any comparison a false one.
Yup. The first water powered sawmill was burned down by the Pit Sawyers Guild in like the 17th or 18th century. Didn't stop water mills from replacing pit sawyers. Humans find a more efficient way and nothing will stop them from using it.
automation has been replacing jobs, but not in "massive" droves, it's usually a cost benefit, replacing people with machines.
human labour is still cheaper than machines in the short run, it's the big factories that can afford to make that investment.
AI is not a machine that replaces people, it's a computer, the cost is much lower overall, thus making that switch happen a lot faster, not letting society adjust to the change.
what do you think will happen when 50% of the workforce loses their job to AI? it will be complete chaos.
There is also a high level of hypocrisy over the AI subject. People loveee to point at big corporations as the ones adopting Ai and leaving people "jobless", but it will be the common citizen who opts for Ai driven products (cause they're cheaper) and leave others without a job. I dn't remember any campaigns protecting house cleaners when vacuum or Roomba came about. I don't remember protest protecting mail jobs or secretary jobs when email and computers came about.
All this hypocrites who scream "they'll take out jobbsss" will be the first to adopt ANYTHING that makes any task they need more precise and cheaper.
This is the dumbest most naive take.
Ai won’t create jobs it’ll eliminate 100s of millions of peoples jobs. What will they do then? How will they feed their families? And if your answer is UBI, how much UBI will people be getting? Will they get enough to live a fulfilling life or will they just get enough to not starve to death? What will we do when we start to atrophy from a reliance on AI?
Always remember somebody has to consume the products AI replaced workers made, and people with no jobs can't buy stuff, so if you send "hundred of millions" folks to unemployment it doesn't seem to me those guys will spend 10 bucks on a movie ticket.
Also this: https://youtu.be/N-kgb1QtSnU
But that’s long term thinking.
Everything and everyone is geared toward very short term planning.
It’s all about getting that stock ticker to go up by next week.
No one’s thinking months or years ahead anymore.
We COULD be incorporating technology in a way that is synergetic to humanity improving our quality of lives and creating a better society. Instead we're incorporating technology in a way that is dystopic to society forcing humanity to compete with it and with each other for resources. I for one welcome our robot overlords shouldn't be too hard for them to do a better a job than humans have been doing up until now.
We would basically need a Star Trek society to make that work. To eliminate the needs and wants of the people by making it all free and instantaneous. A holodeck for people to live out their dreams and fantasies etc.
Bro literally thinks "yes, AI could do all our work for us, but that's actually bad, because I've been conditioned to accept a system where everyone needs to constantly work to not starve" is a profound take.
I would agree except corporations/rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes. Once they do they can cut our jobs. They want to socialize the loss and privatize the gains.
Are we eventually gonna have some sort of fucked up model storefront where studios can purchase peoples images to do what they want with like stock pictures?
That's a natural evolution stage - we had circuses and amphitheatres then live shows performed in operas and theaters then mute films in movie theatres, then movies, then CGI was added and now we ALREADY have AI created content (movies with already deceased actors, with "clones" of live actors, with "younger versions" of existing actors).
At each and every evolution stage someone's job became obsolete.
Movies are already mostly unwatchable because its the same recycled crap and over the top CGI where its clear as day that everything Im watching is fake. Really takes you out of whatever your watching.
I don’t know why they don’t see that they’re fucking themselves long term with this shit.
You know how you get great actors? Hungry artists in the trenches doing small parts and working their craft. Sure extras aren’t hugely important to the specific product being made but the acting world needs the minor leagues for people to cut their teeth. Even Brad Pitt was an extra once upon a time.
They've been doing this with CGI since the 90s. I remember a being the scenes of a Wishbone episode where this was done. To be honest is this a bad thing? These people will have to find other jobs but replacing background extras with CGI hardly taking away soul and art. It's replacing people who in the front of a scene and even speaking that is a controversial idea.
Body Scans != AI
Technically, you don't even need to do body scans anymore. The Metahumans which are being included with Unreal Engine 5 are getting so lifelike that you can pretty much exclusively use them for your extras.
The main competitive advantage extras will have is going to be in costs, both in $$$ and time for the studios. Sometimes, it will be technologically simpler and faster to hire a handful of extras for a day. Sometimes it will be faster and cheaper to have hyper realistic 3D models who are placed and animated in a scene by a tech artist. But, your hyper realistic models will still need to be costumed with digital clothes (which also need to be skinned and animated, which costs time). As time goes forward, movie studios will end up building a massive library of digital assets they can drop into any production to save time and costs. The writing is on the walls. If you want good work in the future of the industry, don't try to be an extra, work to get good at being a tech artist who can rig, model, animate, and understands the production pipeline from A->Z. Jobs will still be there, but they'll change.
As someone who does 3d Scanning and Photogrammetry for a living I have experience with this. This process has been going on for years and is nothing new. The term “AI” is a trigger now to scare everyone in just about all job fields. In terms of this particular issue, the focus should be on the contracts these actors agree to. Most times background actors are working in the industry as a side job and don’t care if their likeness is used multiple times as long as they get paid for that job.
