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As Actors Strike for AI Protections, Netflix Lists $900k AI Job
- not_boring 3y ago[dead]
- bjornlouser 3y agofrom the article: https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/278437235 https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/278437235 "... The overall market range for roles in this area of Netflix is typically $300,000 - $900,000. This market range is based on total compensation (vs. only base salary), which is in line with our compensation philosophy..."
- PreachSoup 3y agoNetflix TC is mostly cash and at the high end of the tier of the market.
- angarg12 3y agoOdd that no one is highlighting that the 900k salary quoted is almost certainly bogus. Now companies are forced to disclose salary ranges in California. Some tech companies combat this by publishing unhelpfully broad salary ranges. Some people MIGHT make that much, but the vast majority still won't (not that it detracts from tech workers making a pretty penny).
- jjk166 3y agoOf course if they go too far on the high end of that range, potential employees are more inclined to reject otherwise competitive offers that fall well below.
- SamoyedFurFluff 3y agoI would be curious how an AI job in this case would help with the strike breaking. Actors still arguably own their likeness, and it’s legally dubious to use an actors likeness to oust them from a position they would otherwise occupy, but I think it would be very hard to prove in court. I think the real money would be in hiring a legal team robust enough to define this.
- OO000oo 3y agoIt's new territory, and if it plays out in Netflix's disfavor, Netflix can still use AI to generate characters not based on existing actors' likenesses. Additionally, AI could always be more improved for the script-writing use case.
- welshwelsh 3y agoThere's no need to use the likeness of current actors. Actors need a unique combination of assets: they need to have the right looks, the right voice and the right skills. That makes them expensive. But with AI, we can combine one person's likeness with another person's voice and another person's acting, and use this to create new virtual actors. Finding someone who merely looks good and is willing to sell their likeness will not be hard. Even that might not be necessary, since AI will soon be able to generate photorealistic human models that aren't based on anyone in particular.
- Imnimo 3y ago>So $900k/yr per soldier in their godless AI army when that amount of earnings could qualify thirty-five actors and their families for SAG-AFTRA health insurance is just ghoulish, How many actors could Adam Sandler's $250M Netflix deal pay for?
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoHow long is a piece of string?
- bertil 3y agoThere are union minimum rates [1] for actors, and a lot of people are paid as much, so, in practice, this is not an absurdly unspecified question but a genuinely easy one to answer: $250M / $1,082 = 231,053 days of work. [1] https://www.wrapbook.com/blog/essential-guide-sag-rates#:~:text=SAG%27s%20Basic%20Theatrical%20Agreement%20applies,and%20%243%2C756%20for%20the%20week https://www.wrapbook.com/blog/essential-guide-sag-rates#:~:t....
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- capableweb 3y agoConsidering how many people would do shows/movies for free in the start of their career, answer would be ∞
- esotericimpl 3y agoThere's zero people who can do netflix shows or movies for free because of the Screen Actors Guild. These aren't independent college movies or something you're making for your youtube channel. WTF is this comment.
- dehrmann 3y agoIt's the same for music. Why would you bother developing something around AI-generated music when there's an unending supply of kids passionate about music who will generate content for free in the hopes of being discovered?
- OO000oo 3y agoI don't see what the problem is. This is perfectly legal. Private companies can do whatever they want with their own money.
- roflyear 3y agoI don't understand these responses. Are you trying to push the window to make people feel like it is unacceptable to be critical of a company's actions? What if I am a shareholder (I am, through ETFs) of Netflix and I disagree with this? Shouldn't I be allowed to discuss and criticize the action?
- sokoloff 3y agoEven if you’re not a shareholder, you’re welcome to discuss and criticize the action with anyone who will listen.
- m_0x 3y agoThe only thing you need to understand about people that make comments like that is that they don't care about anything unless (or until) it affects THEM personally. The second it affects them, now it's real, now it's "OH this shouldn't be legal". Those people lack empathy.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago100% agree. So many of the responses here are of the "why can't they just eat cake?" variety. Actors are striking because (a) they want to still have a viable career and (b) studios still need actors, and AI still needs humans for training. Do I think any of these commenters would be OK if the script was flipped and instead the deal was "We will pay you a thousand dollars to train this AI programmer for a week so we can then fire you and have the AI write all the programs instead." Borderline psychopathy in my opinion.
