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> TBF Napster and torrents are another and earlier angle. Napster didn't kill the music industry, torrents didn't kill the movie industry because people still

> TBF Napster and torrents are another and earlier angle. Napster didn't kill the music industry, torrents didn't kill the movie industry because people still want to see movies on a big screen experience. And so, actors, directors, VFX artists, cutters, riggers, lighting staff, costume/mask people, they all continue to have jobs. But now, with AI being already able to do very realistic photos, and in a few years likely to create short movie sequences all based upon a prompt, not only will all these people be replaced by one prompt artist feeding a massive AI engine... but the diversity the AI can generate will always be limited by the diversity of its training material. It is by definition incapable of trying something entirely new, and since there will be no economic incentive to try anything entirely new there will be no expansion. (Oh, and guess what, movie prices aren't going down but since the expenses for all the humans vanish the profit concentration will accelerate!) Widespread AI will freeze our culture in an era of about 2020-2030 forever simply because capitalism will not offer any incentive to feed the AI with new, creative things.

Ukv 3y ago
> torrents didn't kill the movie industry because people still want to see movies on a big screen experience Given you believe the reason torrents didn't kill the movie industry is because people weren't satisfied with smaller screens: would you be satisfied with content that is stuck in "2020-2030 forever" and can never produce anything "entirely new"? Personally I think novelty in art thrives when the entry barrier is low and experimentation is possible without a huge budget - which AI can help achieve.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > Given you believe the reason torrents didn't kill the movie industry is because people weren't satisfied with smaller screens: would you be satisfied with content that is stuck in "2020-2030 forever" and can never produce anything "entirely new"? I fear the enshittification of movies - similar to, say, the situation in video games or residential ISPs: when everyone has silently agreed to a common level of base bullshit, customers won't move (because why move from a pile of cow dung to a pile of dog dung? it's all dung in the end), and everyone can keep fleecing the customers. > Personally I think novelty in art thrives when the entry barrier is low and experimentation is possible without a huge budget - which AI can help achieve. Oh even now even utter novices and two-three person teams can produce hours of high quality content, youtube is enough proof of that. Experimentation is not the problem, the problem is all the marketing to get people to sit in the cinema. For a lot of modern movies, music and video games the cost of production is at least on the same order of magnitude as the cost of marketing - even a blockbuster movie like Avengers Endgame [1] reportedly had 356 M$ of production cost vs 200 M$ of marketing cost, and of the production cost at least 100 M$ were compensation for the star actors. [1] https://collider.com/avengers-endgame-box-office-budget/ https://collider.com/avengers-endgame-box-office-budget/
  - Ukv 3y ago
    > or residential ISPs: when everyone has silently agreed to a common level of base bullshit, customers won't move (because why move from a pile of cow dung to a pile of dog dung? it's all dung in the end) So, if I'm understanding, you believe you wouldn't be satisfied with the movies, but wouldn't have a choice because of a silent agreement (as with residential ISPs) leaving customers with no good options. Is lowering barriers to competition not one of the ways that such oligopolies are fought? To me this seems far more of a risk in our current environment where the vast majority of high-production-value movies come from a small handful of companies that have the budget to make them (and give us plenty of safe low-risk sequels). > Oh even now even utter novices and two-three person teams can produce hours of high quality content, youtube is enough proof of that There are reasons why working-class people are vastly under-represented in arts - the time and resources required to create "hours of high quality video content" is a hefty investment even for Youtube videos, not to mention a feature film that people will want to watch.
suoduandao3 3y ago
>capitalism will not offer any incentive to feed the AI with new, creative things. Disney is already following that thesis without AI, yet it's never looked so vulnerable to the whims of the free market.
hadlock 3y ago
> and in a few years likely to create short movie sequences all based upon a prompt It depends on the director and style of the era, but average "shot length" runs between 5 and 14 seconds. Six months ago companies were already demonstrating AI generated, 20 second shots (albeit with low motion, like slow pans) with the background staying mostly the same. I would probably upgrade this statement from "likely to create" to "almost near certainty".
visarga 3y ago
> It is by definition incapable of trying something entirely new Only if the AI doesn't see any usage. But when you start using it, you get AI+human generating things that can be outside its training scope. Humans can input novel ideas into the prompt or include new information. Then AI gets to retrain on the data generated with human in the loop and improve. There is a chance for humans and AI to explore new directions. If you got a simple way to test, like the DeepMind geometry problem solving model, then AI models can improve on their own by doing massive search and validation. Kind of similar to the scientific method - formulate hypothesis, validate, observe outcomes, and repeat. Works for code too, or any AI output that can be "executed" and generate a validation signal.
gaganyaan 3y ago
Completely unfounded fear, fortunately. AI will enable more people to be creative than ever before. People won't stop telling stories because of capitalism, they'll just continue the tradition of storytelling that predates capitalism by many millenia.

