"AI in the Arts Is the Destruction of the Film Industry. We Can't Go Quietly"

by Justine Bateman 

[Justine Bateman’s op-ed appeared on the Newsweek website on 17 May 2023 (AI in the Arts Is the Destruction of the Film Industry. We Can’t Go Quietly | Opinion (newsweek.com)).  As a working member of the entertainment industry and someone with both academic and practical knowledge of artificial intelligence and computer-created output, she clearly has strong feelings about the practice and takes a stand.]

What does it mean to be human?

You look human, you act human, you learn lessons, you have challenges, you feel emotions.

And yet, in 2023, we’ve shrunk decidedly away from being human.

The Writer’s [sic] Guild of America (WGA) is currently on strike against the AMPTP, the representation of the Hollywood studios and streamers. A number of demands were made and were met with the expected pushback, but one pushback was alarming: the refusal to even have a conversation about the potential for AI to displace screenwriters in films and series.

As a WGA writer, a Directors Guild of America (DGA) director, a former Screen Actors’ Guild (SAG) board member, former SAG negotiating committee member, and coder who holds a UCLA degree in computer science and digital media management, I knew this signaled that they were not only thinking about using AI to displace us, but that they had already begun.

AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, but I refer to it as “Automatic Imitation.” In short, AI is an algorithm that is fed a wealth of information and given a task, and it then delivers the result based on the information it’s been fed. There are more complexities, but that is the basic design and function of AI. And it is being used in the Arts for greed, trained on all our past work.

This is how I believe it’s going to play out:

It starts with AI-written scrips and digitally-scanned actors, either image or voice actors. This scanning is already in practice; in fact, some talent agencies are actively recruiting their clients to be scanned. What this would mean for the actor is that they would get 75 cents on the dollar, and their digital image can be triple and quadruple booked. Of course, you’re not getting the actor; you’re getting a copy of them.

The next step will be films customized for a viewer based on their viewing history, which has been collected for many years. Actors will have the option to have their image “bought out” to be used in anything at all. Viewers will be able to “order up” films—for example, “I want a film about a panda and a unicorn who save the world in a rocket ship. And put Bill Murray in it.”

From there I believe viewers will be given the ability to be digitally scanned themselves, and pay extra to have themselves inserted in these custom films. You’ll also start to see licensing deals made with studios, so that viewers can order up older films like “Star Wars” and put their face on Luke Skywalker’s body, and their ex-wife’s face on Darth Vader’s body, and so on.

You can also expect to see the training of AI programs on older, hit TV series in order to create new seasons. “Family Ties,” for example, has 167 episodes, comprising seven seasons. An AI program could easily be trained on this to create an eighth season.

All to say, AI has to be addressed now or never.

I believe this is the last time any labor action will be effective in our business. If we don’t make strong rules now, they simply won’t notice if we strike in three years, because at that point, they won’t need us.

The future I’m describing rings true for many, though some have told me that they don’t believe that viewers want to see AI-generated images, or see themselves in AI films, or watch regurgitations of past films.

I believe they are wrong: Viewers have already been conditioned for AI film, because we have gotten away from being fully human.

If we were in 1975 and we asked people what they thought of these AI images, they’d most likely furrow their brow and remark on its artificial nature. But in 2023, our eyes have been trained on faces that have been amended by plastic surgery, by Instagram and TikTok filters. People are now more accustomed to seeing artificial faces than they are fully natural human faces.

Manufactured AI images are just one click away on the false imagery dial.

As far as “seeing themselves in AI films,” I believe society is well-conditioned for that as well. For the past 10 years, social media apps like Instagram and TikTok have opened wide the narcissism and self-obsession usually dormant in humans. The vast majority of what’s posted on social media is an almost frantic stream of selfies and vlogs, all posted in the name of “building your brand.” Seeing yourself in custom made films would easily fit into this model.

But we’ve also been primed in another way for the AI takeover of art: Endless reboots, remakes, sequels, next chapters, and prequels have replaced new stories. We’ve basically be doing AI by hand, pulling in all the old stuff and spitting out an amalgamation of that past work.

The creation of new paths and genres, so important to being a modern human, have not really occurred in the Arts for the past 20 years. What do you think of when you think of 21st century art? Most of it is just a rehashing of the 20th century. And this makes people open to the rehashing of the past that AI is designed to do.

As much as I dislike it, I believe society in 2023 (and 2024 and 2025) will be receptive to AI films and will embrace their arrival. And I believe the studios and the streamers know this. I hope I am wrong about this, but I don’t think I am. And it’s unfortunate. AI in the Arts is nothing less than a destruction of the 100-year[-]old film industry.

We must fight, we must strike as WGA members, we must warn other artists—actors, crew members, and directors—about what is coming. Because this is our watch.

All of the film industry that has come before us handed us this business, and it was ours to care for. If the studios and streamers that hold the purse strings that enable our work are set on destroying this incredible business that brings so much to society, I want it known that on our watch, we opposed it. We defended human-made films and series.

On our watch, we fought being replaced with computer programs.

We must fight, we must strike as WGA members, we must warn other artists—actors, crew members, and directors—about what is coming. Because this is our watch.