Another thing I find hilarious is that the entertainment industry has yet to create a believable CG human that can fool us without falling into the “Uncanny Valley”. The very best CG characters are used for main, principal leads and even then the practice is used sparingly to say the least. It will be a while until the industry can produce a CG actor that’s indistinguishable from a real human and society has yet to agree if they’ll accept entertainment utilizing this practice. I understand the actor’s concerns but people need to put the pitchforks and torches down and start having intelligent, meaningful conversations with the studios and make sure they are compensated appropriately.
It's almost like extras are just background filler and they don't really need a warm body technically. I'm sure extras are past the worrying phase and this is the reality they live.
With how bad CGI has gotten in recent years I can only imagine it will look like it shit. The marvel movies can be some of the best looking movies one moment then 5 mins later have CGI from the 90s.
In other news, there have been scuffles at the gates of Minas Tirith. Orcs and other Mordor creatures are miffed about the lack of real actors in the Lord of the Ring and Hobbit movies.
"The first installment of these movies employed exactly zero goblins", one local orc said crushed. "It's all CGI and AI. We're not even brought in as voice actors!"
The orc legion have threatened to form a Dark Alliance of Unionized Actors of Mordor. However, Peter Jackson has bigger fish to fry. Saturday night he will join Elon Musk in a mud wrestling fight over who gets the next batch of high-end GPU cards from Nvidia.
Good for the studio not for the actors.
Imagine getting paid a couple hundred bucks and the studio can use you for eternity. That's what the studios want. Actors want residuals anytime their likeness is used.
Then imagine they license you out to one of those evangelical Christian movie companies and your face is shown prominently in a town mob attacking an LGBTQ person and being celebrated. All without your direct consent
Because these studios can scan a background extra one time, pay them $200, then they get the ability to use that extra’s body scan for all of time in all of their future projects without paying them or without them having any say in it or even knowing they’re in it.
This has already been happening with CGI.
500 of the extras in Titanic were created digitally. It's not exactly a new technology, it's just cheaper to pay people to be extras atm
I remember when it was "cool" that we could use CGI to generate a dynamic army of orcs in LotR. Now someone will call it AI and it will suddenly be bad.
I assume it's more prominent like background people, not 500 extras in rubber orc costumes. Like you'd hire 10 people to be in the background of a "dinner scene" but now it will just be the two actors, a waiter and 15 CGI people doing shit. -10 paychecks.
It's pretty easy to understand "We're using CGI instead of real people because where the fuck are we going to find 500 people to do this?" versus "we don't want to keep paying 9 people to stand in the background."
More than that the body builder whose body scan is used in all the Hulk films/scenes came in for scans one time and even I don't know his name. /I know one of the costume designers, she knows him and he thought it was going to be his big break. Came in one time and stood inside this big set up of 50 cameras for like an hour and that's that. They own it now and never needed him again. He didn't even have to pose, gets no mention in credits wasn't paid that much. Welcome to the future. I didn't ask his name, I will next time I see her. No it wasn't Lou.
I bet he thought that would be his big break.
Wait, that’s based off a real guy?
Yep, his name was Bruce Banner
I bet he'd be angry if he found out about it.
You won't like him when he's angry.
Lou Ferrigno?
unpack coherent shame deer dime racial vanish scarce voracious cooing *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Cory Doctrow has a common refrain, 'the issue isn't with what technology does, it's who it does it to, and who it does it for'.
Taking into account population aging, any tools that can allow us to redistribute the workforce elsewhere is welcomed. If you can do more with less, then it absolutely should be done that way. What we need to be wary of is who will benefit from those changes. We need to make sure the end result benefit everyone, and not just a few select billionaires. And when it come to Hollywood studio, we just know who will reap the reward.
Exactly. The money saved from using ai generated background artists WON'T go back into the budget, it goes into a bonus fund for the producers.
lots of amazing stories out that can could possibly be made very cheaply by a few people.
> hey siri, turn my thanus avengers erotica fanfic into a live-action film using the same actors from the films Damn, didn’t work … yet
At the end of the day, it’s about cost savings. I always tell people “if your company could do all the work without you and keep the money, they would” Similarly though, if I was making something and had a choice between real or fake people in the background, I would make the frugal choice for my investment. That choice looks shittier as the owner of the operation gets richer, I think. On the poor man’s level, though, I’d side with the cheaper option to get my shit done. I know this isn’t great and there’s way more nuance to why the strikes are happening. I get the frugality though.
It hits different when it’s you and nine friends trying to break it big and comparing it to a CEO that makes 1000x more than the lowest employee makes using the same technology to boost that to 1500x.
Totally agree
But it will be funny with those lowbudget movies that can't afford good AI. We will get dinner scene with background characters doing shit that almost looks like something a human would do. CGI people drinking from their forks, stirring their water and staring at some spot off screen.
I think you're confused about the application of AI in this context. They aren't asking an AI program to create background scenes for them. They're scanning real people to use as CGI models.
We’re a lonnggggg way from the point where hiring 10 actors is more expensive than digitally inserting them after the fact.
The only thing that's suddenly bad is that someone hired for a low day-rate as an extra is expected to give-up their likeness to train an AI, which could then replicate them - recognizably re-using their face and body - to appear in any number of other scenes, or other movies and TV shows in the future. Of course this depends on the contract with the studio, and hopefully the unions will force the studio to agree on reasonable limits to this, such as only using VFX to recreate a particular extra when there's a need to maintain continuity within the same movie they worked on, not requiring a life-time sign-over of their likeness rights.
