Tag: AI

Strike Two: Hollywood Actors Union Goes After Video Game Companies

For months now the Hollywood actors union has been on strike against the movie studios.

Now the union is seeking to authorize a second strike, this one involving major video game companies.

The current labor actions began when the Writers’ Guild of America union (WGA) went on strike in May of this year.

In mid-July, the WGA was joined by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA).

It was historical in nature because a simultaneous strike of both actors and writers hadn’t happened in 63 years.

The actors union hasn’t gone on strike against video game companies since 2016. The strike back then lasted 11 months.

If the sought after strike addition materializes, video game actors most affected would be ones who do motion capture work and voice-overs for the video game producers.

The largest producers of video games in the world are big-name companies like Disney, EA, Activision, Epic Games, and Take Two. These are companies that are parties to the SAG-AFTRA video game contract.

The union has stated that it is asking video game companies for an 11% raise, with two 4% increases during the term of the labor contract, along with protections against AI technology.

SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher issued a statement about the proposed new strike.

“Here we go again! Now our Interactive (Video Game) Agreement is at a stalemate too. Once again we are facing employer greed and disrespect. Once again artificial intelligence is putting our members in jeopardy of reducing their opportunity to work. And once again, SAG-AFTRA is standing up to tyranny on behalf of its members,” she said.

Use of the term “stalemate” by the head of a prominent union doesn’t bode well for those seeking a speedy resolution to the labor turmoil in Hollywood.

SAG-AFTRA’s strike has almost completely shutdown the activities of Hollywood studios.

Talks between the industry and the unions have not been promising. There have been no breakthroughs over a long summer. The unions seem to be far away from the better wages, residuals, working conditions, and AI protections that actors and writers seek.

SAG-AFTRA needs to supplement the picketing and negotiating with additional action. Adding video game companies to the labor lockout list is one way of increasing leverage while raising public awareness.

Evaluating these strikes is a complex calculus, one with multiple variables.

Entertainment companies are very much in need of content, and the preference would be to have the labor disputes come to an end.

Powerful studio heads are concerned about how the strikes are perceived by Wall Street. The entertainment industry had been in the doldrums before the strike began. And layoffs at production companies and talent agencies certainly didn’t help the overall economy.

Additionally, the strikes have caused significant disruptions to film and television productions all over the world. According to the Financial Times, the ongoing strikes have cost the California economy about 5 billion dollars.

The consequences of the shutdown of Hollywood productions have set off a ripple effect across a large swath of local businesses; those that provide services to the movie industry, including catering, dry cleaning services, drivers, rental companies, etc.

Hollywood jobs seem to be in constant flux. The entertainment industry in general is not known for its job security. People are routinely thinking about getting out of the industry and opting for something with more employment stability.

Workers and businesses that have been affected by the strikes may decide to relocate elsewhere, and would therefore not be available if and when productions actually resume.

On the other hand, if the unions push too long and too hard on the studios, the studios may find an alternative way to obtain the content that they need.

During the 2007-08 WGA strike, the studios were unable to hire union writers. So they turned to the reality TV genre that propelled reality shows to a level in which they still lay claim to a large portion of television production.

Then there’s the elephant in the room, Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Do the work stoppages and production-set standstill become incentives for studios and production companies to accelerate the use of AI technology?

The strike may just push content executives to expedite their AI capabilities.

In fact, this seems to be happening as job postings for AI product managers offering compensation packages of $300,000-$900,000 would indicate.

The studios and streaming services are already using AI technology in the script-screening process, synopsizing stories and diminishing the need for human story analysts.

When writers and actors strike because they are afraid of being replaced by technology, will the content executives be tempted to hire compliant robots that are programmed not to picket?

Hopefully, something will give soon so the cameras can get rolling again.

AI Plays God

Certain writings have always been considered sacred.

Such writings are, always have been, and always will be revered and treasured by the people who view them as foundational to their core spiritual beliefs.

Many of those who adhere to Judeo-Christian religious tradition consider the Holy Scriptures to be the epitome of such sacred writings. Furthermore, it is resolutely held by adherents that the writings originate from God himself.

The Jewish people have traditionally maintained a respect for scripture, displaying a reverence so deep that they have seen fit to place the Torah, i.e., the five books of Moses, in a carefully constructed ark.

Whenever the Torah is taken out of the ark and exhibited in the synagogue, veneration is offered and the entire congregation stands for the duration of the devotion.

Christians likewise regard the Bible as a supremely sacred text. Christian liturgies feature ceremonial readings of passages from scripture, and the Christian faith upholds the Bible as the Word of God.

If someone were to propose a fundamental alteration of the aforementioned sacred writings, it would be extremely disturbing and highly offensive to members of religious congregations.

As it turns out someone has done just that; proposed a fundamental alteration of the Holy Scriptures.