Ukv 3y ago

> torrents didn't kill the movie industry because people still want to see movies on a big screen experience Given you believe the reason torrents didn't kill the movie industry is because people weren't satisfied with smaller screens: would you be satisfied with content that is stuck in "2020-2030 forever" and can never produce anything "entirely new"? Personally I think novelty in art thrives when the entry barrier is low and experimentation is possible without a huge budget - which AI can help achieve.

mschuster91 3y ago
> Given you believe the reason torrents didn't kill the movie industry is because people weren't satisfied with smaller screens: would you be satisfied with content that is stuck in "2020-2030 forever" and can never produce anything "entirely new"? I fear the enshittification of movies - similar to, say, the situation in video games or residential ISPs: when everyone has silently agreed to a common level of base bullshit, customers won't move (because why move from a pile of cow dung to a pile of dog dung? it's all dung in the end), and everyone can keep fleecing the customers. > Personally I think novelty in art thrives when the entry barrier is low and experimentation is possible without a huge budget - which AI can help achieve. Oh even now even utter novices and two-three person teams can produce hours of high quality content, youtube is enough proof of that. Experimentation is not the problem, the problem is all the marketing to get people to sit in the cinema. For a lot of modern movies, music and video games the cost of production is at least on the same order of magnitude as the cost of marketing - even a blockbuster movie like Avengers Endgame [1] reportedly had 356 M$ of production cost vs 200 M$ of marketing cost, and of the production cost at least 100 M$ were compensation for the star actors. [1] https://collider.com/avengers-endgame-box-office-budget/ https://collider.com/avengers-endgame-box-office-budget/
- Ukv 3y ago
  > or residential ISPs: when everyone has silently agreed to a common level of base bullshit, customers won't move (because why move from a pile of cow dung to a pile of dog dung? it's all dung in the end) So, if I'm understanding, you believe you wouldn't be satisfied with the movies, but wouldn't have a choice because of a silent agreement (as with residential ISPs) leaving customers with no good options. Is lowering barriers to competition not one of the ways that such oligopolies are fought? To me this seems far more of a risk in our current environment where the vast majority of high-production-value movies come from a small handful of companies that have the budget to make them (and give us plenty of safe low-risk sequels). > Oh even now even utter novices and two-three person teams can produce hours of high quality content, youtube is enough proof of that There are reasons why working-class people are vastly under-represented in arts - the time and resources required to create "hours of high quality video content" is a hefty investment even for Youtube videos, not to mention a feature film that people will want to watch.

suoduandao3 3y ago

>capitalism will not offer any incentive to feed the AI with new, creative things. Disney is already following that thesis without AI, yet it's never looked so vulnerable to the whims of the free market.

hadlock 3y ago

> and in a few years likely to create short movie sequences all based upon a prompt It depends on the director and style of the era, but average "shot length" runs between 5 and 14 seconds. Six months ago companies were already demonstrating AI generated, 20 second shots (albeit with low motion, like slow pans) with the background staying mostly the same. I would probably upgrade this statement from "likely to create" to "almost near certainty".

visarga 3y ago

> It is by definition incapable of trying something entirely new Only if the AI doesn't see any usage. But when you start using it, you get AI+human generating things that can be outside its training scope. Humans can input novel ideas into the prompt or include new information. Then AI gets to retrain on the data generated with human in the loop and improve. There is a chance for humans and AI to explore new directions. If you got a simple way to test, like the DeepMind geometry problem solving model, then AI models can improve on their own by doing massive search and validation. Kind of similar to the scientific method - formulate hypothesis, validate, observe outcomes, and repeat. Works for code too, or any AI output that can be "executed" and generate a validation signal.

gaganyaan 3y ago

Completely unfounded fear, fortunately. AI will enable more people to be creative than ever before. People won't stop telling stories because of capitalism, they'll just continue the tradition of storytelling that predates capitalism by many millenia.