6 ms·

Probably a bad time to be an actor. Amazing time to be a wannabe director or producer or similar creative visionary. Bad time to be high up in a hierarchical/

Probably a bad time to be an actor. Amazing time to be a wannabe director or producer or similar creative visionary. Bad time to be high up in a hierarchical/gatekeeping/capital-constrained biz like Hollywood. Amazing time to be an aspirant that would otherwise not have access to resources, capital, tools in order to bring their ideas to fruition. On balance I think the ‘20s are going to be a great decade for creativity and the arts.

sva_ 3y ago
> Probably a bad time to be an actor. I'm thinking people will probably still want to see their favorite actors, so established actors may sell the rights to their image. They're sitting on a lot of capital. Bad time to be becoming an actor though.
- throwaway743 3y ago
  Likely less and less tho given that people will be able to generate a hyper personalized set of actors/characters/personalities in their hyper personalized generated media. Younger generations growing up with hyper personalized media will likely care even less about irl media figures.
- lIl-IIIl 3y ago
  You are talking about movie and TV stars, not actors in general. The vast majority of working actors are not known to the audience.
  - Animats 3y ago
    Even the average SAG-AFTRA member barely makes a living wage from acting. And those are the ones that got into the union. There's a whole tier below that. If you spend time in LA, you probably know some actress/model/waitress types. There's also the weird misery of being famous, but not rich. You can't eat fame.
- nprateem 3y ago
  > established actors may sell the rights to their image I had a conversation with a Hollywood producer last year who said this is already happening.
gwd 3y ago
> Probably a bad time to be an actor. I don't see why -- the distance between "here's something that looks almost like a photo, moving only a little bit like a mannequin" and "here's something that has the subtle facial expressions and voice to convey complex emotions" is pretty freaking huge; to the point where the vast majority of actual humans fail to be that good at it. At any rate, the number of BNNs (biological neural networks) competing with actors has only been growing, with 8 billion and counting. > Amazing time to be a wannabe director or producer or similar creative visionary. Amazing time to be an aspirant that would otherwise not have access to resources, capital, tools in order to bring their ideas to fruition. Perhaps if you mainly want to do things for your own edification. If you want to be able to make a living off it, you're suddenly going to be in a very, very flooded market.
- nprateem 3y ago
  * Flesh out a movie about x following the Hero's Journey in the style of Notting Hill. * Create a scene in which a character with the mannerisms of Tom Cruise from Top Gun goes into a bar and says "...."
- robbomacrae 3y ago
  Considering a year ago we had that nightmare fuel of will smith eating spaghetti and Don and Joe hair force one it seems odd to see those of you who assume we’re not going to get to the point of being indistinguishable from reality in the near future.
- theshrike79 3y ago
  We might enter a world where "actors" are just for mocap. They do the little micro expressions with a bunch of dots on their face. AI models add the actual character and maybe even voice. At that point the amount of actors we "need" will go down drastically. The same experienced group of a dozen actors can do multiple movies a month if needed.
- theptip 3y ago
  It’s for sure plausible that acting remains a viable profession. The bull case would be something like ‘Ractives in “The Diamond Age” by Neal Stephenson; instead of video games people play at something like live plays with real human actors. In this world there is orders of magnitude more demand for acting. Personally I think it’s more likely that we see AI cross the uncanny valley in a decade or two (at least for movies/TV/TikTok style content). But this is nothing more than a hunch; 55/45 confidence say. > Perhaps if you mainly want to do things for your own edification. My mental model is that most aspiring creatives fall in this category. You have to be doing quite well as an actor to make a living from it, and most who try do not.
hackermatic 3y ago
It's always a bad time to be an actor, between long hours, low pay, and a culture of abuse, but this will definitely make it worse. My writer and artist friends are already despondent from genAI -- it was rare to be able to make art full-time, and even the full-timers were barely making enough money to live. Even people writing and drawing for marketing were not exactly getting rich. I think this will lead to a further hollowing-out of who can afford to be an actor or artist, and we will miss their creativity and perspective in ways we won't even realize. Similarly, so much art benefits from being a group endeavor instead of someone's solo project -- imagine if George Lucas had created Star Wars entirely on his own. Even the newly empowered creators will have to fight to be noticed amid a deluge of carelessly generated spam and sludge. It will be like those weird YouTube Kids videos, but everywhere (or at least like indie and mobile games are now). I think the effect will be that many people turn to big brands known for quality, many people don't care that much, and there will be a massive doughnut hole in between.
- arvinsim 3y ago
  > Even the newly empowered creators will have to fight to be noticed amid a deluge of carelessly generated spam and sludge. It will be like those weird YouTube Kids videos, but everywhere (or at least like indie and mobile games are now). Reminds me of Syndrome's quote in the Incredibles. "If everyone is super, then no one will be".
- yterdy 3y ago
  I dunno. Thanks to big corpo shenanigans (and, er, racism?) a lot of people have turned away from big brands (or, at least obviously brand-y brands) towards "trusted individuals" (though you might classify them as brands themselves). Who goes to PCMag anymore? It's all LTT and Marques Brownlee and any number of small creators. Or, the people on the right who abandoned broadcast and even cable news and get everything they "know" from Twitter randos. Even on this site, asks for a Google Search alternative are not rare, and you'll get about a dozen different answers each time, each with a fraction of the market share of the big guy (but growing).
kranke155 3y ago
You can’t replace actors with this for a long time. Actors are “rendering” faster than any AI. Animation is where the real issues will show up first, particularly in Advertising.
- murukesh_s 3y ago
  I think you can fill-in many scenes for the actor - perhaps a dupe but would look like the real actor - of course the original actor would have to be paid, but perhaps much less as the effort is reduced.
  - kranke155 3y ago
    If it requires acting, it likely can't be done with AI. You underestimate, I think, how much an actor carries a movie. You can use it for digi doubles maybe, for stunts and VFX. But if his face in on the screen... We are ages away from having an AI actor perform at the same level as Daniel Day Lewis, Williem Dafoe, or anyone else that's in that atmosphere. They make too many interesting choices per second for it to replaced by AI.
    - daxfohl 3y ago
      Quality aside, there's a reason producers pay millions for A-list stars instead of any of the millions of really good aspiring actors in LA that they could hire for pennies. People will pay to see the new Matt Damon flick but wouldn't give it a second glance if some no-name was playing the part. If you can't replace Matt Damon with another equivalently skilled human, CGI won't be any different. Granted, maybe that's less true today, given Marvell and such are more about the action than the acting. But if that's the future of the industry anyway, then acting as a worthwhile profession is already on its way out, CGI or no.
      - kranke155 3y ago
        Yes, people also take actors as a sign of the quality of the film, or at least they used to, before Marvel. Hence films with big names attached get more money, etc. Still the idea that actors are easy to replace is preposterous to anyone who's ever worked with actors. They are preposterously HARD to replace, in theatre and film. A good actor is worth their weight in gold. Very very few people are good actors. A good actor is a good comedian, a master at controlling his body, and a master at controlling his voice, towards a specifically intended goal. They can make you laugh, cry, sigh, or feel just about anything. You just look at Paul Giamatti or Willem Dafoe or Denzel Washington. Those people are not replaceable, and their work is just as good and just as culturally important as a Picasso or a Monet. A hundred years from now people will know the name of actors, because that was the dominant mode of entertainment of our age.

