Will Actors REALLY be Replaced? (VFX Artists Explain)
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- Опубліковано 15 чер 2024
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In light of the ongoing strikes in Hollywood, Wren and Jordan sit down to look at the state-of-the-art in digital actor effects, and give their thoughts on the impending replacement of actors in Movies and TV.
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Chapters ►
00:00 Will Actors Be Necessary?
00:41 Curious Case of Benjamin Button
02:19 Blade Runner 2049
04:21 The Irishman
05:39 Avatar 2
07:11 Where Things Could Go From Here
09:06 Can Actors Be Replaced at Scale?
11:20 Where Things Are At Right Now
13:06 Looking into the Far Future
14:08 The Human Touch - Розваги
I'm not scared of AI, I'm scared of what the Greedy Corporations Will try to do with it.
It was not AI capability itself that is scary
It is the concept of what would happen if it is in control of malicious hands, that is actual scary part
Nah bro, it will be cool.
You underestimate what kids with a lot of time can do
"Try", you're funny....
They already doing it
I'm more scared of what the propaganda divisions of certain gov's will do with it. We will enter a new age of disinformation and division.
When the background actors go away, so too do the makeup artists, costume designers, etc, etc, etc. If you can just scan an actor in costume and makeup and digitally place them into a scene, those key production roles get only one day of work instead of weeks or months. I'd argue that the pay model needs to shift to a "per project" rather than "per day/hour" model, but even that isn't really a good solution because then they just hire one makeup artist for the entire project instead of dozens. There are a LOT of considerations as we move forward.
I think the worst thing about this is that they won't need to scan people. A.I will be able to generate photorealistic "new" people at some point.
You'll need AI prompters/vfx artists instead. Jobs have shifted for millenias, that isn't an inherent problem as society can and does adapt easily. The ethical issue comes if or when one person's job starts replacing too many, such that opportunities for people to make a living go down as a whole. That's not something that's happened yet in history imo but AI certainly has the potential to do it.
@@supermax64 Yeah but it used to be that you're shifting from a low skill to a high skill job. Makeup artists, costume designers, etc ARE the high skill job - the AI prompters are the LOW skill job, which will be paid peanuts on shit contracts with no union. THAT IS an inherent problem!!!
@@z-beeblebrox Yeah. I heard some people from IT jobs that was fired due to AI replacing them had to learn Plumbing and other manual labour skills to keep them afloat. It was supposed to free your time to do art and other creative stuff, not downgrading people into doing manual works And prompting is not skill so it would be cheap pay for the corporation.
@@supermax64 One takes a different high skill
I was one of the de-aging artists on The irishman. haha yeah we all laughed when we saw that performance of old man bobby.
It was my first time working with AI (this was like 6 years ago. Forever ago tech wise) and it was very crazy. ILM was developing the software faster then I could learn to use it. Every week there was a new update with new nodes to learn. It really was a bonkers mind boggling experience.
If you are for real, then this is one of the most relevant and insightful comments of all time on a UA-cam video.
Why would someone lie about this? You people are crazy@@alanjosephproductions
@@alanjosephproductions really lol he basically just said "I was there and lemme tell ya, it was crazy!"
@@KABOBkabob No, I think there's more subtlety than that. Basically he's saying he rode the crest of a humongous technological wave and saw its results improve on a near real-time basis - for technology that was unthinkable less than a generation ago. It's pretty impressive.
@@alanjosephproductions”insightful” this person literally uses “very crazy”.
I am of two minds of this...
For big studios I am worried, because they're run by abusive greedy sociopaths who don't care about exploiting people.
But for indie filmmakers these will be amazing tools to bring their vision to life. Much how digital music production tools have eliminated the necessity for having a studio.
Good points! It's still exploitative if indie creators are using AI built on others art/likeness, etc, without any payment and/or recognition.
Maybe there's a case for using things for proof of concept type stuff, with the promise to share any profits and/or opportunities you can get from them, but it's such a slippery slope and the people at the top of the industry aren't going to want to do what's right if they can get more profit doing what's wrong/easy
@@helenl3193 It's not exploitative if it's transformative. Courts have long affirmed that art can be made using other people's art without their permission so long as it's transformative (has new stylistic and conceptual qualities). Art has been made this way since forever. Andy Warhol is a typical recent-history example of this.
The again perhaps the law will be more like music sampling. However I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing, musicians certainly don't liek how sampling copyright law works.
I have a video essay on this very subject on my channel, if you're interested :)
I'm with you on this.
It's amazing for small time creators too having the ability to ask an AI to create a background painting that could be used for their Greenscreen scene.
But as soon as we go into the Mega Corporations... No thank you. Instead of trying to cut corners they should instead focus on the Real Actors and such. And I believe that similar to Directors wanting every explosion to be real instead of CGI in the future we will have Directors who want actual Actors and no Fakes.
@@helenl3193 Maybe a solution could be to license the sample sets that an ai generation tool uses. you can buy them like Garage band audio sample sets or photoshop brush sets. That way the artist style you are borrowing from can still get compensated.