Yuval Noah Harari, a contributor and advisor to the World Economic Forum, is pushing a new global bible, one that would purportedly be AI-generated.

When Harari was being interviewed by journalist Pedro Pinto in Lisbon, Portugal, he touted AI as different from all other technologies, because, in his words, it is “the first technology ever that can create new ideas.”

Harari went on to compare and contrast AI with an age-old innovation, saying, “The Gutenberg printing press printed as many Bibles as it was ordered to do. But it could not write a single new page.”

He added, “AI can do that. It can even write a new Bible.”

“In a few years, there may be religions that are actually correct,” he opined.

What he meant by “correct” is left to the imagination.

In any event, he seemed to be attempting to describe a socially acceptable scripture that would be suitable for a supposed one world religion.

He asserted that “throughout history, religions dreamed about having a book written by a superhuman intelligence, by a non-human entity.”

It goes without saying that people of faith already know the authentic non-AI Bible already has a supreme author who is far beyond human.

Harari has made it perfectly clear that he is no fan of the Bible or of its adherents.

In an interview with Google, he disparaged Christian beliefs, including the pinnacle belief of the Resurrection of Jesus, which he proceeded to characterize as “fake news.”

A few years ago Harari wrote a commentary in The Globe and Mail that was derisive of the Bible.

“Centuries ago, millions of Christians locked themselves inside a self-reinforcing mythological bubble, never daring to question the factual veracity of the Bible…,” he wrote.

He again linked faith-based beliefs to “fake news.”

“I am aware that many people might be upset by my equating religion with fake news, but that’s exactly the point. When 1,000 people believe some made-up story for one month, that’s fake news. When a billion people believe it for 1,000 years, that’s a religion…”

He belittled those who view the Bible as sacred, stating that “billions of people have believed in these stories for thousands of years. Some fake news lasts forever.”

In a column for the British newspaper The Guardian, Harari blamed the Bible for environmental problems.

“It’s possible to trace a direct line from the Genesis decree of ‘fill the earth and subdue it…’ to the Industrial Revolution and today’s ecological crisis,” he wrote.

In the very book that Harari disparages, the words of Holy Scripture warn about those who view themselves as God.

Google co-founder Larry Page once shared with Elon Musk that he hoped to build an AI super-intelligence that would be a “digital god.”

Many elites see AI as a path to becoming godlike.

The advent of a super-intelligence, which would exceed present human intellectual capacity, would evidently be heralded by Harari and many other globalists as a defining moment.

Harari envisions the future of humanity as containing people who become new types of beings infused with a supposed technologically superior intellect.

He explained that individuals such as these would be “almost like gods.”

The key word in Harari’s musings is almost.

Pray that he doesn’t have to find out the hard way that there is, always has been, and always will be one true God.

AI Is Set to Take Over Hollywood

Generative AI is a type of Artificial Intelligence technology that has the capacity to almost instantly produce text, images, audio, and video.

Understandably, the entertainment community is in an uproar over the prospect of AI wiping out a huge chunk of the longstanding industry.

While a segment of Hollywood is actually enthused about the idea that AI might free creators from some of the typically tiresome tasks and also help to avoid the hefty price tag that frequently accompanies big budget projects, others are scared to pieces.

It’s fairly easy to convince a portion of the entertainment community that AI is an overall plus. Use of the technology has become common practice within the biz.

The late Carrie Fisher was digitally cast via AI (with permission from her daughter) in the film “The Rise of Skywalker.”

In another instance, in order to make it seem as if 80-year-old actor Harrison Ford were still in his thirties, Disney-owned Lucasfilm used images of Ford’s face, taken from the “Indiana Jones” films of the 1980s, and blended them into the fifth Indiana Jones film, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.”

During an interview with late-night host Stephen Colbert in which he talked about his AI-restored on-screen image, Ford said, “It’s fantastic.”

Actor James Earl Jones, who is now 92 years old, authorized an AI version of his famous voice, which he had supplied for the Darth Vader character in the “Star Wars” franchise series, so that the character could continue on.

Reportedly, a digital version of the late actor Christopher Reeve will be included in a cameo appearance in the upcoming movie “The Flash.”

AI technology is routinely being used to alter mouth movements, so as to more accurately sync words in dubbed films of a different language. It is also regularly being used to create cinematic music and soundscapes.

Paul Schrader, screenwriter of “Taxi Driver” and director of “American Gigolo,” did a Facebook post about something that he called a “dirty little secret composers know.”

“AI is already scoring filmed entertainment and has been for some time,” Schrader wrote.

Lately the actors and writers unions have been forced to confront the dark side of AI, and they don’t like what they see coming.

Generative AI is one of the main reasons the Writers Guild of America (WGA) has been on strike for weeks and the Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), of which this author is a member, has been threatening to strike as well.