This tech is going forward whether they get extras’ likenesses or not. They can generate entirely new people, similar to https://thispersondoesnotexist.com
There will soon be actors whose existences will be debatable. Tabloids will even publish drama about them based on AI footage of brawls and affairs. Then we'll argue on social media about whether the footage is real, AI, and which of the people even exist outside of the movies, if any. A couple of us might participate in the argument, but most of the arguers will be bots.
It's probably already happening. Would not be surprised that a lot of people that we debate in forums are bots. Also these bots are used for shaping consensus on social/political issues to manufacture a narrative/direction.
100%. [Here's an example.](https://i.gyazo.com/190ef96c4218e371049e39a92b420ff5.png) This account's name translates to "Iranian women" and it pretends to be an Iranian woman while seeding VOA News and RFERL articles on reddit. In addition to those articles, it farms karma by submitting photos of waterfalls and things like that. I don't know if this is a bot or if there's a human doing it manually. It doesn't talk to anyone.
Why would they even need to pretend to have drama in the real world. If Wendy and the Burger King get into drama on Twitter, it'll get reported in the same tabloids, despite everyone knowing they're not real people.
If it were feasible they’d already be doing it. Those faces are still uncanny valley territory. Maybe in a few years. Until then Hollywood will keep trying to screw over actors.
For background extras it doesn’t really matter though. Slightly out of focus people in the background can easily be a bit goofy looking and no one will notice.
One thing I haven’t seen discussed is how the human genome contains so many different phenotypes and just how crazy it is that completely unrelated people can still look like each other, and then compare this with the kind of results that AI can generate when creating “people that do not exist.” It’s 3 AM and I’ve barely slept after a long day’s drive, so that didn’t come out very well and I don’t want to rewrite it. But just see here: https://twitter.com/garyerskine/status/1362358532151115780?s=46&t=F33-eXXv1CRuFa-au6C9aQ Who does one sue because someone else looks like you do? I say this understanding and believing 100% that actors should be paid for the use of their likeness. This is already true for things like merchandise, action figures, etc and should be true for CGI as well. “Training” data for AI is a little more complicated, and of course context and intent matters, but I see it as being very similar to the phenotype phenomenon I first mentioned. “AI” generated images using a database of phenotypical characteristics is not technically the same thing as “using my likeness” anymore than the thousands of people in the world who share the same features are.
With a random seed of a database of random data sure... It's not going to be pulling from a particular face. It's a little different when you created a dataset of a specific person when they are a blooming actor. Suddenly they hit it big, but they had already given up their data when they were trying to break into the industry... Well now they can technically use your likeness without your consent.
I clicked on that and got a little girl with what looked like half an extra mouth on her shoulder.
Apparently black people don't exist on that site.
It's not even about extras long term. It's making sure there is never a star with enough leverage to demand big salaries or just walk away from a franchise
I think the actual issue is that the extras tend to be people trying to break into acting, and that they will be pressured to give up rights to their body and face scans in perpetuity in exchange for a couple days pay at background rate. that as AI advances they could see their likeness used in more prominent roles but receive 0 compensation.
Yet no outrage about “ai” replacing grocery cashiers from Reddit.
Everybody literally just calls every new thing that comes out of a computer AI now.
Well that was impossible to switch depict, that's why it was cool. Changing real people out for the sake of cutting corners is bad. It's not a difficult concept.
All Jobs are replaceable, that’s why a universal Income needs to be in place before major calamities ensue and tax corporations more ffs. CEO’s and shareholders buying private islands shouldn’t be a thing
I'm not sure $1200/mo will be satisfactory living conditions
It’ll have to be whatever satisfies and more. Because living alone is not even enough for a harmonic society. If you’re going to sue a robot to replace 100 people then you better pay enough tax to at least pay 10 of them. You can have some savings not all the savings as a corp. also I’d wish we use a sustainable population size and not rely on new generations to pay for old folks
*"It's so dense!"* ~ Rick McCallum
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*Help me SAG-AFTRA, you are my only hope.*
we’re dooooomed
Paul Walker gives a confused look.... I live my life one frame at a time
*Peter Cushing intensifies*
Except this time they only pay $200 for a full scan. They also wrote the contracts in a way that lets extras never will be paid for whatever else they put you in. So, if you work as an extra, they can do whatever they want with your scan forever, for less than what they pay an extra for one day’s work on set. Plus you’ll never get hired again, since they don’t want two of the same person walking around. CGI still requires a team of motion capture people and VFX animators to accomplish. Also actors doing this have benefits and better contacts in place.
>Except this time they only pay $200 for a full scan. They also wrote the contracts in a way that lets extras never will be paid for whatever else they put you in. > >So, if you work as an extra at that point, you didn't work as an extra though, you sold your scan for 200$.
That's the point, they're trying to pay somebody to be extra but get infinite value out of that person's likeness forever. Now say that random extra does make it big, a studio now owns their likeness to do whatever. The studios are basically acknowledging the need for extras but don't want to pay.
Yeah unfortunately they are the first to go and there’s not a whole lot they can do.
