this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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[–] ThinlySlicedGlizzy 119 points 1 year ago (10 children)

I don't care how fast AI can pump out "high quality content" because I refuse to consume any of it. I really hope the strikes are successful.

[–] RidcullyTheBrown 30 points 1 year ago (12 children)

If it is high quality, why do you care how it was produced?

But it's not the high quality content that's threatened by AI, it's the mediocre gargabe. It's the endless stream of poor quality TV shows and movies which are produced not as art, but as a means of steady predictibile income for the companies involved. That's the industry aspect of the business. This side of the business consumes most of the talent in the industry. They all know it's not good and they all hope they will get the funding to actually work on the things they know will be high quality. I think AI will allow them to do that.

Further more, this strike is not just about AI. I think this aspect is the one media outlets care most about and gets reported on more. The entertainment industry has suffered a major shift with streaming platforms and the movement of money from production studios to streaming platforms has left the employees behind. They're getting less money from streaming platforms but still do the same work. That's what the strike is about. The industry didn't care for them when it changed.

[–] R51 16 points 1 year ago (4 children)

To answer your question about quality: it matters because it's not real. The act of producing something of quality is what makes us better people. It ties into motivation to be better. Computers automating repetition doesn't hinder that (as much, it does affect learning curves). The notion that computers be used for an output that would normally require creativity is just throwing away the essense of creation, the end product is not the only thing that benefits us. There's no objective to why it was created, an AI writing something that evokes emotion is a party trick. All it really does is promote consumption and demoralize innovation, and ironically it hides behind innovation as the end-goal of the project. It's just dead. One of the most beautiful things within creating something of value is the very process of creating it, having the passion and desire to do so, and the will to bring it into existence. AI is a cursed attempt at trying to replicate this process, and by lifting that kind of burden from a human inhuman.

[–] MelonTheMan 4 points 1 year ago

I agree with you when it comes to AI in its current form - I wouldn't even call it a party trick, just dumb luck. Machine learning through repetition will use existing ideas and tropes.

However you can provide the model with unique ideas, new tropes, characters, environments, and settings. The model in its current form could generate something nearly usable (script wise) and still be a valid piece of art with some cleaning up. Just because you save time doesn't make an idea less "good"

In the future we could have near sentient AI that generates actual pieces of art far faster and better than a person can.

[–] RidcullyTheBrown 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There’s no objective to why it was created, an AI writing something that evokes emotion is a party trick.

Then it's not valuable. The question still stands: if something is truly valuable, does it matter how it was created? You are not answering this question, you are simply pointing out why AI in your opinion cannot produce art. My question is a bit "tongue in cheek", of course. It cannot be truly answered without a specific example of creation. I'm asking it to prove a point: we're dismissing something we don't understand.

All it really does is promote consumption and demoralize innovation

I'd argue that this is what Hollywood already does. And as you rightly argued through your comment, it brings little artistic or creative value.

[–] kmkz_ninja 0 points 1 year ago

To me, it's the same feeling as the teachers that wouldn't accept papers written on a computer (after an age where we know how to write) because "it's less honest".

I'm not good at drawing. I would love to try to make a game. Anti-AI luddites are happy that I will never produce something because I am incabable of doing something that an AI could easily accomplish.

[–] dimlo 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

i refuse to believe AI can replace totally of the human part in the industry. Yeah some of the weak actors will be pushed out as they are not doing the job good enough, but it’s inevitable that one day technology is advanced that AI can actually replace human workforce. Like car manufacturing industry that have massive machines to assemble car parts, but also there are things only human can do. We don’t need crappy scriptwriters writing rubbish soap opera that my 10 year old daughter can write because they are no more generic than a AI churn out script. It’s like hiring a typewriter operator in 2023. Or rubbish actors that are like reading their script out with minimal effort and skills. It does not make sense.

