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If 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 protest

If 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 ago
Why 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 ago
  But 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?
- andsoitis 3y ago
  > Automation and outsourcing gutted the middle class in the US What statistics can we look at that shows that the middle class is smaller and less well off than before (“gutted”)?
  - tw04 3y ago
    The statistics that track the middle class in the US? You say that as if you doubt the middle class is shrinking - it's been studied exhaustively and isn't something that's up for debate. It's both shrinking, and their total share of wealth has decreased dramatically and shifted to the top 1%. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-american-middle-class-has-changed-in-the-past-five-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-a...
  - singleshot_ 3y ago
    The one where my life as a child was awesome, but now I live in a nightmare hellscape, I guess. N = 1, as they say.
    - bamfly 3y ago
      My (Boomer) parents made a bunch of serious and expensive mistakes, and my dad didn't properly start a career until he was almost 30. He had a high school diploma. He was literally raised in a barn (the girls got to sleep in the very-small house). My mom had a junior college degree but never worked for pay again after they got married. He was upper-middle-management at a huge company when he was forced into retirement by the "professional" managers who had come in and filled everyone's work-days with meetings and had no fucking clue how any of the actual work got done. Between pension and savings, they were millionaires by then, back when that still kinda halfway meant something, so it was fine. I grew up with everydamnthing I could want, really. Follow the same life course—put in the same amount of effort, make the same sorts of mistakes—today and you'll work until you can't anymore, and be destitute when you do. And probably not have a family. Assuming you don't succumb to depression and OD on opioids in your 40s, or end up in prison. I doubt my kids will own a home. Like, ever. And they're pretty damn bright. Unless they go full off-the-grid in the middle of nowhere or something. The future looks pretty fucking feudal. It's definitely worse now than it was decades back.
bertil 3y ago
You hire Tom Hanks because he’s a genuinely warm and considerate person, and that allows him to embody people like Mr. Rogers with sincerity. I’m not sure you will be able to do the same with just computers: there have been many efforts to create digital characters, but always with a talented actor to voice and incarnate them: Smaug by Benedict Cumberbatch and too many to list by Andy Serkis. I can’t think that it’s an accident people pick talented actors to do so—and I doubt AI will be able to reproduce that talent well soon. Crowd simulation (what a lot of the actual debate with SAG is about)? Definitely.
Turing_Machine 3y ago
I believe courts in the United States have consistently held that performers, public figures, etc. own the right to their likenesses while they are alive, but not afterward. For example, you can use George Washington's picture in a logo without paying any money to the Washington estate. Wikipedia cites a California case from 2008 which held that Marilyn Monroe's likeness is no longer protected.

seydor 3y ago

Why 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 ago
But 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?

andsoitis 3y ago
> Automation and outsourcing gutted the middle class in the US What statistics can we look at that shows that the middle class is smaller and less well off than before (“gutted”)?
- tw04 3y ago
  The statistics that track the middle class in the US? You say that as if you doubt the middle class is shrinking - it's been studied exhaustively and isn't something that's up for debate. It's both shrinking, and their total share of wealth has decreased dramatically and shifted to the top 1%. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-american-middle-class-has-changed-in-the-past-five-decades/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-a...
- singleshot_ 3y ago
  The one where my life as a child was awesome, but now I live in a nightmare hellscape, I guess. N = 1, as they say.
  - bamfly 3y ago
    My (Boomer) parents made a bunch of serious and expensive mistakes, and my dad didn't properly start a career until he was almost 30. He had a high school diploma. He was literally raised in a barn (the girls got to sleep in the very-small house). My mom had a junior college degree but never worked for pay again after they got married. He was upper-middle-management at a huge company when he was forced into retirement by the "professional" managers who had come in and filled everyone's work-days with meetings and had no fucking clue how any of the actual work got done. Between pension and savings, they were millionaires by then, back when that still kinda halfway meant something, so it was fine. I grew up with everydamnthing I could want, really. Follow the same life course—put in the same amount of effort, make the same sorts of mistakes—today and you'll work until you can't anymore, and be destitute when you do. And probably not have a family. Assuming you don't succumb to depression and OD on opioids in your 40s, or end up in prison. I doubt my kids will own a home. Like, ever. And they're pretty damn bright. Unless they go full off-the-grid in the middle of nowhere or something. The future looks pretty fucking feudal. It's definitely worse now than it was decades back.

bertil 3y ago

You hire Tom Hanks because he’s a genuinely warm and considerate person, and that allows him to embody people like Mr. Rogers with sincerity. I’m not sure you will be able to do the same with just computers: there have been many efforts to create digital characters, but always with a talented actor to voice and incarnate them: Smaug by Benedict Cumberbatch and too many to list by Andy Serkis. I can’t think that it’s an accident people pick talented actors to do so—and I doubt AI will be able to reproduce that talent well soon. Crowd simulation (what a lot of the actual debate with SAG is about)? Definitely.

Turing_Machine 3y ago

I believe courts in the United States have consistently held that performers, public figures, etc. own the right to their likenesses while they are alive, but not afterward. For example, you can use George Washington's picture in a logo without paying any money to the Washington estate. Wikipedia cites a California case from 2008 which held that Marilyn Monroe's likeness is no longer protected.