- ke88y 3y agoAm I the only one who genuinely doesn't "get" the AI component of the actor strike? I'm generally in solidarity with labor, but clauses in a labor contract limiting the use of AI in an industry seems kind of insane and unsustainable. Is there any historical analog in the US labor movement?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sb8244 3y agoImagine that your likeness as an extra is sold for $250, used in future films via AI deep fake, and you never get paid again. That's my understanding of why they're striking.
- matwood 3y agoThat's a bit of it. The more immediate term is a studio who can feed in all the scripts they have ever received then have a single writer use an LLM and make more scripts. Eventually they wouldn't need a writer, just a person good at prompts. The problem is the writers have zero leverage. We just came out of a time of huge overspending on content where we all have thousands of hours we still haven't watched. Adding AI is on the rise and the writers may never get back what they had pre-strike. Similar thing happened last time which led to the rise in reality TV.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoJust to be clear, there are 2 different strikes, the writers' strike that you're referring to, and the actors' strike that the parent is referring to. AI issues notwithstanding, I do think you make a valid point that over the past 10 years we just binged on a huge amount of content. For workers it's a double-edged sword. I read somewhere that there are actually a lot more members of the union (can't remember if it was writers or actors) than 5-6 years ago because there are just a lot more people working in the industry - a lot more content was being made. The downside is that with all this extra competition there is a glut of supply and thus prices (i.e. wages for actors and writers) have fallen pretty substantially.
- mercurialsolo 3y agoIf you can create a likeness of Tom Hanks which doesn't need to be Tom Hanks exactly, who owns the copyright - the digital creator or Tom Hanks. Actors protesting AI protections remind me of factory workers protesting against automation setting in.
- seydor 3y agoWhy limit yourself to Tom Hanks when the AI can soon create better expression, with quirks and all. The recognizability advantage will fade away as new audiences come along, as long as the quality is very good.
- MisterBastahrd 3y agoBut it can't, which is why star actors will continue to be star actors. It will take far more money and effort effort to get an AI actor right than just shooting multiple takes of an actual human being to begin with. These strikes are not for the stars. They're for the rank and file actors who make up the vast majority of the union. The ones who might appear in straight-to-video shows or maybe be a short-term character who doesn't even have a name. I know a guy who is an actor out in LA. He works at a Universal Studios theme park for his day job, but he's also appeared in the opening scene in 1923.... a character who was shot by one of the leads but who didn't even have a name. He was also a character in the Pam and Tommy Lee show, played a part in a short-lived live action Scooby Doo show (along with his wife), etc. People like that aren't rolling in the dough. They're not getting a ton of residual checks. And the power of unions say that people like that get a voice too. Besides, automation of this sort rarely makes lives better for anyone than at the top. Adding AI to this equation does not make the media cheaper for me. It just means fewer paychecks get cut for actors, and the money ends up getting deposited into the accounts of the executives who "saved the company money." Sorry, but I'd rather just not use AI if that's the case.
- tw04 3y ago>Actors protesting AI protections remind me of factory workers protesting against automation setting in. And in hindsight: rightly so. Automation and outsourcing gutted the middle class in the US to the benefit of a handful of folks that didn't need anymore money. What's the end-game of automating every human job away if the spoils of that automation aren't shared widely?
- seydor 3y ago"Actors vs Netflix", a 2024 epic drama series by Apple AI TV
- lxe 3y agoThe headline is drawing all sorts of misleading conclusions. There's a PM posting for an ML team with a $300-900k market range. Nothing to do with actors striking.
- bertil 3y agoOne of the reasons actors are striking is because they are worried that their work will be replaced with deep-fakes, but also because they have already been offered that kind of contract at a rate they deem far too low (one day of work).
- Mindwipe 3y agoYes, but the role seems to primarily involve working on ML as part of Netflix's recommendation engine and pulling out insight from customer data, rather than anything to do with generative AI. It's misleading at best, actively dishonest at worst.
- MisterBastahrd 3y agoOne of the specific things that they're striking against is that the movie companies wanted to be able to get the right to use background actors' likenesses in perpetuity to be recast as AI characters.