sva_ 3y ago

> Probably a bad time to be an actor. I'm thinking people will probably still want to see their favorite actors, so established actors may sell the rights to their image. They're sitting on a lot of capital. Bad time to be becoming an actor though.

throwaway743 3y ago
Likely less and less tho given that people will be able to generate a hyper personalized set of actors/characters/personalities in their hyper personalized generated media. Younger generations growing up with hyper personalized media will likely care even less about irl media figures.
lIl-IIIl 3y ago
You are talking about movie and TV stars, not actors in general. The vast majority of working actors are not known to the audience.
- Animats 3y ago
  Even the average SAG-AFTRA member barely makes a living wage from acting. And those are the ones that got into the union. There's a whole tier below that. If you spend time in LA, you probably know some actress/model/waitress types. There's also the weird misery of being famous, but not rich. You can't eat fame.
nprateem 3y ago
> established actors may sell the rights to their image I had a conversation with a Hollywood producer last year who said this is already happening.

gwd 3y ago

> Probably a bad time to be an actor. I don't see why -- the distance between "here's something that looks almost like a photo, moving only a little bit like a mannequin" and "here's something that has the subtle facial expressions and voice to convey complex emotions" is pretty freaking huge; to the point where the vast majority of actual humans fail to be that good at it. At any rate, the number of BNNs (biological neural networks) competing with actors has only been growing, with 8 billion and counting. > Amazing time to be a wannabe director or producer or similar creative visionary. Amazing time to be an aspirant that would otherwise not have access to resources, capital, tools in order to bring their ideas to fruition. Perhaps if you mainly want to do things for your own edification. If you want to be able to make a living off it, you're suddenly going to be in a very, very flooded market.