@@jackwriter1908If big studios wanted they could still hire plenty and plenty of people to take part in the creative process using AI and making something even more nuanced , finely refined and even more bombastic then ever before... Imagine big number of artists working together and using power of AI. It would not cut cost it would just give them new tools and power. They could do something remarkable. I say they could do this, I did not say they will do this. You would probably need people with creative vision and passion behind such projects. People and corporations who produce for profit in the first place are probably less likely to use the tools in those ways.
As someone who works in the audio industry with voiceovers, AI generated content has been a huge issue for years but has recently really exploded this year. With VOs having their voices used in perpetuity via AI by companies without their knowledge, there has been huge outcry unsurprisingly. If you are in the industry you can spot an AI voice but it is getting more difficult and to the general public there is no difference and VOs are terrified about what is being done with their voice. It’s scary times.
I’m just trying to start a career in audio and this stuff is making me feel like I’d be irrelevant in 5 years anyway. I’ve heard AI starting to do sound design / effects now as well (which is what I want to do), and I’m honestly a little discouraged by how fast this stuff is growing. It’s the same parallel to self checkouts at the grocery. It’s more convenient, and sure you’re lacking that human connection you get at the normal stands, but everyone will stop noticing / caring about that part.
Especially considering how good the audio sounds for SpongeBob / South Park characters singing famous songs.
@@brianslyproductions1410 It can be disheartening but I take solace in the fact that there are people in the industry who are fighting against it and are constantly looking for fresh ideas and talent. AI is doing incredible things but it is restricted in what it can do by what we feed it. So there will always be room for the “human ear” that can tell the subtle differences in sound that AI just can’t pick up.
@@hatingevery1 Why would that matter? A 30 second ad spot being AI acted is going to be free and with current tech, less than 0.1% of people could tell it wasn't a human, with a smaller percentage caring.
Even better, an AI voiceover can be market tailored, so they can put the actor's voice and diction into one that matches the ad target. Which would normally need 1000 or so voice actors.
I can see this being powerful in localisation for ads. The company doesn't need to hire 10 actors for the advertisements. They can be simply replaced by AI generated characters who speak the localised language.
It's *really* important that, going forward, peoples' agency with regard to the use of their image is defended to the utmost. We've already seen posthumous use of a person's image, and consensual generated images in the course of a production. However, the idea of a studio of owning rights to the use of a person's image outside of the scope of a given production or worse, in perpetuity, is really chilling.
That should be illegal period. You can’t own the rights to someone else’s face. You can only own the footage that they appear in. At least that’s how it *should* be handled if the people passing these laws have the slightest bit of sense and/or aren’t being manipulated/payed off to allow this to go unchecked!
Extreme polarization in politics is harming everyone involved because people no longer hold an opinion just because that’s what they believe, (let alone based on any facts) they hold many opinions solely because the other party holds the opposite opinion. We all need to calm down a bit and have more rational discussion!
I mean, the easy counter to that would be to generate the main characters too. Think about like, a movie or show you really like. E.g. the Office. When it started, nobody really knew most of the cast, apart from say Steve Carrell. If you could generate characters from scratch like that, in that situation, (and I don't see technology stopping us from being able to do that), then a lot of actors need to be worried about their futures.
I'm more curious what happens when completely generated characters are viable though. Deepfakes have never really interested me when they amounted to recreating someone that exists. Making a persona custom tailored to a story or directors taste is where a lot of the image right issues might be alleviated.
Of course, things like the rights of those contributing to the training data or the ethical issues of replacing labor still exist. Even the former could be fixed by consensual donation or public domain data.
What is a lookalike of a famous person sells their image for a movie?
Even if they do cement that for actors, the studio can just generate a new face for the role that isn't a preexisting actor. That's the hard one to stop I feel. Because the studios would just be using a tool (or multiple tools) to create the fake actors. And they'd have an AI write a script, they're not copying other scripts, they're just using a tool to generate it. But it would cause so many people to lose their jobs. I don't know if it's even feasible to stop studios from using AI in that manner. Not with our current laws.
Background actors don't typically say lines. They're just supposed to be playing a random person in the background or passing by. Now with that out of the way: The first step is that every person alive now, actor or not, should be granted an automatic copyright to their image and voice throughout their lives.
This is just the first step to figuring things out when it comes to the production of CG virtual humans.
and the first step by corporations is to make sure they can take that away from you ...
Heck, when you consider that they own the creative works of authors for 75 year after their death.
You don't want to imagine what they'll do to ensure they own your image & sound.
The worst part ... it will only require a few folk to agree with the corpses.
And they have already won the fans (the Luke Skywalker scene in Book of Boba proves that ... )
Creativity is already a lost art in the entertainment INDUSTRY.
I wonder how they would handle that in the case of identical twins though. Or so-called dopplegangers.
"While progress will not slow, our preparation can increase."
Wise words, Jordan.
Progress can and should slow though if it does harm, the people responsible for the progress would just need morals for that to happen.
@@Cyliandre441 Nobel.