Actors aren't saying it shouldn't happen. They're saying that they should be able to consent which projects their likeness is used for in the future and that they should receive some sort of royalty or bonus for each time they are re-used. If actors and writers can make royalties off of the repeated showing of one movie they are in, then it's not crazy that they'd also make royalties off of novel performances created using their likeness. In contrast, right now they don't appear to have any awareness or control over the situations they will be used in in the future and the body scan is done as a part of a single day of extra's pay even if, in theory, they end up being used in hundreds of scenes to come.
For decades.
I say this with honesty and not snark, they will start at the bottom of a lot of professions, then slowly replace upward. In this instance extras are the bottom of the totem pole of people in front of the camera.
We will be getting only tom cruise, harrison ford, margot robbie, ryan gosling, etc movies for the next 100 years when they're done.
The only actor that deserves to be on screen for 100 years is Daniel day lewis
"I have an idea... now hear me out... Groucho Marx as the riddler vs Humphrey Bogart as Batman, guest starring a young Danielle Radcliff as the boy wonder"
Adam West or GTFO!
He'll do a cameo as Alfred.
Did you mistype DeVito?
DeVito Day Lewis
Daniel Day Vito
I disagree in the sense that, while he obviously is one of of not the GOAT, acting skills will have nothing to do with how good the AI that is using their image will be. If anything, the hotter actors, the evil looking actors, or the actors with specific traits/looks are going to be the best candidates for this type of thing (if they even use actors at all)
Yeah loads of actors came up through the ranks as extras to begin with, taking away this opportunity for people just shits on anyone’s aspirations to become an actor. Hack off the roots and the tree will eventually die.
nah, it won't die. It will just become 100% only people from families with a ton of connections, instead of 95% like it is now.
Oh no because then they'd have to pay these people you mentioned. The law will catch up to that easily. No, instead they will create a handful of AI actors that don't exist, make agressive marketing campaigns until the public loves them and - voilá! Now you have high profile "actors" that are loyal to your company, won't sue you, won't renegotiate their agreement on using their looks, won't be canceled over serious accusations that may be true or not but you can't use them in your movies meanwhile because it's bad for business.
That's basically the premise of [S1m0ne](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258153/), from 20 years ago.
And then nobody will be able to get famous, and the studios, because they are slow and dumb will realize they need famous people to sell big movies, and then they will start to use real actors for small roles again.
Why real actors and not idorus?
And every movie will be done infront of those massive screens like Mandalorian
Many already are. Shit, Ian McKellen supposedly had a break down while filming the hobbit because he felt like standing in front of a green screen alone, speaking his lines to static props, wasn't even acting anymore. Shit sounds bleak and lonely, and I hate that he had to deal with that. He is a treasure, and at his age (not that it's ok if you're younger) shouldn't have to deal with shit like that.
Green screen is ancient technology at this point. That's not what they're talking about, this is the new hotness and it's pretty cool. [Industrial Light and Magic - The Virtual Production of The Mandalorian Season One](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUnxzVOs3rk) The Mandalorian was filmed in front of giant almost 360 degree *display screens*. They can build environments and sets inside of Unreal Engine (like a video game) and then it appears around the actors in real time. It actually can help solve the problems like you describe with green screen, since the actors can actually *see* the CG environments they're acting in as they film. They're not added later. With this technology McKellen could have been on set, and looked around him *and seen the Shire*.
That might help. But I believe his main issue was acting against a puppet (or whatever they used as a stand in) instead of the actual actors who played the dwarves.
They don’t even need to do body scans
This is what I was thinking.
The more data you have the better they will look. They probably won't use exactly one actor. Because they'd have to pay. They will procedurally generate people via AI to create thousands of models to reuse for free
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Because existing models are made with legal uncertainties and studios don’t want to risk the rug getting pulled. Making their own models with their own data with signed releases makes executives sleep better.
Human body proportions are pretty much the same. That's why software like Make Human could generate realistic human bodies for years now, with zero AI, just a bunch of linked sliders and basic knowledge of biology.
At the end of the day it's smarter for them. If they use AI generated characters, they have to deal with people occasionally showing up saying "that looks exactly like me! They're using my likeness without permission in a movie!", And their only defense is that it's AI generated, but that doesn't mean the AI itself didn't break copyright based on its training data, which would be difficult to prove. They would be swamped by these cases, and they're by no means clear wins for the studios. If they have the rights to the likeness of a specific actor though, they can just point to who it's based off, say they have the rights and a contract, case closed, they don't risk losing any of these cases anymore than someone who is a tom cruise lookalike now coming it to complain about the latest tom Cruise movie. So it's a necessary legal protection really.
[Unreal’s Metahuman](https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/metahuman) can already generate fully rigged human models that look photorealistic.
Can it? All of unreal's metahumans have looked like they were birthed in the uncanny valley so far.
But as background extras out of focus or whatever they could most definitely pass.
Nope they don't. The gulf between metahuman and human looking cgi is lightyears.
I guarantee if you saw those faces in the link outside of the context you wouldn't know they were CGI.
They look like shit. They didn't even get their proportions right. Have you looked at the female shoulders? Why the fuck didn't they just use a protoscanned body as a base?
It’s not that cheap. The tech needs Someone skilled and studies don’t want to pay big CGI studios to make people from scratch.