Both unions are seeking to limit the use of AI in the industry.

Digital doppelgangers in fake movie trailers have been popping up, making entertainment content without the assistance of Hollywood creatives.

AI-generated trailers, which have appeared on the Internet for what seems to be director Wes Anderson’s films, typically include well known actors such as Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. The trailers implement Anderson’s characteristic style, and they feature fake adaptations of popular franchises such as “Star Wars,” “Harry Potter,” and “The Lord of the Rings.”

A video of Ryan Reynolds selling Teslas was recently shared on Twitter but has since been removed. Reynolds’s production company responded with another AI-generated video, with Twitter owner Elon Musk endorsing gin made by a Reynolds-owned company. This video has also been removed.

A-listers, including Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves, have actually been the victims of unauthorized AI-generated deep fake videos.

Then there’s the world of voice actors, which has also been shaken in a major way. So-called voice cloning is easily conjured up by AI technology.

The reality is AI technology is capable of improving itself. The phenomenon is known as “emergence.” In the not-too-distant future, entertainment content will be created by simply giving prompts to AI technology without actors, writers, directors, or cameras having to be involved.

This means that an individual with minimal resources but with access to AI can create professional looking videos that feature famous actors and characters, minus their personal consent or involvement.

Actors already have a degree of legal protection, through existing prohibitions, from unauthorized use of their names, images, and/or likenesses.

However, things start getting really murky when it comes to AI technology’s training data. The rights of the previous performances of individual actors being used for the purposes of AI training will likely be an issue in union negotiations.

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA’s chief negotiator, has spoken out about maintaining control over the AI-created lookalikes of actors and the issue of fairness when it comes to using personas.

“The performer’s name, likeness, voice, persona – those are the performer’s stock and trade,” Crabtree-Ireland said. “It’s really not fair for companies to attempt to take advantage of that and not fairly compensate performers when they’re using their persona in that way.”

Writers in turn possess intellectual property rights to their works. But under the present law they will have a difficult burden to prove.

In order to protect their rights in court, they must prove that the AI work is either a reproduction of their own work or a derivative of it.

In the real world, AI will likely be trained with a multitude of scripts, making this burden of proof all but impossible.

In Schrader’s opinion, “The WGA position on AI is a fascinating conundrum. The guild doesn’t fear AI as much as it fears not getting paid.”

Notwithstanding the dangers that the technology poses, the director predicts that AI “will become a force in film entertainment.”

Both SAG-AFTRA and the WGA want reasonable safeguards before AI capabilities proliferate within the industry.

“Family Ties” actress, computer science graduate, and former SAG board member Justine Bateman is unequivocally against the use of AI tech for entertainment content.

“I think AI has no place in Hollywood at all. To me, tech should solve problems that humans have,” Bateman said, adding that its use will “have an incredibly bad effect — disastrous effect on the entertainment business.”

The actress views the use of AI as a backward looking “automatic imitation” through which creativity will be stifled.

“What’s the next genre in film? What’s the next genre in music? You’re never going to see anything like that if we’re all using AI,” Bateman said.

She stated that she didn’t “want to live in that world,” echoing the sentiments of many actors, writers, directors, and musicians.

FYI: The above written article was created by means of the author’s un-Artificial Intelligence.

AI’s Potentially Fatal Flaw

Plenty of discussions have been taking place about the dangers surrounding Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its existing application, the positives and negatives, and possible misuses and/or abuses.

However, a problem has popped up that seems to be causing a real stir.

It turns out that AI can actually lie.

Tech experts refer to inaccuracies and falsehoods produced by AI as “hallucinations.”

This term is typically used to describe incidents whereby AI provides solutions to problems; however, the solutions contain fictitious material that was not part of the original training data used during the programming process.

Tech experts don’t actually understand AI’s hallucination phenomenon.

When AI first became available in the form of so-called large language models (LLMs), aka, chatbots, AI hallucinations just surfaced on their own.

Early users of LLMs noticed that hallucinations seemed to “sociopathically” embed plausible sounding fabrications in the generated content.

A number of experts have used the words “very impressive-sounding answer that’s just dead wrong” to describe an AI hallucination.

An early example of the phenom happened in August of 2022.

Facebook’s owner Meta warned that its newly released LLM, BlenderBot 3, was prone to hallucinations, which Meta described as “confident statements that are not true.”

In November of 2022, Meta unveiled a demo of another LLM, Galactica, which also came with the following warning: “Outputs may be unreliable! Language Models are prone to hallucinate text.”

Within days Meta withdrew Galactica.

December of 2022 saw the release to the public of OpenAI’s LLM, ChatGPT, in its beta-version. This is the AI that is most widely used and one with which the public has the greatest familiarity.

Wharton Professor Ethan Mollick seemed to humanize ChatGPT, when he compared the LLM to an “omniscient, eager-to-please intern who sometimes lies to you.”