@@Cyliandre441 unfortunately that's normally not the reality. If you never heard about it I would recommend you to check "The Paradox of Rules" or something like that. Basically is a paradox that applied to a lot of real things that says that some rules when broken give advantages to those who broke them, and sometimes the advantages are too big for the ones that fallowed the rules to catch on.
Imagine a peace treaty between two countries. If you break the treat you have the upper hand in a conflict that your opponent was not ready for.
The only solution is to take precautions for the breakage of the rules, but unfortunately it is never possible to be fully prepared for anything. We can only try, but is best than no preparation whatsoever.
I was always surprised that De Niro agreed to use de-aging in The Irishman (he produced it so he would have had a say), because one of his breakthrough roles was playing a younger Marlon Brando in The Godfather Part II. If de-aging was available in 1974, it would have cost De Niro a job and an Oscar and possibly affected his whole career. The de-aging in The Irishman could have cost an actor the same in 2019.
That's interesting... A counterpoint I've thought about is the _sheer volume_ of content coming out may offset the lost opportunities. The counter counter point to mine is that those vast volumes and opportunities are definitely not Godfather Part II level kind of opportunities - think entry is a YT channel... or a corridor video where they need some extras. On one hand, kinda awesome indie creators can help and provide these opps, on the other, so many of these 'opportunities' could lead nowhere in terms of studio level or career-making roles.
That's not how cost works but ok
What you are for getting is that De Niro is already De Niro. He’s already in the door, so why would he care about the next generation.
I think that's a false equivalence. On one hand, The Irishman almost didn't get made because of de-aging and it still being freaking expensive and with that logic, it would have made The Godfather Part II way more difficult to get made as well. On the other, there's a fundamental difference in both movies in that in The Irishman, it's a single character throughout his life (think of another De Niro movie, Once Upon a Time in America... just in reverse), where it would be ideal to have the same actor playing him, while The Godfather Part II was a "single" moment in the character's life that contrasted with the age of the character in the previous incarnation, which means even today it would make no sense to use de-aging (remember the criticism against Prometheus for casting Guy Pearce just to have him wear old-man make-up for the entire movie?) and audiences would be more forgiving of the change because you wouldn't be shifting from one age to the other.
But for argument's sake, let's assume they use de-aging to make The Godfather II. Sure, it would have potentially changed the course of De Niro's entire career, but with The Irishman, having a different actor for every age variation would have meant several actors with very small roles trying to build a single character. I just don't think any of those actors would have had enough to make much of an impression.
@@seannewell397 true, Wren puts it well: killing the background actor, would mean there would be less and less actors trying for and getting their "big break". Same with writers: right now, killing the writers room in TV, means less writers have set experience to become showrunners, which in turn affects productions. In both cases, acting and writing will essentially end up dying. It's all a self-fulfilling prophecy.
What I don't agree is thinking we will ever get "Oscar worthy" content from AI. If we complain that today's movies are derivative and unoriginal, what do you think we will get when AI can only produce stuff that derives from what you feed it?
You know it's a epic video when wren is the main character
Agreed
You know it’s a good video when it’s from Corridor Crew
It's not Wren, it was a CGI rendering of Wren.
Lots of enthusiasm in that kid.
@@TheRodentSama A Wrendering? come on, man, it was right there.
As a musician, it's very easy for AI to tap into the fear of "what if someone rips me off before I even make a living". But compared to acting or VFX, it's a much more bleak situation, because streaming has already decimated a big part of musicians' incomes. I think actors/writers are smart to unionize and act in advance - we really need that spark of real humans and inspiration, rather than "generating" by formulaicly imitating the past forever, and actors/writers know that. They can hold that need for reality and change over execs' heads. The scariest thought possible is that they could be wrong and audiences wouldn't know the difference.
(on a smaller side note, I've been convinced Corridor gang is all hairstyle variations on the same CG character, so I wasn't surprised by the ending.)
Though, isn't an even scarier thought that audiences will know the difference but generally won't mind enough to vote with their wallets? Look how many young people especially seem quite content to listen to music on their phone speakers, despite the appalling sound quality when compared with even a fairly cheap pair of headphones.
So my dad always talked about how when CNC machining first started, people didn’t believe it would happen so soon. It’s interesting to draw parallels from this and see how machinists job roles changed.
What if the machinists all went on strike, until there were laws put in place that prevented CNC machining? Would we all be better off?
You should do a follow up video answering the question "Will VFX Artists be Replaced?". I think VFX artists have just as much reason to be afraid of being replaced by AI as actors and writers, but they don't get as much publicity since they can't go on strike due to a lack of unionization.
And yet, some Marvel VFX artists did that on August 7th (unionizing VFX), so it's happening.
@@gelatinguy Nice, I hope more VFX artists do the same
VFX artists will be replaced. Cashiers will be replaced. Analysts will be replaced. CEOs will be replaced. Garbage men will be replaced. Soldiers will be replaced. Programmers will be replaced. Engineers will be replaced. Scientists will be replaced.
If you ask "will (job) be replaced with AI/robots" the answer is "yes". The only question has, for ages, been "how soon".