- jjk166 3y agoThat's a totally different type of AI.
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoThe movie Simone [2002] follows a fading director creating a virtual actress to star in his films and the attempts he makes to keep her non-presence a secret as she becomes more famous. Life imitates art imitates life... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_(2002_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_(2002_film)
- CableNinja 3y agoI also immediately thought of this movie when hearing all of this hubub, we live in the weirdest timeline. How do we get back out of this line
- civilitty 3y ago> How do we get back out of this line The LHC recently had a leak and had to shut down, so we should return to some semblance of normality before it restarts next year and things go off the rails again.
- all2 3y agoI know this is (maybe?!) tongue-in-cheek, but a part of me wonders how true this could be.
- candiddevmike 3y agoJokes on Netflix, if AI can generate shows why pay for Netflix when I'll eventually have a personal AI (provided by an open source project, because anything novel in this space is leaky) that generates an entertainment bubble for me?
- bertil 3y agoFor the same reason that you still pay for games, even when they run on your machine? There’s a lot that Netflix can sell, including proprietary code, creatively unique prompts, etc.
- wiseowise 3y ago> Jokes on Netflix, if AI can generate shows why pay for Netflix when I'll eventually have a personal AI For the same reason why people pay for Netflix right now instead of pirating: convenience.
- costanzaDynasty 3y agoStop blaming AI for the last decade of insulting and attacking your customers while offering quantity over quality. You've also diminished all your IPs to the point that fans don't care. Any criticism was shouted down. But the rot was there and audiences have moved on.
- thebradbain 3y agoYour complaint is at the studios, including Netflix, then. They’re the ones who own the IP, they’re the ones who decide to use it. The actors have absolutely no say in whether Disney decides to make another Marvels movie or not. Actors are the ones looking for a gig, often any gig, but when they have a choice, the highest paying gig. And believe me, every actor and writer in Hollywood wishes studios would invest more in mid-budget B movie not based on any cinematic universe: those are what paid many people’s bills. As Union members, actors have a contract with studios that they negotiate every 3 years. Every three years since the last strike in 1960 they’ve reached a deal (and the result of that strike was the creation of revenue sharing for cable and film tv with actors and writers, which they are now hoping to apply to streaming). No deal? Fine, studios have the right not to sign. But actors have the right to withhold their work. Eventually a deal will be reached.
- costanzaDynasty 3y agoNo it's also with the actors, directors, producers who are equally as guilty in driving off the audience. All who were the most vocal and venomous of the amen chorus.
- thebradbain 3y agoProducers are often studio executives, who are on the other side of this debate. Directors are not on strike, as they are the closest of the unions with studios and have never been on strike in the history of their union. I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make, this year Hollywood is on track to exceed its pre-covid performance at the Box Office worldwide and domestically. Netflix/etc are growing more than ever. It seems like all signs point to this sector being on the up and up.
- paxys 3y agoSo because actors and writers are striking engineers should be paid less? Maybe start by looking at actors' $50M salaries for 2 weeks of work instead..
- brachika 3y agoI feel like the sensational title and the content of the article are completely unrelated. Also the author is somewhat toxic. On the other hand, I was always interested in AI, but this listing really scratched my curiosity. What would be the proper roadmap for someone who wants to learn AI?
- thepasswordis 3y agoAI creative tools aren't going away. Get on the train or don't.
- konschubert 3y agoThere is a lot of urgent important work to be done in this world. We don’t need luddites to fight for creating artificial jobs.
- bugglebeetle 3y agoNothing Netflix is or has ever done is urgent or important.
- konschubert 3y agoThis wasn’t a comment on Netflix, yet I happen to disagree.
- wiseowise 3y ago> Nothing Netflix is or has ever done is urgent or important. Millions of people enjoying their content will disagree. And I'm not even talking about completely transforming content streaming industry.
- bugglebeetle 3y agoMillions of people will simply switch to whatever other circus is put in front of them, as they have since the invention of the television.
- wiseowise 3y agoDoesn't make them unimportant.
