Justine Bateman is NOT happy with the AI provisions negotiated by SAG-AFTRA. The agreement will put actors out of work

[highplainsdem]

The exact details of the AI provisions won't be released till Monday. But this is a strong indicator that the protections against AI that actors wanted aren't as strong as I'd thought from the first comments on it.

Article from The Wrap here - https://www.thewrap.com/justine-bateman-sag-aftra-deal-generative-ai-artificial-intelligence/

Justine Bateman is deeply disappointed with the tentative agreement in place between SAG-AFTRA and the major studios, which ended the strike. While speaking with MSNBC’s Ali Velshi, she explained that members of the union should approve the deal after voting begins Tuesday only “if they don’t want to work anymore.”

Bateman added, “If they want to be replaced by synthetic objects that are made by generative AI, why not?”

-snip-

“I mean, soon they’ll have customized films for you based on your particular viewing history,” she added. “And they won’t bother to copyright them because it’ll be like Kleenex. They’ll make a million of them an hour, it won’t matter to them.”

Bateman added, “The train track is split. One train track is going, ‘OK, we’re going to participate in this sort of negotiation with the cannibals and we’re going to talk about just how you’re going to be cutting my foot off, and are you going to grill it or boil it, and what kind of sauce are you going to put on it?’”

-snip-

Much more at the link, and in this video of Justine Bateman talking to Ali Velshi:

[LudwigPastorius]

1. It will be interesting to see what is actually in the agreement.

[highplainsdem]

7. Yes. But it's worrisome that they haven't released those details on AI yet.

[gulliver]

2. Ask the music industry about Napster

It's over. It's all YouTube, and some of it may be written and performed by AI. Our problem these days is we're not creating good audiences. I'm much more worried about that.

[TwilightZone]

3. I think that horse is out of the barn and a couple of states away by now.

The move to AI for many things is inexorable.

[underpants]

4. Justine ❤️

[Delphinus]

5. I remember

a movie from the 80s or early 90s that was pretty much the same thing. A company would scan a person's body and clone them on the screen.

I don't like where AI is going - and I am not a luddite.

[highplainsdem]

8. I agree completely with what you wrote here:

I don't like where AI is going - and I am not a luddite.

[JanMichael]

6. If the scumbag streaming companies would pay residuals then fine

But they hide their stats and sent penny checks only when forced.

Regulate those assholes then when AI takes a French film and gives it English language WITH the mouth movements corrected in the voice of the original actor and it catches fire on streaming then PAY the people that made the original version a percentage of the revenue then fine.

[Ms. Toad]

9. She had the law wrong, so I'll withhold my opinion

Until the agreement emerges.

Copyrighting is passive - if you create something eligible for copyright, the rights are automatically created. Bateman asserts that studios won't bother to copyright their work in the future. They could choose not to enforce their rights. They could choose not to register their copyright. They could even choose to dedicate the work to the public. But each of those things are what they can do after the copyrights are created merely by reducing the work to a tangible (reproducible) format.

[highplainsdem]

10. I'm guessing she means they won't even bother to pay the small fee to register the copyright.

EDITING to add that she's talking about the customized AI-generated films people will be able to request...or which will be offered to them like YouTube recommendations, maybe. Churned out instantly by AI. Put your favorite long-deceased actors in a film with living actors, in any location you wish, any type of film you wish. Add yourself to the cast, if you'd like. Make yourself the star. AI and the studios controlling it and profiting from it will oblige. No real acting from real actors necessary. No cinematographers, directors, makeup artists, and so on, necessary. No screenwriters necessary. Existing films ripped off, and much more profit for the studios and top execs.

[Ms. Toad]

11. I suspect she simply doesn't know the law.

Most people don't - especially those who use the phrasing she used which suggests creating copyright rights requires something special.

[orleans]

12. that sounds so condescending

are you a copyright attorney?

[Ms. Toad]

13. Yes. n/t

[orleans]

14. so then the whole copyright idea for AI generated material is moot since you have to be human to

apply AND apparently the movie studios couldn't even get by with a work for hire since, again, the creator has to be human. correct?

i just found a rather interesting piece about this from 2022. it references an AI generated picture, a monkey that took photos, a piece of driftwood.

"Copyright: Non-Humans Need Not Apply"

https://www.creedon.com/blog/2022/3/22/copyright-non-humans-need-not-apply#:~:text=Because%20U.S.%20copyright%20law%20is,did%20not%20create%20the%20work.

[Yavin4]

16. She meant enforcing copyright. She wasn't being precise with her language.

If AI can crank out new movies on demand, studios won't really bother enforcing copyright since doing so would be moot and impossible to track. If a million customized movies per hour are being made, it's impractical to enforce copyrights on them all.

[fishwax]

18. passive copyright doesn't apply to works created by generative AI, though, does it?

As I understand it, works created by generative AI without a human author aren't eligible for copyright. (This is one of the things that actually helped the writers in the writers strike.) Bateman's argument was that the producers don't care about making films with real humans anymore, and if they can get people to pay for AI-generated entertainment experiences that are fully customized they won't have to worry about copyright protections, because they'll be profitable without any need for reproduction.

[DemocraticPatriot]

15. she was once a very big star on television..........

I hope she saved some of her money, doubtless more than I have ever seen....

(regardless of the right or wrong of whatever her argument is here---
I lean towards 'right' but I have no idea..)

[Yavin4]

17. AI actually could be a good thing for the arts.

One of the hottest debates in Hollywood over the past 10 years or so have been the super hero movies and how they're not real cinema. They're driven by corporate profits.

AI could separate corporate funded movies and movies made for pure artistic reasons with no profit incentive. IOW, artists, like Justin Bateman, could be free to make whatever movie they want to make without having to show a profit.

This is also true of books, music, TV, etc. Corporations can use AI to generate their money while artists seek out their passions and make work to serve their vision not some vision of a hedge fund manager.