@@TheKrazyguy75they can't replace analysts, management would have to actually take responsibility, and that'll never happen.
@@TheKrazyguy75 the paradox with that is that if everyone will be replaced, then who is going to buy the things the corporations produce? Capitalism produces its own contradictions
Please make a video about the terrible work conditions of most VFX artists in Hollywood.
It's going to be hard for them to do since they are a VFX studio that might want to have a contract with one of the major Hollywood studios someday. And in order to make an honest video about this topic they would need to absolutely demolish the practises and reputation of said studios so I understand if they don't want to burn any bridges in the industry.
they are way to capitalistic to do that lol, Niko and Sam are company owners, its why we haven't heard shit about the strike from them.
It's not their job to produce investigative documentaries or engage in political comments. Better still, they ought not to do it and stick to what they're good at and like to do.
I've seen many creative people "dabbling with politics", only to see their ultimate descent into pathetic wokery, socialism, and "progressive" ideas. Corridor should avoid that at all costs.
@@jdrummerddthey talk about this on corridor cast couple of weeks before. People like talk bad without any reasearch now days huh?
@@Hilislaw Yeah it's a slippery slope ngl
I think that with the level of personalization that you mentioned at the end of a video for movies and shows we will see the end of a collective zeitgeist created by popular media culture. The radio is dead, cable TV is dead, but now even shows and movies that we all watch at generally the same time are likely to go away. That makes me feel like it will be harder to relate to others. Just feels incredibly personalized but also more lonely.
Yeah, loneliness is a great point. Social media has already made use a lonelier species. Losing the ability to talk about shared experiences in our entertainment could lead to a lot more societal issues.
And with Social Media already pushing us further toward less reality in our lives with less real interaction between real people, will that make us happier to accept not having real people star in our movies.
I think you hit the nail on the head, BUT I also think tribalism will continue, in that you won't be watching this totally tailored to only YOU, but to your FAMILY, your FRIENDS, your COMMUNITY. People you will be spending ALL your time with - as no one will go away to work - can get even tighter now, but yes, it will also be a bubble world.
It's really cool timing that the day after this video was uploaded, a U.S court in DC ruled that AI generated art can't receive copyright! While we still don't know how this will play out with studio's, it feels like a great direction to go with regulation to prevent over-reliance without condemning the tech's utility.
"Aug 21 (Reuters) - A work of art created by artificial intelligence without any human input cannot be copyrighted under U.S. law, a U.S. court in Washington, D.C., has ruled."
Please note the "without human input" part, then draw conclusions.
The second concern is, and something on the union concern list is; you performed in a movie/show/commercial once and now that studio owns your likeness, forever. They can 'cast' you into whatever, forever.
Unless I’m misinterpreting what you are saying, that is illegal. You own your voice and face, they can’t use it without your consent.
@@marcaldovino264 Yeah, "your consent" is the issue in question, specifically contracts that require you to give them rights to use your likeness in perpetuity. Companies are constantly looking for ways to usurp what limited economic power you have left, and this is one of them.
Agree that is a concern. Don't have any idea of what the contracts look like, but I suspect the fact that the studio is allowed to sell movies containing actors' likenesses (because they acted in said film) is a source of this ownership issue.
This exact issue is the plot of the 1980s film by Michael Crighton, called "Looker". It was one of the first films to use CGI, and it's predictions of the future - our present - are chillingly accurate.
So? That's a different topic. We are talking about the technology. Sugar is dangerous too if we eat too much of it. The strike goal is to limit the companies. AI is inevitable
The background actor thing is a big point in these negotiations I believe. If I'm remembering correctly, part of the studios initial offer was that they wanted the ability to digitize the background actors when they initially perform and have rights to the performance for use in perpetuity without having to pay.
If that's what the contract is, then they did pay for it.
Every person alive today -- actor or not -- should be afforded rights to their likeness and voice throughout their lives. They should be paid royalties if their image is used for a background human in a scene in a movie, series, ad, video game, whatever, just as royalties are paid for stock photos or stock scenic video footage.
I'm not seeing the need to digitize background actors in the first place, when fully- realistic randomly-generated actors will be good enough for most instances.
@@hw2577 Normal people's likenesses don't matter though. No one is getting paid for their random face. Companies will simply generate novel faces for BG characters. Your face has 0 value. If you passed strict laws concerning the uses of faces, it would have literally 0 impact on anyone aside from the most famous ~200 people on the planet.
Generating new faces is simply far cheaper and faster than using someone's face without hiring them in the first place. The only time it is worth doing HD scans of an actor is if they are a famous person who's face can sell tickets with their fame alone.
@@Idiomatick If it's useless then why are the studios proposing it? This proposal came from the studios. Clearly they see something valuable in it and your comment contradicts the mindset of the studios.
As a HMU in film & tv, our makeup, hair styling, wigs, special effects makeup/prosthetics are all in danger of becoming irrelevant due to filters and AI generating it for us. This is a problem now even before the actors disappear...