Lies were exactly what were generated when the Fast Company website attempted to use ChatGPT to author a news piece on Tesla. In writing the article, ChatGPT just went ahead and made up fake financial data.

When CNBC asked ChatGPT for the lyrics to a song called “The Ballad of Dwight Fry,” instead of supplying the actual lyrics the AI bot provided its own hallucinated ones.

A top Google executive recently stated that reducing AI hallucinations is a central task for Bard, Google’s competitor to ChatGPT.

Senior Vice President of Google Prabhakar Raghavan described an AI hallucination as occurring when the technology “expresses itself in such a way that a machine provides a convincing but completely made-up answer.”

The executive stressed that one of the fundamental tasks of Google’s AI project is to keep the hallucination phenom to a minimum.

In fact, when Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. first introduced Bard, the software shared inaccurate information in a promotional video. The gaffe cost the company $100 billion in market value.

In a recent “60 Minutes” interview, Google CEO Sundar Pichai acknowledged that AI hallucinations remain a mystery.

“No one in the field has yet solved the hallucination problems,” Pichai said.

Admitting that the phenomenon is very widespread in the AI world, he stated, “All models do have this as an issue.”

When the subject of the potential spread of disinformation was brought up, Pichai said, “AI will challenge that in a deeper way. The scale of this problem will be much bigger.”

He noted that there are even additional problems with combinations of false text, images, and even “deep fake” videos, warning that “on a societal scale, you know, it can cause a lot of harm.”

Twitter and Tesla owner Elon Musk recently alluded to the potential harm that AI poses to the political process.

In an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s prior Fox show, Elon said, “If a technology is inadvertently or intentionally misrepresenting certain viewpoints, that presents a potential opportunity to mislead users about actual facts about events, positions of individuals, or their reputations more broadly speaking,” Elon explained to the host.

Elon then gave his perspective, taking into account the intellectual prowess of AI.

He asked, “…If AI’s smart enough, are they using the tool or is the tool using them?”

The answer is yes.

The Real Dangers of Artificial Intelligence

Over the past year, the technological development surrounding Artificial Intelligence (AI) has advanced much more rapidly than ever anticipated.

A recent letter, signed by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk, and additional AI experts and entrepreneurs, cautioned that a six-month pause needs to be placed on all new AI models.

Time published an article by founder of AI alignment Eliezer Yudkowsky, encouraging the implementation of a permanent global ban and international sanctions on any country pursuing AI research.

The high-profile figures are warning that AI technology is accelerating so quickly, machine systems will soon be able to perform, or even exceed, human intellectual functioning.

A majority of the nation shares the same concerns as the experts. According to a recent Monmouth University poll, 55% of Americans are worried about the threat of AI to the future of humanity.

And according to a Morning Consult survey, nearly half of those who participated would support a pause on advanced AI development.

Because the public has been able to access generative AI platforms that are capable of creating text and participating in human-like conversations, the two-letter acronym itself has been absorbed into the national lexicon.

The term “AI” was coined by a computer scientist back in 1956. At its simplest, Artificial Intelligence combines computer science algorithms with data in order to solve problems.

An algorithm is a list of instructions for specific actions to be carried out by computer technology in a step-by-step fashion. AI utilizes “machine learning,” which enables learning and adaptation to occur without explicit instructions being given.

The type of AI that is presently in use is designed to specialize in a single task; for instance, conducting a web search, determining the fastest route to a destination, or alerting the driver of a car to the presence of a vehicle in the car’s blind spot.

Such functions have oftentimes served to make the lives of individuals better, easier, safer, and so on.

However, it is critical to understand that existing AI is starkly different from the type of AI that is in the pipeline – Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

This type has a benign sounding title, but it is nothing of the sort.

AGI can, and no likely will, match and even exceed human capability.

The point at which AGI exceeds human intelligence is known as “the singularity.” There have been gobs of books and films that have featured AI themes, based on the assumption that advanced AI could somehow turn against humans.

“2001: A Space Odyssey,” “The Matrix,” “The Terminator,” and “Blade Runner” all contained AGI warnings about things to come.

The fact of the matter is human beings program machines. So it stands to reason that should a given programmer err during the programming process, the resultant technology that is created will be flawed.

When it comes to ethics, the possession, or lack thereof, on the part of the programmer can result in the type of programming that may have catastrophic consequences.

This is because AI possesses the capacity to learn from its mistakes and adjust on its own, It may be able to improve itself to the point where human beings will lose control of their own invention.

The nightmare begins when the stop mechanism no longer functions.

In one of the unimaginable situations, we could have a super intelligent AI advance in a way that runs counter to all human morals, ethics, and values.

This tips into the realm of the spiritual, which requires a great deal of critical thought and further discussion.

For now, a pause is not only advisable, it’s a must.