- justinhj 3y agoThis is unlikely to be a direct initiative to create AI movies, seems more likely as a leading tech company they need to hire the best AI people. Artificial actors, AI script writers and producers will exist only as outlying novelties. Our entertainment is part of our culture, and we will not let go of real actors whose lives we follow, real writers like jk rowling, tolkien and grr martin who created the worlds that became billion dollar franchises. AI will more likely expand as a production tool as well as its current role as “the algorithm” that decides what we may me like.
- booleandilemma 3y agoI think most successful actors are, by nature, narcissists. They're thinking about how their likeness is going to be used without consent. What they're not realizing is we'll soon be at the point where AI-generated actors are created out of whole cloth - they won't resemble any existing people. Eventually (in 20 years let's say), people won't care.
- VoodooJuJu 3y agoGod damn I'd love to be the guy who lands that bullshit job.
- epups 3y agoTom Hanks can generate millions so he gets millions, and Netflix thinks AI can generate millions too, so it's not hard to understand why they would pay a lot for that. I sympathise with the strike, but I think it's misguided to think they can win against AI. If AI ever gets good enough to replace writers or actors, then someone will make a ton of money doing that. Maybe in Hollywood this will be blocked by unions, but someone somewhere will not have these restrictions.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago> Maybe in Hollywood this will be blocked by unions, but someone somewhere will not have these restrictions. Maybe, but I think SAG more than anyone else knows this, which is why their union rules are so strict. "Global Rule 1" is their rule that states that, if you are a SAG member, you are not allowed to work anywhere in the world without a SAG-approved contract. Similarly, if you are not a SAG member but work during a strike, SAG permanently bars you from joining the union. Sure, you can argue that some other place in some corner of the world may start up to get around these rules, but that's a very, very tall order to then import those movies into places like the US without a huge amount of backlash. Filmmaking is still mostly a relationship business, and even with AI actors and writers it's hard to see that changing.
- epups 3y ago> Filmmaking is still mostly a relationship business, and even with AI actors and writers it's hard to see that changing I'm not sure about that. The power that Hollywood once had to create and promote stars is fading. This is why we see them endlessly trying to milk sequels and franchises, and why very old movie stars like Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford are still hot. If people still want to watch Tom Cruise in an action movie in 20 years, they will have to rely on AI. Whether it will be Hollywood providing that experience or not remains to be seen.
- Edd314159 3y agoSomething I've wondered: how much has AI/ML _helped_ actors' careers by providing effective content recommendation algorithms, drawing more engaged eyeballs to their work?
- SamuelAdams 3y ago> Among the striking actors’ demands are protections against their scanned likeness being manipulated by AI without adequate compensation for the actors. Ok, get a good lawyer and write that into any future contracts. Obviously this will only work for household name actors, but for everyone else it really doesn’t matter. We can already generate faces that are unique [1]. All that remains is deep fake tech getting good enough to take an image like this and apply it to a 1-3 minute scene in a film. Think of any scene that has many people in it - a bar, a classroom, etc. The audience’s attention is is usually only focused on the main characters, but you still need a lot of other people in the scene to make it feel authentic. This tech will replace those people. [1]: https://this-person-does-not-exist.com/en https://this-person-does-not-exist.com/en
- thebradbain 3y agoThey do have protections against that in the contract, which would apply to all SAG members — the use case you brought up is exactly what Fran Drescher, the president of SAG, brought up of something they are hoping to prevent. The studios don’t want to sign such a contract. And so the actors are withholding their work until they do, among other conditions. Crossing the picket line, no matter how big an actor you are, will have you expelled from SAG, and when studios eventually sign whatever deal they do with SAG, any non-SAG actor will be barred from working with studios, based on the exclusivity contract that’s been in every deal since 1960. One side will win. Based on history, it will be SAG.
- wiseowise 3y agoWhat kind of fearmongering, rage-bait, shit article is this? > As Actors Strike for AI Protections, Netflix Lists $900,000 AI Job How are those even related?
- itsdrewmiller 3y agoNetflix is technically complying with pay transparency laws by listing all of their jobs as going up to extremely high salary ranges. Here's another example: https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/279107631 https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/279107631 but you can look at their jobs page to see basically all of them are like this. Odds are they are looking for a ~300k engineer here. Previous discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34268691 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34268691
- RickJWagner 3y agoSo tired of actors abusing their celebrity by pushing politics 24x7. Bring on the AI, please.