[–] dustyData 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

typewriter operator in 2023

There's this people called stenographers who are paid quite well, they can write hundreds of words per minute and essentially transcribe a conversation in real time. They are hired by courts to create records of the sessions, by journalists, parliaments and to transcribe subtitles for audiovisual media. They use this cool typewriter like machine called a stenotype that was invented in 1880. The thing is, they tried to replace them with speech recognition computers. They discovered they needed a human to sanitize input for the computer, essentially a person who can speak really fast and really mechanically, repeating what others said in the room, or what was said in the movie or whatever, into an oxygen-mask-like sound proof microphone. So, they still had to pay someone to be there. Many places decided they could just pay the stenographer and receive higher quality products despite the slightly higher costs. Then YouTube tried to use machine learning to auto-create closed captions. Before that they used a community contribution approach that depended on volunteers to take some time to transcribe the subs. That change to automation was such a fiasco that some big YouTube channels now advertise that they pay an actual company with humans to do the closed captions for their videos in the name of proper quality accessibility. Because automated closed caption tends to do interesting stuff and it's even worse when they try to throw auto-translation into the mix.

The point is, people tend to not understand technology and how it relates to humans, specially techbros and techies who have the most skewed biases towards tech and little sociological understanding. Nothing can be accurately predicted in that realm, and most relations that result from the appearance of new technology are usually paradoxical to common sense.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

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Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

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[–] loom_in_essence 9 points 1 year ago (10 children)

I'm looking for an interaction with the artists. I do not care what an AI produces... and I don't care what a marketing team or boardroom of producers produces. I'm looking for an artist's vision.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

If it is high quality, why do you care how it was produced?

To me, this is comparable to fiction vs. non-fiction.

Personally, I do already find fiction less engaging, because there's nothing romantic about these stories. With which I'm not referring to a love story, I mean that there's no sense of wonder of what lead to these events. It happened that way, because a writer wrote it that way.

And yet, the one thing still tying fiction to reality is the writer. You can still wonder what life experiences they've made to tell this story and how they're telling it.
Our current narrow AIs don't make life experiences, so you lose even that strand of meaning.

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[–] tdawg 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (11 children)

honestly we need legislation that protects artists who use their art as a means to live

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[–] FlyingSquid 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I saw a great strike sign- "I refuse to memorize lines written by a machine."

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[–] TheCraiggers 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

because I refuse to consume any of it

I guarantee you already have and didn't notice.

There's a philosophical argument to be made for sure, and I'd probably even agree with you. But the reality is that the technology is here, and it'll be used in pursuit of the almighty buck.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (17 children)

That's what makes it especially insidious. We want entertainment made by people, for people, not by AIs for corporations and their pockets.

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[–] vimdiesel 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I hope there is some kind of "label" that comes out of this like the Surgeon General's cigarette warning. "This movie is 87% AI generated" so I won't have to bother thinking about whether to skip it. Fuck lazy & greedy movie makers. They'd giveup their immortal soul for $3.50

[–] gnarly 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I do too hope the strikes are successful. That said, you've likely already been consuming generative technology for some time now. Disney alone has nearly a decade of research into it already. Advanced VFX applications use all sorts of generative tech too. When I was working in LA we referenced public data all the time. I know it's gotten a huge spotlight on it given private AI capitalizing/evangelizing it all but the very real threat of digital scabs taking people's jobs needs the biggest spotlight right now. I do think the tables will turn if nothing good can come out of Hollywood and those artists begin weaponizing that same tech against the execs. I see what studios are doing as no different than impersonation & identity theft by using this tech to limit working hours to skirt union protections.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are many issues besides AI stuff that are causing this strike.

Yes, with the quick emergence of AI in all industries, we do need strong workers rights agreements and laws to address it, but AI isn't really the primary issue.

People pick positions in these arguments that are too stringent and not realistic. There will be places where AI is useful in this industry. The union just needs to make sure AI isn't abused in order to completely replace certain types of laborers.

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