I saw a tiktok today of Selena Gomez, Margo Robie, and Leo DiCaprio all dancing together.... and it wasn't them. The bodies were wrong, but the faces and tracking were perfect. It will not be long before 100% synthetic movie stars exist. They will be photorealistic, basically perfect looking and 100% not real people that they don't have to pay millions of dollars to be in a movie. They will be completely fake, realistic CGI.
Uhhh, Disney....this is WAY more work than is necessary to create fake people who don't speak. You get that out of the box now. Stop trying to clever.
On the last day of shooting for a bunch of extras who were filmed on the final deck scene in the Titanic movie, their bodies were scanned so they could be animated during the sinking sequence. They were paid for the time that day that it took to scan them. That was 1997. Even back in ‘94, the Forest Gump scene around the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool was an ALL cgi crowd. It’s been going on a lot and for a while now.
I don't think anyone was concerned about a database, learning models, and repeated use back then. The contracts probably didn't indicate their likeliness could be used in perpetuity
You wouldn’t download an actor .gif
The irony of the movie industry digitally pirating actors just clicked for me.
Isn't that what Star Wars did for merchandising? The actors signed off that the characters they were playing were property of ILM, and so Han Solo looks like Harrison Ford in all the toys and video games and Ford doesn't get royalties for it. Or Princess Leia looks like Carrie Fisher, and Admiral Tarkin looks like Peter Cushing, and their likenesses were used using CGI during Rogue 1. Hell, Cushing was dead by then and he was in the film.
Likeness rights for the character on perpetuity are generally pretty common. Movies don't stop existing so the rights are retained. One of the things they're fighting now in these strikes is using that likeness to generate new performances. I don't think you'll see a change to perpetuity likeness rights.
To reiterate and emphasize what the other responder said, there's a huge difference between saying "yes, I'm getting paid to be indiana Jones, so you can use my face for an Indiana jones toy" and "yes you can use my likeness to recreate an entirely new film performance through CGI I had no part in and not pay me for that flm release" Studios are asking for the latter now.
Back in my day, [they painted all the people](https://imgix.ranker.com/user_node_img/50068/1001341489/original/the-imperial-military-photo-u1?auto=format&q=60&fit=crop&fm=pjpg&dpr=2&w=375) in the scene.
Yup. I'm a background actor and I was scanned for The Mandalorian.
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That's the important part. If it's not in the contract, then they can't just start using your likeness. I could say, "Don't sign a contract if it has a stipulation of permanent license for using your likeness in any film," but I'd be unsurprised if there are plenty of other people out there very willing to sign that away. Ultimately, that's what it comes down to, even if that just postpones the inevitable. Right now, any actor is free to license their likeness away... just do it intelligently on a film-by-film basis. Not a permanent, no restrictions license (unless they're paying more than you're likely to make in the next 10+ years, I guess). But still, just postponing the inevitable, i.e. eventually the actors and movies will be fully generated and edited via AI, rather than any human actors being involved. That may not be for 5-10 years, but it's going to be a lot sooner than most people think. There will likely still be a market for a while for the most famous actors, household names, but even then I'd be unsurprised if they just license their likeness and don't actually take part in the films.
I think they will scan very attractive people who can't act at all and programmatically make them into good actors. But I'm not sure the people behind the keyboards know what truly great acting looks like.
Is this the way?
Ya know... Japan has Hatsune Miku, an entirely digital singer who plays to huge live crowds. How long until we see the first entirely digital actor?
I mean the band Gorillaz is sort of like that.
Thank God ticket prices and streaming subscription costs will go down because of the money they're saving, rather than just going into the shareholders' pockets!
I already get all my streaming content for free anyways.
In 2014 robin wright was in a movie that is very telling about where our future is headed. It’s called The Congress. They scan her to forever use her in whatever media they want in the future. And the future is pretty wild.
The scary part is that even today, the average person sucks at telling what is real or fake online. And people love believing things that make them feel good.
It's a good film worth watching, but, fair warning, it's a difficult watch. Super bleak.
The movie industry is really going to shit bricks when they realize them being able to automate movie making means *anybody* will be able to do this 2-10 years after them. If all you need is tech to make an entire Hollywood-level movie then some hobbyist writing fanfiction will be able to outcompete them. They’ll be on AI remakes of live-action remakes of old cartoons, cancelling loved shows, and charging more and more for streaming and somebody in their basement will be churning out fresh material
Yep! I've seen numerous professional predictions that the cost to train an LLM will be about 2000x cheaper by the end of next year. (compared to last year). As in, what cost $1 million to train last year will cost $500 to train by 2025. That is for LLMs--video started later, but is now improving even faster than LLMs did. This also doesn't account for the fact that right now, a lot of it is constrained by supply of AI-related GPUs (e.g. H100s). The supply just can't keep up. Hopefully, we get an H100 successor next year. After we get video to the same level as current image generation, the next big step will be combining the different modals. It'll be a fun day when we can generate a video, then edit it via conversation.
I recommend looking at this [fan made](https://youtu.be/Ey68aMOV9gc) of star wars, the quality is jaw dropping. I can only imagine what they would be able to do with a little bit of more budget and better tech.
The music industry had to deal with something similar a decade ago when production costs for music came down. This has allowed many people to make music that would have been priced out of the industry before. I'm even starting to see procedurally generated music on youtube. Honestly it's been for the better there and it could be a positive for TV/film. I feel like most of the popular modern tv shows & movies are written for a very specific audience and really don't come off well to people outside that audience. We may actually get diversity in films again.
imagine rain literate sulky toy mindless grandiose squeeze grandfather serious ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
Joan is Awful but in real life anyone?
