Sadly, I think they will get them, one way or another.
All it will take is a handful of people desperate for money agreeing to be 3d scanned, and maybe a few months of interns saying yes/no to particular faces, and bam, hundreds of extras ready to be used and abused for decades to cover.
Which is why these union negotiations are so important. Sure, that will probably happen. But if SAG-AFTRA says they can’t be used on union shows, well, they won’t be lol
When I first started in film any time I had a SAG actor there were requirements I had to adhere to for their pay and hours, no exceptions. And I live in a right to work state!
There’s a difference between “no AI allowed” (not what the unions are calling for) and “contracts need stipulations about AI usage” (reasonable).
If you are not familiar with what is actually being negotiated over, then please don’t weigh in. WGA/SAG-AFTRA are not calling for an AI ban. Every time these debates come up armchair AI “advocates” swarm like cryptobros to call everyone backwards/ignorant/resistant to change regardless of the context.
There’s a difference between “no AI allowed” (not what the unions are calling for) and “contracts need stipulations about AI usage”
If those contacts include paying actors as much as they would have needed to act and restricting it’s usage when writing scripts the difference is moot. If your erase all benefit to using AI it becomes worthless.
Only if Hollywood wants to go completely non-union. Good luck with that. IATSE isn’t going to crow a movie if SAG-AFTRA and the WGA aren’t involved. Maybe they’ll find enough non-union crew to do a big time movie, but they’ll be making it in the Philippines.
In the long term, AI is going to be such a massive force multiplier that you’ll be able to get away with non union writers and actors.
If all goes well you will be able to produce a film in your basement and have it rival the quantity of the current big boys. That will be a long while, but in the meantime any industry that loses a 2x productivity boost will die to its competition.
Especially in the modern world. Centralized stars and production is crazy in a world where you can pull out a camera and buy a rendering supercomputer for a few thousand dollars.
Maybe years down the road, but we’re talking about today. Making a non-union movie and expecting it to be something like a Marvel movie- it won’t. It will be a movie that will end up on Mystery Science Theater 3000 because it will suck.
I don’t really see a problem with this. Is it so much different from making a good 3D model?
We’re talking about assets that will be used for generating massive crowds. That’s already done with CGI. These scans aren’t even “AI”… they’re just like metahumans in Cryengine.
This guy just put the term AI on it because it freaks everyone out.
If you take the $200 for a motion and body scan and you sign your rights away, that’s what you get. This isn’t a change to how Hollywood already operations. Fear-mongering for nothing.
Sadly, I think they will get them, one way or another.
All it will take is a handful of people desperate for money agreeing to be 3d scanned, and maybe a few months of interns saying yes/no to particular faces, and bam, hundreds of extras ready to be used and abused for decades to cover.
Which is why these union negotiations are so important. Sure, that will probably happen. But if SAG-AFTRA says they can’t be used on union shows, well, they won’t be lol
When I first started in film any time I had a SAG actor there were requirements I had to adhere to for their pay and hours, no exceptions. And I live in a right to work state!
Union shows immidiately get outcompeted by AI generation and all studios doing business with them go out of business.
AI is the future here guys. Union won’t stop it. They’ll just drag Hollywood down with them.
There’s a difference between “no AI allowed” (not what the unions are calling for) and “contracts need stipulations about AI usage” (reasonable).
If you are not familiar with what is actually being negotiated over, then please don’t weigh in. WGA/SAG-AFTRA are not calling for an AI ban. Every time these debates come up armchair AI “advocates” swarm like cryptobros to call everyone backwards/ignorant/resistant to change regardless of the context.
If those contacts include paying actors as much as they would have needed to act and restricting it’s usage when writing scripts the difference is moot. If your erase all benefit to using AI it becomes worthless.
Only if Hollywood wants to go completely non-union. Good luck with that. IATSE isn’t going to crow a movie if SAG-AFTRA and the WGA aren’t involved. Maybe they’ll find enough non-union crew to do a big time movie, but they’ll be making it in the Philippines.
Or in America.
In the long term, AI is going to be such a massive force multiplier that you’ll be able to get away with non union writers and actors.
If all goes well you will be able to produce a film in your basement and have it rival the quantity of the current big boys. That will be a long while, but in the meantime any industry that loses a 2x productivity boost will die to its competition.
Especially in the modern world. Centralized stars and production is crazy in a world where you can pull out a camera and buy a rendering supercomputer for a few thousand dollars.
Maybe years down the road, but we’re talking about today. Making a non-union movie and expecting it to be something like a Marvel movie- it won’t. It will be a movie that will end up on Mystery Science Theater 3000 because it will suck.
Or they’ll pay people to be part of scans that an AI uses to generate extras
They’ll charge people extra at the theater to be scanned and then digitally inserted into the movie in real time.
I don’t really see a problem with this. Is it so much different from making a good 3D model?
We’re talking about assets that will be used for generating massive crowds. That’s already done with CGI. These scans aren’t even “AI”… they’re just like metahumans in Cryengine.
This guy just put the term AI on it because it freaks everyone out.
If you take the $200 for a motion and body scan and you sign your rights away, that’s what you get. This isn’t a change to how Hollywood already operations. Fear-mongering for nothing.