[Justine Bateman is a filmmaker, author, and coder with a degree from UCLA in computer science and digital media management.  In addition, she’s a film actress, writer, director, and producer.  (She’s also the older sister of actor, director, and producer Jason Bateman.)

[The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.]

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[Bateman, as an artist as well as someone knowledgeable about computers and AI, is writing from her individual perspective.  She also focuses on the consequences, as she sees them, of the misuse and abuse of AI technology in film and television production. 

[In the Spring 2023 issue of SAG-AFTRA magazine (vol 12, no. 2), the film-and-TV actors’ union lays out the issues facing performers in the coming technological world of AI in an article entitled “Artificial Intelligence, Real Consequences.” 

[“Of all the tasks that could be automated,” admonishes the article, “generating art was perhaps the one that was least in need of being done by a machine, but now that the technology has emerged, it’s going to be part of the new reality for all creators.”  Asserts one union official: “Creative storytelling is fundamentally human, and humans should remain at the center of the story.”

[SAG-AFTRA is aimed at an audience of union members, so I thought that I’d present portions of it that are of more interest to a general readership on this blog (leaving out some of the more inside-baseball reportage—with apologies to the SAG-AFTRA leadership):

It’s a concerning time for creatives. Generative artificial intelligence has burst onto the scene, allowing anyone to create essays, screenplays, pictures, music and more in mere seconds, with minimal effort — even if they consider themselves devoid of creativity.

The most popular of these tools parse a user’s input and, using an enormous set of data, create an output that fulfills that request. So, for instance, ChatGPT can respond to a user’s request to “Write an essay about snails” by pulling everything it knows about the invertebrates to create a passable article on the topic. On the visual arts side, one might ask Midjourney or DALL-E for a picture of a snail in the style of Vincent Van Gogh, and the AI will dutifully spit one out.

Machine learning, which powers these tools, is being used onscreen to de-age actors, lip-synch dubbed programs, replicate an actor’s voice and even generate entire performances. It’s not hard to see how all this power can be misused.

That’s why SAG-AFTRA and other industry unions are working hard to ensure that AI is available as a tool to help creators, not a way to put them out of work.

“These tools can help America’s entertainers ideate and work more efficiently. They can be a welcome tool to assist in the creative process, or they can take a darker turn, threatening to replace the tens of thousands of hardworking creative minds that have dedicated their lives, and their careers, to their crafts,” said SAG-AFTRA NED Duncan Crabtree-Ireland. “In my time as SAG-AFTRA national executive director, I’ve seen new technologies contribute to, rather than disrupt, the work that our members do for the public. With the right approach to regulation, we can ensure that new advancements in generative AI do the same.”

To that end, the union has staked out a firm position on the use of AI and is taking concrete steps to ensure the technology is used for good. Without the power of collective action, performers would be on their own in navigating this new threat, and would have to rely solely on the benevolence of those who hire them.

. . . .

“Creative storytelling is fundamentally human, and humans should remain at the center of the story. SAG-AFTRA has always embraced technological change, but we have done so with our longstanding mandate to protect actors, recording artists and broadcasters foremost in mind. We will work with our industry partners to negotiate fair terms and conditions for AI uses, and we will partner with them to advocate for smart AI policies. Most importantly, we will never stand idly by if the professional voices, likenesses and performances of our members are misappropriated,” said SAG-AFTRA General Counsel Jeffrey Bennett.

In March, the union announced that it joined with major industry players to support the Human Artistry Campaign [see below] and that the rights to digitally simulate a performer to create new performances must be bargained with the union. SAG-AFTRA warned that any attempt by employers to circumvent the union and deal directly with the performers on these issues is a violation of the National Labor Relations Act. SAG-AFTRA further clarified that Global Rule One, which requires that SAG-AFTRA members must always work under a union contract wherever they work, covers any agreement with an employer to digitally simulate a member’s voice or likeness to create a new performance.

As the technology improves at a dizzying speed, the laws protecting copyright and other intellectual rights will be tested. SAG-AFTRA emphasizes that governments should not create new copyright or other IP exemptions that allow AI developers to exploit creative works, or professional voices and likenesses, without permission or compensation. AI that generates text and art doesn’t create it from nothing; it is trained on the hard work, brilliance, inspiration, sweat and creativity of countless artists — artists who have financial obligations and families, and who deserve to be compensated for their efforts.

[“The act of creating is one of the most fulfilling and satisfying aspects of human existence,” declares the article, “and SAG-AFTRA is doing everything it can to keep it that way.”  Toward that end, as the excerpt posted above reports, the union has joined with other performing-arts organizations “to ensure AI is used responsibly.”  The Human Artistry Campaign’s fundamental principles are:

1. Technology has long empowered human expression, and AI will be no different.

2. Human-created works will continue to play an essential role in our lives.

3. Use of copyrighted works, and the use of voices and likenesses of professional performers, requires authorization, licensing and compliance with all relevant laws.

4. Governments should not create new copyright or other IP exemptions that allow AI developers to exploit creators without permission or compensation.

5. Copyright should only protect the unique value of human intellectual creativity.

6. Trustworthiness and transparency are essential to the success of AI and protection of creators.

7. Creators’ interests must be represented in policymaking.

[To take action, visit https://www.humanartistrycampaign.com/.]