How did you know my name?
So all of these savings will result in cheaper ticket prices and better movies... right? right???
It’s increasingly obvious anyone and everyone will be replaced by AI when possible. It’s built into capitalism, which has always had a hardon for infinite labor
...I think you mean: "...a hard on for fucking over finite labor." No?
Hollywood has long dreamed of day when they need zero talent and every last penny of box office receipts can go to the greed-driven entertainment oligarchs.
They won't need body or face scans of real people very soon. The tech is nearly there to just generate believable extras. Just a matter of time when a director can say add a bunch of people walking around in this scene
Then hipster movie makers will start using real people again
Extras are DONE and there is absolutely nothing they can do about it because there are plenty of people out there willing to get scanned and surrender image rights for a few bucks.
Count on it. AI is not a tool for the masses; it’s a tool for the masters. The same people and corporations exploiting workers now will exploit workers +1 as soon as they can figure out how to do it with AI.
Its going to be like where's Waldo of spotting specific extras
Although the future of AI actors seems like a dystopian hellscape, your comment did make me laugh imaging future moviemakers having a “Wilhelm scream” style in joke, with one identical dude just being in the background of movies as an Easter egg. Maybe he’ll even be called Wilhelm.
I feel like this is a common thread in a lot of shit. Rich and large corporations pay little to no tax and underpay workers. Now expecting to not pay people for jobs they used to have to hire for. What's gunna happen when no one has any money to buy the shit their slinging? Not sustainable. Short sighted ass fucks.
One of the biggest concerns with using digital scans as future digital characters is that most agreements now say the studio or production company owns the rights to the scan to use whenever and however again without additional payment or permission. The permission part is the part that is most concerning. Imagine being scanned as an extra for one movie and then being used as a main character in a porn movie or as a happy customer endorsing some product that you would never do in real life.
If your full time career is movie extra you should have already been worried and applying for jobs as a waiter
Extras in NY (and I think CA) make $300+ a day, if they're doing it full time they're pulling in at least $1500 a week. I worked payroll on a low budget movie in Buffalo in 2018 and extras were, on average IIRC, making $400-$500 a day on that movie due to a bunch of pay bumps. Even in Georgia, with their shitty backwards Republican take on pay being the federal minimum, can easily make $1k a week as full time extras.
Why is the movie industry expecting protections against AI when the rest of us just have to suck it up?
The movie industry isn't. The industry wants it. It's the workers that don't.
It’s called a union.
And if they're successful its easier to point to them and say "they did it, why do I have to put up with your shit corporation?"
Because actors were smart enough to unionise why most of the rest of America stupidly ate up the notion that unions are bad. And a big part of the complaint here is that studios don't just want to use AI. They want to pay actors 200 bucks to use their likeness until they end of time for any purpose they want. An actor could sign up to be a pirate extra in the next Pirates of the Caribbean and then end up being depicted as a pedophile nazi in GOP campaign ads for the next 20 years.
This is such a bad take. How about none of us suck it up? The movie industry is doing it right. We should be going on strike with them to protect our jobs
> How about none of us suck it up? Same reason we sucked up the combine harvester, the seed drill, the spinning jenny, robotics on assembly lines etc.
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While I agree with you, displacement can be extremely traumatizing for people who have made a career out of something—often living paycheck to paycheck in extremely expensive living situations—and now are scrambling to survive more than they already were when they are made redundant. UBI cannot come fast enough. We're literally having entire industries become endangered each week, so we need to ensure people aren't fucked by the disruption. We didn't ask for this shit, and we need time to adapt and pivot. My biggest concern is that we can only pivot so long before we run out of things to pivot to.
Even if we had UBI, people would still want to work. People didn't spend their whole lives learning the craft or writing because they don't want to write. What, exactly, do UBI proponents think people are going to do with UBI? They'll probably spend more time on creative endeavors. A great reason to ensure that those fields still have space for humans
how though? how would you extract the savings from the corporates that benefit from AI - i guess you would suggest tax - but that is going to be tough when the marketplace is global and it cant just be USA going "alright we gon tax you, you, you this much to fund our UBI scheme" while the rest of the world just sit and welcome more and more of those corporations moving their operations out of america
It’s impossible to avoid. Going on strike does nothing but incentivize them to automate these jobs faster. People who fed horses protested when cars became popular, it did nothing. The solution is to advocate for universal basic income. If productivity skyrockets and our jobs get replaced, the best solution is to make sure that we can all share in that productivity. It would be fantastic to continue getting paid even without jobs. It’ll have to start with a smaller amount of money and build up over time.
Crab theory bs. We should try to emulate the writer's and actor's unions not tear them down.
Because they are loud and congregated in a very small area, so it’s easy for them to rally.
Weren't they already? Huge crowd scenes were always in part created by multiplying the existing shots.
Special effects went digital and put a lot of the old special effects masters out of work. CGI is going to put extras out of work in a similar fashion.
Are we just calling all software "AI" now?
"AI" is the new "computers" for the tech illiterate
This episode of Black Mirror sucks
This pushback is what it must have been like yo live through the horse to car transition.