nprateem 3y ago
* Flesh out a movie about x following the Hero's Journey in the style of Notting Hill. * Create a scene in which a character with the mannerisms of Tom Cruise from Top Gun goes into a bar and says "...."
robbomacrae 3y ago
Considering a year ago we had that nightmare fuel of will smith eating spaghetti and Don and Joe hair force one it seems odd to see those of you who assume we’re not going to get to the point of being indistinguishable from reality in the near future.
theshrike79 3y ago
We might enter a world where "actors" are just for mocap. They do the little micro expressions with a bunch of dots on their face. AI models add the actual character and maybe even voice. At that point the amount of actors we "need" will go down drastically. The same experienced group of a dozen actors can do multiple movies a month if needed.
theptip 3y ago
It’s for sure plausible that acting remains a viable profession. The bull case would be something like ‘Ractives in “The Diamond Age” by Neal Stephenson; instead of video games people play at something like live plays with real human actors. In this world there is orders of magnitude more demand for acting. Personally I think it’s more likely that we see AI cross the uncanny valley in a decade or two (at least for movies/TV/TikTok style content). But this is nothing more than a hunch; 55/45 confidence say. > Perhaps if you mainly want to do things for your own edification. My mental model is that most aspiring creatives fall in this category. You have to be doing quite well as an actor to make a living from it, and most who try do not.

hackermatic 3y ago

It's always a bad time to be an actor, between long hours, low pay, and a culture of abuse, but this will definitely make it worse. My writer and artist friends are already despondent from genAI -- it was rare to be able to make art full-time, and even the full-timers were barely making enough money to live. Even people writing and drawing for marketing were not exactly getting rich. I think this will lead to a further hollowing-out of who can afford to be an actor or artist, and we will miss their creativity and perspective in ways we won't even realize. Similarly, so much art benefits from being a group endeavor instead of someone's solo project -- imagine if George Lucas had created Star Wars entirely on his own. Even the newly empowered creators will have to fight to be noticed amid a deluge of carelessly generated spam and sludge. It will be like those weird YouTube Kids videos, but everywhere (or at least like indie and mobile games are now). I think the effect will be that many people turn to big brands known for quality, many people don't care that much, and there will be a massive doughnut hole in between.

arvinsim 3y ago
> Even the newly empowered creators will have to fight to be noticed amid a deluge of carelessly generated spam and sludge. It will be like those weird YouTube Kids videos, but everywhere (or at least like indie and mobile games are now). Reminds me of Syndrome's quote in the Incredibles. "If everyone is super, then no one will be".
yterdy 3y ago
I dunno. Thanks to big corpo shenanigans (and, er, racism?) a lot of people have turned away from big brands (or, at least obviously brand-y brands) towards "trusted individuals" (though you might classify them as brands themselves). Who goes to PCMag anymore? It's all LTT and Marques Brownlee and any number of small creators. Or, the people on the right who abandoned broadcast and even cable news and get everything they "know" from Twitter randos. Even on this site, asks for a Google Search alternative are not rare, and you'll get about a dozen different answers each time, each with a fraction of the market share of the big guy (but growing).

kranke155 3y ago

You can’t replace actors with this for a long time. Actors are “rendering” faster than any AI. Animation is where the real issues will show up first, particularly in Advertising.

murukesh_s 3y ago
I think you can fill-in many scenes for the actor - perhaps a dupe but would look like the real actor - of course the original actor would have to be paid, but perhaps much less as the effort is reduced.
- kranke155 3y ago
  If it requires acting, it likely can't be done with AI. You underestimate, I think, how much an actor carries a movie. You can use it for digi doubles maybe, for stunts and VFX. But if his face in on the screen... We are ages away from having an AI actor perform at the same level as Daniel Day Lewis, Williem Dafoe, or anyone else that's in that atmosphere. They make too many interesting choices per second for it to replaced by AI.
  - daxfohl 3y ago
    Quality aside, there's a reason producers pay millions for A-list stars instead of any of the millions of really good aspiring actors in LA that they could hire for pennies. People will pay to see the new Matt Damon flick but wouldn't give it a second glance if some no-name was playing the part. If you can't replace Matt Damon with another equivalently skilled human, CGI won't be any different. Granted, maybe that's less true today, given Marvell and such are more about the action than the acting. But if that's the future of the industry anyway, then acting as a worthwhile profession is already on its way out, CGI or no.
    - kranke155 3y ago
      Yes, people also take actors as a sign of the quality of the film, or at least they used to, before Marvel. Hence films with big names attached get more money, etc. Still the idea that actors are easy to replace is preposterous to anyone who's ever worked with actors. They are preposterously HARD to replace, in theatre and film. A good actor is worth their weight in gold. Very very few people are good actors. A good actor is a good comedian, a master at controlling his body, and a master at controlling his voice, towards a specifically intended goal. They can make you laugh, cry, sigh, or feel just about anything. You just look at Paul Giamatti or Willem Dafoe or Denzel Washington. Those people are not replaceable, and their work is just as good and just as culturally important as a Picasso or a Monet. A hundred years from now people will know the name of actors, because that was the dominant mode of entertainment of our age.