Also, just like actors who take background acting jobs as a way to get their foot in the door, crowd rooms (where we style them) are integral for networking and establishing a presence in the film Hair and Makeup industry. Very similar for the costume dept.
That's a great point ! Not spoken about enough
It’s called progress. Same as when coach drivers and horse carriage owners saw cars come along. Train for something else, keep your ears to the ground and look for future proofing your career. I’m a Project Manager, won’t be long before Chat GPT can run a project single handed for peanuts. 🤷🏻♀️
@@laurahullandHow many people are going to have to "future proof"
The most troublesome thing I have seen AI do for the present is being able to voice match someone based off a short clip and have it say other things. THAT will cause some issues down the line.
Your long deceased relative is now trying to reach you about an extended car warranty
I remember watching the scene in the running man some years ago where they basically just give voice commands to the computer and it dropped the likeness of Arnold into a fight scene for the cameras. I rolled my eyes at the time knowing how difficult it would have been to actually synthesize a human much less make it photo real. I had no idea it would become reality in such a short time. I’m more afraid that I won’t be able to tell what’s real and what isn’t.
I would feel less unnerved if I thought that the companies wouldn't skirt what ever regulations are put in place, at every chance they got.
Not just that they would use it as a selling point to get us to go and see it, Not going to lie im morbidly curious to see a movie with completely AI generated actors in it.
or hop over a border and do it anyway. even if the movie industry collapsed overnight in the USA, there's 10 more to take its place as soon as 5090's come out.
What regulations exactly? are you one of those who want to force companies to employe actors instead of letting ai do it lmao.
@lordjaraxxus663 yes movies are art, acting is an art form once it's replaced by robots it becomes stale
@@ManlyPelican You can bet when they do that I'm pirating it, and I hope as many people as possible do so. Have thousands, millions of people who have seen it and are reviewing/criticizing it but the studio hasn't seen the money of a fraction of those people. I know it probably won't be the case, but a man can hope.
The issue ive always had with all this ai stuff is exactly like you said at the end. The knowledge of that just completely devalues everything now. Yes its fascinating that it can be done yes its interesting etc etc etc, but if i was watching a movie 10 years ago, it was still somewhere in the back of your mind that someone had to draw/create a human mind had to come up with the artwork you are seeing on screen, now your first impression is not that, your first impression no matter what you see or hear these days is oh i wonder was this ai. Devalues every type of art out there. Photographers and digital artists were the first ones to get hit with this because of midjourney and all the other ai art generators out there.
I'm sorry, but that has to do with your mindset and shouldn't impact whether we utilize AI more or less. Think less negatively and maybe it won't be as big of a deal.
@@TheSwauzz it has nothing to do with a creators mindset, it is everything to do with the mindset of people consuming art, if the tool exists and is widely known (eg. ai) they are ultimately going to be less enamoured and less engrossed in whatever they are seeing. A great parallel to this is when movies leaned more into cgi and away from miniatures, they lost a lot of their magic because you now know or at least think, oh they wouldn't of done this for real its just cgi. Sure its still kind of impressive but not as much.
@@TheSwauzznah , they're right and I hate this technology Pandora's Box that's been opened for no benefit.
@@TheSwauzznah I agree, if I see an artwork is Ai generated it takes away from the experience for me. Its just a different experience as a consumer. You can't separate art and context.
All it devalues is the labour, which is the least interesting thing about a work of art. AI isn't a threat to art production at all, it's a threat to employment in a capitalist economy.
insightful. mostly informative & just discussing videos seems like a new corridor for you guys recently and I like it. this was the most deliberate & enjoyable one i've seen so far
Glad you guys highlighted the very real concerns that the SAG AFTRA strikers have and how the problem isn’t the tools themselves but the corporate economic side of things that could down not just an entire industry but the artistry involved in said work
Yeah, it's very important in my opinion. I think most of us don't want that greed wins all.
And I'm really excited about the new possibilities and accessibility, especially for small creators with a vision.
But we need to keep the creedy people/cooperations in place with regulations otherwise it's going to separate the small/poor from the big/rich even more (I mean it will happen no matter what, always has. But we can at least try to limit the damage.
And I live in Germany, where we have way more regulations over all then the US and over all probably 99% of Germans think/feel we found a better middle ground then the US.
So yeah, too much regulations are as bad as too little. We need to find a good middle ground.
People scared of being replaced go on strike to prove that humans are unreliable. Great tactic.
How exactly? The video explicitly states their conviction that fully computer generated performances are going to be possible in both the near (background actors) and long future (the stupid example of an AI-generated movie). No mention whatsoever to the fact that one of the key demands of both SAG AFTRA and the WGA is to HEAVILY regulate AI production so that studios CAN'T train their AI-driven projects with their artistic production. If anything, the video is extremely enthusiastic about the incredibly stupid idea of getting an "Oscar-worthy personalized movie" and getting rid of actors, writers, directors and technical crew altogether.
Corridor is obsessed with the technical tools being developed, but they don't give an actual fuck about the strike, what the guilds are striking for or working rights in general. And it's ironic because in that distopic future they are drooling over, they too would be replaced.
