And it’s a landlord’s job to collect rent. It’s Elon Musk’s job to maximize shareholder value.
It’s ok if you watch out for numero uno. I’m not expecting more. But you are wrong to think that this doesn’t affect you. You can’t opt out of society. You won’t be able to avoid products with licensed voices. Your taxes will be paying for enforcement against “pirates”. And most importantly, every new privilege for the rich and famous changes society. With every step, the elite becomes more entrenched and the bottom more hopeless. It’s a matter of enlightened self-interest. If we only reject what directly hurts us individually, then the elites will simply build themselves a new feudalism.
And it’s a landlord’s job to collect rent. It’s Elon Musk’s job to maximize shareholder value.
Are you really conflating people who make their living based upon their acting skills and likeness with landlords?.. Wow.
I am asking this in good faith as a neurodivergent individual:
Could you please clarify where you’re coming at this from?
Is it that you feel that actors and other creatives are less legitimate as workers than others?
Is it that you think that LLMs could be a path towards AGI that could save humans from themselves?
Is it something else entirely?
Myself, I am coming at it from the perspective of someone who has worked in the tech industry for a while, and is familiar with the underlying technologies and how hyped they’ve been. I additionally personally know several professional actors, SAG-AFTRA and non-union, who have been materially impacted by AI and corpo bad faith in recent years (especially streaming services and game companies). On top of that, as a millennial, I have experienced significant financial setbacks due to unfettered corporate greed and know many peers who are much worse off than myself because of price gouging and stagnant wages.
My main motivations in AI conversations are undermining hype and ensuring that people take ethics into consideration, while looking at technologies that do have some actually interesting use cases and could lead to other interesting things.
Are you really conflating people who make their living based upon their acting skills and likeness with landlords?
No. I am talking about rent-seeking.
Rent-seeking is the act of growing one’s existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth.[1] Rent-seeking activities have negative effects on the rest of society. They result in reduced economic efficiency through misallocation of resources, stifled competition, reduced wealth creation, lost government revenue, heightened income inequality,[2][3] risk of growing corruption and cronyism, decreased public trust in institutions, and potential national decline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
You could argue to what a degree landlords or Elon Musk are engaged in rent-seeking. Likeness rights are a clear example, though.
Imagine in the near future. Some famous person licenses their likeness for a show, game, movie. Maybe the producer hires an unknown actor that is then digitally altered into the famous person, like a more advanced version of Gollum. Or maybe the VFX artists can do it on their own. These guys work. The famous person does nothing. They might be dead, while the rights-owners still collect license fees.
No. I am talking about rent-seeking.
Oh! I see. We are starting from very different places on looking at the situation. I see one’s likeness as a part of their identity that they have a fundamental right as a human being to agency over. I place it in a similar category to one’s labor - can exercising one’s agency over their body really be considered “rent-seeking”?
I see the uses of AI “plagiarism engines” in arts and creative trades by major corporations as just another way to alienate workers from their labor and exploit them.
You could argue to what a degree landlords or Elon Musk are engaged in rent-seeking.
By definition, I’d think.
Or maybe the VFX artists can do it on their own. These guys work.
Major respect for VFX artists, stage engineers, and all the trades under IATSE. They do huge amounts of very skilled work. They are the foundation on which all modern media rests and I’m glad that a greater share of them have unionized.
Likeness rights are a clear example, though. … Imagine in the near future. Some famous person licenses their likeness for a show, game, movie. Maybe the producer hires an unknown actor that is then digitally altered into the famous person, like a more advanced version of Gollum. … The famous person does nothing. They might be dead, while the rights-owners still collect license fees.
Here, I think, is a bit that I do agree with you on. One’s likeness should never be able to be owned by anyone else. Die and it’s public domain. Just like the ridiculous copyright terms that Disney secured, the idea of one’s likeness outlasting their life, let alone someone else having agency over it is preposterous.
The scenario that you propose is part of why unions exist in the first place. SAG-AFTRA hasn’t been doing amazingly on the subject but, they’re definitely doing more than about any union that I’ve seen in relation to AI impacting a trade and making it more susceptible exploitation. I would suggest that in your scenario, both actors (and the producer) are acting in an unethical manner. The famous actor is pulling up the ladder behind them, not giving the junior actor the opportunity to gain prestige in their trade. The junior actor is participating in exploitation that should be grounds to strike the production. The producer is using the licensed likeness as leverage to pay and credit the junior actor less.
The situation should not happen and, if SAG-AFTRA allows it, actors should form a new union that treats all of its members when respect.