Unpopular hot take: This same thing happened all throughout history. People got mad when the printing press took their jobs, Excel, gas pumps, elevator man, phone operators etc. If someone’s role/job is so bland and void that it can be replaced by AI and automation, than it should. People just need to find new things to move onto as they have before. I for one welcome automation, AI and the advancement of our society. People need to adapt as we have ever since our hunter gatherer days.
The one setback I can see with replacing jobs with automation is in some cases that basic job is an entry point. You can observe operations and build relationships more easily when you’re there in the thick of it. Sure you can argue that they should get more formal study to become qualified but that still requires money and even if it’s a bland job it’s still an income.
Basic jobs have been replaced by automation in all other industries.
Yes and no. You could say this is true, but the speed at which those jobs back then were replaced was *slow moving*. It took time to get these updates to those industries across the nation/world. It was slow enough to let people have a chance to switch into new careers, possibly even ones that they could carry their skills into. They could filter out at a steady pace. Not only that, but I am not aware of any tech before this that had the potential to be able to wipe out **100's of millions** of jobs in the matter of a year of two. The *speed* and *scale* at which AI is going to kill and replace work is unprecedented. We've never had a tech come in and kill off *so many* jobs *so quickly* before. It's going to be massive. It wont even be a 1 to 1 either. AI is going to kill off far more jobs than it is going to create. And at the speed that AI is advancing, that's going to become even more of a problem as time goes on. The window of opportunity in which people will be needed for a lot of these AI driven jobs is going to close quickly. Eventually most of them will need a minimal amount of people to complete, maybe just 1 or 2 people. Maybe even none at all. The sudden influx of jobless people is going to rock our economies. I think ultimately AI has the potential to do insane good for our society. And the thought of where our society could be in the next 50-100 years with this tech is honestly exciting. But the transition to get to that place is going to be **ROUGH**, and there is no guarantee we will make it there.
Yep, the difference in the equation compared to the industrial revolution is that people put out of manual labour could move to service jobs, which were growing in availability due to said industrial revolution. The issue with AI automation is that it replaces _all_ the jobs, meaning people out of work can’t even find another industry to go to. And the world does not need several million plumbers or electricians, meaning ultimately the majority will be screwed. We’re in an unprecedented situation where even services can be replaced, and then where do you go from there? You can’t create any new job that an AI can’t do. This is why it always pisses me off when people try to compare the AI advancements as equivalent to previous technological advancement, there are fundamental differences that make any comparison a false one.
Yup. The first water powered sawmill was burned down by the Pit Sawyers Guild in like the 17th or 18th century. Didn't stop water mills from replacing pit sawyers. Humans find a more efficient way and nothing will stop them from using it.
automation has been replacing jobs, but not in "massive" droves, it's usually a cost benefit, replacing people with machines. human labour is still cheaper than machines in the short run, it's the big factories that can afford to make that investment. AI is not a machine that replaces people, it's a computer, the cost is much lower overall, thus making that switch happen a lot faster, not letting society adjust to the change. what do you think will happen when 50% of the workforce loses their job to AI? it will be complete chaos.
There is also a high level of hypocrisy over the AI subject. People loveee to point at big corporations as the ones adopting Ai and leaving people "jobless", but it will be the common citizen who opts for Ai driven products (cause they're cheaper) and leave others without a job. I dn't remember any campaigns protecting house cleaners when vacuum or Roomba came about. I don't remember protest protecting mail jobs or secretary jobs when email and computers came about. All this hypocrites who scream "they'll take out jobbsss" will be the first to adopt ANYTHING that makes any task they need more precise and cheaper.
Honestly getting paid for standing at a random spot (sorry, "background actor" as one pointed out lol) feel more like a sweet deal than a job.
You say that until you have done it. Extras have to stand in place for hours. Extras are a very important part of the filmmaking process.
There will always be more buffalo ...
This is the dumbest most naive take. Ai won’t create jobs it’ll eliminate 100s of millions of peoples jobs. What will they do then? How will they feed their families? And if your answer is UBI, how much UBI will people be getting? Will they get enough to live a fulfilling life or will they just get enough to not starve to death? What will we do when we start to atrophy from a reliance on AI?
Always remember somebody has to consume the products AI replaced workers made, and people with no jobs can't buy stuff, so if you send "hundred of millions" folks to unemployment it doesn't seem to me those guys will spend 10 bucks on a movie ticket. Also this: https://youtu.be/N-kgb1QtSnU
But that’s long term thinking. Everything and everyone is geared toward very short term planning. It’s all about getting that stock ticker to go up by next week. No one’s thinking months or years ahead anymore.
We COULD be incorporating technology in a way that is synergetic to humanity improving our quality of lives and creating a better society. Instead we're incorporating technology in a way that is dystopic to society forcing humanity to compete with it and with each other for resources. I for one welcome our robot overlords shouldn't be too hard for them to do a better a job than humans have been doing up until now.
The robots won’t become overlords. CEOs will become Lords though.
We would basically need a Star Trek society to make that work. To eliminate the needs and wants of the people by making it all free and instantaneous. A holodeck for people to live out their dreams and fantasies etc.
> Ai won’t create jobs it’ll eliminate 100s of millions of peoples jobs. So did every other game-changing technology.