Could have stood to spend more time on it. The tech is cool, fine, but highlighting its problems over the years gives people a false sense of security imo. It makes it seem like it's a problem for later rather than a problem for now. It's a problem for _now._
Honestly? The reign of AI cannot come soon enough. Let the film actors guild and those "writers" starve for all i care. Maybe once AI becomes a widely available tool we'll get quality indi movies with the quality of big budget tentpoles. I cannot wait for a time when a single skilled person will be able to produce Peter Jackson level content on a 1k $ budget and smoke all those woke writers.
When we were fearing that AI will automate and replace all of our boring jobs and all we have to turn to is the creative job. It turns out we solved for the creative jobs first since there's more room for error for creativity and hard to validate objectively what's the truth.
It makes me sad that people will not get paid for things they love and worked hard to learn.
I also prefer to have costume designers, makeup artist and set designers working on a film instead of the director sitting at a computer and telling it what he wants.
It's the team work of professionals in each field that makes movies special and unique.
the computer will literally do it better than them in the future.
@@JuJu-he8ck It's important to remember that human creativity and the ability to connect with audiences on a profound emotional level are deeply complex and often involve elements of intuition, empathy, and a deep understanding of the human experience that go beyond data-driven learning. While AI can certainly enhance and streamline many aspects of creative work, the human touch and ingenuity may always play a significant role in these artistic endeavors.
So, while AI's capabilities are expanding rapidly, the collaboration between humans and AI may remain a powerful approach to achieving the most impactful and emotionally resonant creative works in the future.
~ ChatGPT
@@JuJu-he8ckno It can’t
Nothing is better then the real thing proof look at action scenes done practically to action scenes mostly cgi
@@rupertsmith5815 You are talking about movies that were produced with technology they had when they made the movies, rather than speculating on newer technology that doesn't yet exist or isn't refined yet.
Crowds may be replaced by computer crowds, but it still feels different. I was watching The Mask of Zorro the other night and it started with a crowd scene made of hundreds of real people - and there was a feeling to it that just hit me. I was in that crowd, I was hot, I was being jostled, it was dangerous. Someone was going to get trampled to death. None of the armies of thousands in Lord of the Rings gave me that feeling (even when the movie was first released).
As much as all this AI stuff is amazing and unbelievable. I am scared where it will lead to. I kind of hope that there will still be people who will make movies using actors, and animate things by hand, or draw things by hand, because that is art. Art connects with people way more than when you generate something automatically or procedurally. Of course we all dropped our jaws when we saw the Orc army for the first time in LOTR, but when you see it for the hundred times its not that amazing anymore. Same thing in games, you can have world that has thousends of planets and solar systems. But what good is it when there is nothing unique about any of it. We all want so we things where people put their soul into it. I really hope that will never go away.
The best thing that could happen is if it goes away because that means AI are able to create more unique and interesting content than mankind, god bless the machines!
@@DanuxsyNo. It’s really not.
Sturgeon's law. I rest my case.
@@Danuxsyguess you're a troll 😂
if you think that then bless you, you'll gone need it!@@Rafissima
As an educator, I’m curious and a bit anxious to see where this goes in terms of delivering instruction. I already use AI to assist in some of the more tedious aspects of my job (lesson plans, learning questions). But as we continue to move towards online learning, I could see digital models easily replacing face to face teachers in the near future for some number of students.
I would strongly be opposed to that, teachers can be such strong role models and helpful people. But to have it replaced like that?
I’m a traditional artist and I find AI art generation both fascinating and problematic at the same time. On one hand it can be a useful tool as a form of visual reference or early stage brainstorming. On the other hand there is a temptation for artists to rely more heavily on AI to fully flesh out concepts for them and skipping the creative process. Type some words, get an image you like in the style you want and simply reproduce the image you’re given. This in turn could cause imagination and creative growth to become stifled in the artistic process.
Another part of the 'uncanny valley' problem is when people are told that it's either cg or has been altered in some way. I used adobe on a group of young children to have all the children posed nicely. (Getting a good photo of a group of kids including toddlers and babies is a bit challenging!). When I showed the photo to people whose approval I needed I told them I had adjusted some of the children to obtain a great overall photo, but I didn't tell them which children. They were like, 'oh, yeh...we can totally tell it's altered'...haha! but when they identified the altered kids...they were 100% wrong! So, there's that...
They actually did use cg extras in a Disney show, even though it was unnecessary.
Wait, weren't those just Sims? Like not even any effort put into making them not look like Sims?
You don’t want to leave your test of CG background character tech until it’s necessary. Better to test it when you have the option of a backup if it doesn’t work out.
I get the feeling this whole comment section will get a lot of astroturfing from the mouse.
I remember being in a play in the 90’s and other actors thinking the exact same thing was happening with cgi then.
Directors like directing people, it’s the studios that throw cost cutting methods in. It’ll be the job of the director to maintain that relationship imo
Directors don't care, if they did, then the DGA would be striking with the actors/writers. Or at least fundraising for them.
Don't you guys get it. There will be no directors or crew or actors or writers. An studio executive will type/speak in keywords. Bam full movie done. Thats the reality we are fast heading towards. Or as this video said... Go home choose the actors and genre... Bam ur tv gives u a new movie or show tailored for you...
Full CG movies did eat a decent chunk of the space. This will eat a much larger chunk.
@@RohonNag Why would we even need a "studio executive"? Or studios, for that matter?
Like Wren said, sooner or later, you'll have the processing power and programs to just generate it yourself on your TV/Phone/VR interface or whatever.
"AI, play a horror movie where I'm the killer and my bosses are the victims who die horribly."
"AI, play the prequel trilogy, but make Jar-Jar a sith lord, and Mace Windu survives."
"AI, play some porn where I'm the main character, and my partner's a red-skinned blue-haired alien pilot from Mars."
I'd imagine you just download an AI program off the net and BOOM! Any movie you wish. Why would we ever keep the studio execs around? They're the most disposable part of the chain.
@@LucificNight Oh yeah, this is what silicon valley is hoping for. Some techbro startup is salivating at the possibility of creating a Netflix killer that also replaces the entirety of Hollywood with AI generated content.
I think the replacement of actors (and more so, locations) is inevitable. You guys touched on the reasons economically but from a producer's perspective this goes so much deeper. They need to consider so much more than just finance in preparing a production; crew size and safety, catering, insurance, weather, time of day, availability, crowds, etc etc etc. If these issues become reduced or more easily navigated via VFX, that path will most likely be taken. It feels like it's just a matter of quality and cost at this point.
i wanna see more of you two! the quemistry its amazing to watch! great work guys!
Chris Jones is on a whole other level. Insane rigging and understanding of movement.
One of the latest Black Mirror episodes does a great job commentating on the fact that the rights to a person's face could literally be owned by a company or studio. Scary to think about tbh
You mean the one they just talked about in the video
the film The Congress foresaw this as well
That's why Prince had his name legally changed to a symbol to avoid the music industry claiming his name, that's why Miley Cyrus and Demi Lovato shredded their lives to get away from Disney, Judy Garland was owned by Hollywood, TAYLOR SWIFT. so many people have suffered from corporations taking over their lives, it's unfortunately nothing new
Greed is a hell of a thing , i hope these writers and actors get their justice because theyve delivered some of the greatest stories on screen
I DP'd a video shoot for an AI generated avatar company like the one you featured. It was a REALLY weird few days. All of the actors knew exactly what was going on and what the implications were, but there was this pervasive feeling around the whole studio that something didn't feel right about working on the project. For the company that hired us, the voices of the actors were never intended to be used. The voices and images are two separate sources, and my understanding is that the end user can select an avatar and a voice separately and have them generated and synced seamlessly. Each actor had several costumes and read a standard script designed to get a wide range of facial expressions. It's fascinating technology, but what I saw was a very primitive version of what exists now.
I am an actor myself and I find this very scary. Okay, I am a stage actor, making enough money to get along, and as long as there will be some form of theatre and other art forms that include live acting, I will be able to get gigs, but if I was a movie actor without the chance of ever "hitting it big", I would probably be shitting my pants right now.
There are other jobs in the world, you know.
Or you would just find another profession, like many many MANY others have throughout time...
@@DemonDog444 How unsympathetic can you possibly be?
You get the same advice the coal miners got "Learn how to code pal"
Howard Chaykin predicted this back in the 80s when he created the comicbook American Flagg, where the titular character Rueben Flagg is fired from his show Mark Thrust, Plexus Ranger, only to be replaced by digital character.
Very few of us remember that comic.
Back in the 80s as well, a friend recommended a novel in which the "A" plot involved a crewed expedition to Mars, but the "B" plot involved the entertainment industry, primarily movies, in which human actors had been replaced by digital clones. Oddly enough, there was still the need for human performers...for live events. In effect, they were "celebrity stand-ins" for the CGI superstars which were refined based upon the public's tastes and desires. The digital actors were "polished' to attract the biggest audiences. The "stand-ins" were hired based upon their general similarities to the CG "actors". They underwent courses to move, speak and emote like the digital fan favorites and even underwent cosmetic surgery to look more like them. I'm sorry, I can't recall the author or the title, though it was something weirdly generic like "Voyage to Mars", "Trip to Mars", something plain like that. But that "B" plot was what intrigued my friend and figured it might interest me as well. It did.
When I was in grade school back in the 80s, someone at my school wrote about a pop idol who went platinum without ever existing. It was all done by some kid with a home computer and a MIDI board; forethoughtful work for the times.
But you can't recall the author or the title? Just the plot?@@Redfern42
I foresaw that ending coming and it still blew me away. I love Wren, he's such a great person on this team
Great video! Also the split couch left me paranoid the whole time 😂
In Greek Roman times, people focussed on building civilizations so we could preform and create art. Now civilization is focussing on automating art, so we can focus on working harder. Great time to be alive
I don’t think civilizations were built so we can perform or do art sadly. It was always about working harder, making something bigger, etc. Art was always just a byproduct of free time and rebelion against civilization.