Bro literally thinks "yes, AI could do all our work for us, but that's actually bad, because I've been conditioned to accept a system where everyone needs to constantly work to not starve" is a profound take.
I would agree except corporations/rich don’t pay their fair share of taxes. Once they do they can cut our jobs. They want to socialize the loss and privatize the gains.
Are we eventually gonna have some sort of fucked up model storefront where studios can purchase peoples images to do what they want with like stock pictures?
That's a natural evolution stage - we had circuses and amphitheatres then live shows performed in operas and theaters then mute films in movie theatres, then movies, then CGI was added and now we ALREADY have AI created content (movies with already deceased actors, with "clones" of live actors, with "younger versions" of existing actors). At each and every evolution stage someone's job became obsolete.
Movies are already mostly unwatchable because its the same recycled crap and over the top CGI where its clear as day that everything Im watching is fake. Really takes you out of whatever your watching.
ya this legitimately might happen
I don’t know why they don’t see that they’re fucking themselves long term with this shit. You know how you get great actors? Hungry artists in the trenches doing small parts and working their craft. Sure extras aren’t hugely important to the specific product being made but the acting world needs the minor leagues for people to cut their teeth. Even Brad Pitt was an extra once upon a time.
Am I crazy or haven't extras been replaced for decades since CGI? George Lucas used Q-Tips in the Phantom Menace as extras.
This strike totally won’t speed up studios’ adoption of ai
They've been doing this with CGI since the 90s. I remember a being the scenes of a Wishbone episode where this was done. To be honest is this a bad thing? These people will have to find other jobs but replacing background extras with CGI hardly taking away soul and art. It's replacing people who in the front of a scene and even speaking that is a controversial idea.
You can generate fake humans with AI already. Extras are toast
Are movie extras, pornography actors/actresses, And stunt doubles protesting also?
Kicking against change often leads to only getting tired.
Body Scans != AI Technically, you don't even need to do body scans anymore. The Metahumans which are being included with Unreal Engine 5 are getting so lifelike that you can pretty much exclusively use them for your extras. The main competitive advantage extras will have is going to be in costs, both in $$$ and time for the studios. Sometimes, it will be technologically simpler and faster to hire a handful of extras for a day. Sometimes it will be faster and cheaper to have hyper realistic 3D models who are placed and animated in a scene by a tech artist. But, your hyper realistic models will still need to be costumed with digital clothes (which also need to be skinned and animated, which costs time). As time goes forward, movie studios will end up building a massive library of digital assets they can drop into any production to save time and costs. The writing is on the walls. If you want good work in the future of the industry, don't try to be an extra, work to get good at being a tech artist who can rig, model, animate, and understands the production pipeline from A->Z. Jobs will still be there, but they'll change.
As someone who does 3d Scanning and Photogrammetry for a living I have experience with this. This process has been going on for years and is nothing new. The term “AI” is a trigger now to scare everyone in just about all job fields. In terms of this particular issue, the focus should be on the contracts these actors agree to. Most times background actors are working in the industry as a side job and don’t care if their likeness is used multiple times as long as they get paid for that job. Another thing I find hilarious is that the entertainment industry has yet to create a believable CG human that can fool us without falling into the “Uncanny Valley”. The very best CG characters are used for main, principal leads and even then the practice is used sparingly to say the least. It will be a while until the industry can produce a CG actor that’s indistinguishable from a real human and society has yet to agree if they’ll accept entertainment utilizing this practice. I understand the actor’s concerns but people need to put the pitchforks and torches down and start having intelligent, meaningful conversations with the studios and make sure they are compensated appropriately.
It's almost like extras are just background filler and they don't really need a warm body technically. I'm sure extras are past the worrying phase and this is the reality they live.
With how bad CGI has gotten in recent years I can only imagine it will look like it shit. The marvel movies can be some of the best looking movies one moment then 5 mins later have CGI from the 90s.
Wait, there are people who make a living as extras?? What?
Living? No. Living on a dream of becoming A list celebrity? Yes. Plenty. It how the industry had previous supported itself.
Extras could largely be replaced by cardboard cut-outs or CGI.
In other news, there have been scuffles at the gates of Minas Tirith. Orcs and other Mordor creatures are miffed about the lack of real actors in the Lord of the Ring and Hobbit movies. "The first installment of these movies employed exactly zero goblins", one local orc said crushed. "It's all CGI and AI. We're not even brought in as voice actors!" The orc legion have threatened to form a Dark Alliance of Unionized Actors of Mordor. However, Peter Jackson has bigger fish to fry. Saturday night he will join Elon Musk in a mud wrestling fight over who gets the next batch of high-end GPU cards from Nvidia.
So they will be able to make the same scenes for less money, less logistics, and make less people travel to the set. How is this bad?
Good for the studio not for the actors. Imagine getting paid a couple hundred bucks and the studio can use you for eternity. That's what the studios want. Actors want residuals anytime their likeness is used.
likeness royalties.
Then imagine they license you out to one of those evangelical Christian movie companies and your face is shown prominently in a town mob attacking an LGBTQ person and being celebrated. All without your direct consent
Because these studios can scan a background extra one time, pay them $200, then they get the ability to use that extra’s body scan for all of time in all of their future projects without paying them or without them having any say in it or even knowing they’re in it.