@@pressed0n615 i didn't say civilizations where build specifically so we could do art, I was implying it being a result of focusing on that. Like you said too. Unfortunately slaves where also a big part in them having more free time... Sad to see the world is still full of slaves and only the 1% gets to live freely. Only difference now is that we all just accept it.
@@pressed0n615No. The goal of civilization and technology and automation was always to either spread the burden of work to others and/or eliminate it completely.
We formed societies and civilizations to so we didn’t have to single-handedly try to survive. It didn’t come down to one person tilling the ground, planting the seeds, watering the plants, maintaining the crops, and harvesting. The more people there are, the less each individual has to do to survive.
The Industrial Revolution was a _revolution_ because it showed the world that we might not need to slave away, even in large groups, just to get by. If we could make a machine to shovel coal into furnace, the guy whose job it was to shovel coal day in and day out would be free to pursue other interests, such as art and literature. The washing machine and the dishwasher were revolutionary new inventions because homemakers (predominantly woman at the time) didn’t have to spend all day washing clothes and plates. With this extra free time, they could pursue other interests, like continuing their education and finding a career.
With automation, we don’t even need to be there to press the start button. We should be free to do whatever interests us. The guy who drives a truck for a living is now free to become the chemical engineer he always wanted to be but never had the time to. The lady who is a dishwasher at a restaurant can now be free to explore her true passion- painting.
This is the concept of post-scarcity. Post-scarcity refers to a hypothetical state where technological advancements and efficient resource allocation eliminate the scarcity of goods and services. In such a society, basic needs are easily met, and individuals have access to abundant resources without competition or excessive costs. This concept envisions a world where technology and automation enable widespread abundance, transforming traditional economic dynamics.
The problem, as the original commenter alluded to, is that post-scarcity is a threat to Capitalism. Capitalism’s inevitable end is monopoly- one entity devouring any and all competition to be the sole provider of goods and services. This entity can set prices arbitrarily, meaning that they choose to price out goods and services dependent on how they want, not according to a market since the market no longer exists. They can have you working like a slave and lined up to receive whatever portion of bread they feel like (think the propaganda of the USSR). Right now, we’re at the precipice of this happening. Planned obsolescence keeps you working on that hamster wheel while prices keep rising, making you run even faster, and your jobs are either being shipped off overseas or, worse, given to a computer program.
I realize there is a bit of hypocrisy in that last sentence. If giving our everyday jobs over to automation is good because it frees us up to explore other interest, how can it be bad that that automation is taking out jobs? Well, in order for it to be a good thing, systems need to be in place to ensure that society benefits from the automated work being done. In essence, the profits made through automation need to be shared and distributed. This can come in the form of something like a universal basic income (UBI), where everyone gets a weekly or monthly stipend (think the Covid relief checks we got in 2020). However, this isn’t a simple undertaking, and to explain it all would require this already super long comment to be even longer.
In short, automation should be bringing us into a new renaissance, but there are factors out there keeping us from getting there.
Hobbyist art is one of the things that's LEAST at risk of being replaced by AI, because there is no money in doing it and no reason and no way to stop people from doing it.
No, contrary to what you say, we are replacing WORK. Everywhere, in every field, and we have been for centuries. It's just finally gotten to the point where, rather than replacing scribes, computers (the human job), cashiers, and farmhands, it's finally replacing creative jobs as well.
This is no different than when self checkouts started getting implemented and stores cut down the number of cashiers by half or more. It's aiming to replace paid artists, not art.
@@TheKrazyguy75 Well, in a way it is replacing hobbyist art, or at least making something like painting obsolete. The generations that will grow up with AI art like Midjourney will look at painting like gen z kids look at rotary telephones. They will know that a thing called “painting” once existed, but they’d be perplexed as to why someone would want to go through all that trouble to get the same result, sometimes to a lesser degree, than typing a few prompts into an AI. This is a whole other conversation entirely, but I believe it does tie into art- or more specifically, artistry- being replaced.
The sad part is that the strikes themselves, as rightful as they might be, could actually be the catalyst to accelerate the development of these tools to avoid a repeat.
Even if the studios cave and agree to the demands I'm pretty sure they will do everything in their power to not be caught in the same situation again and the most logical thing would be to remove the people that migh strike on you as soon as possible
Or what if writers stopped striking and started using chatgpt to do their work?
I'm offended by myself for asking this, but was thinking it since the beginning.
@@ketdog1860 I'm pretty sure some already do.
@@ketdog1860 Yeah I do think writers shouldn't reject tools like ChatGPT and instead use them as any other tool and asset at their disposal.
For instance imagine a model trained specifically to the work of the author you want to make a series of or on all the previous seasons, movies and cinematic universe of that franchise.
You could easily keep track of every story line and character evolution to avoid continuity errors or other contradictions but also ask for ideas plausible ways that character might react to a novel situation (given past experiences) etc.
We all know that all too often plots are lost, mysteries are not resolved, contradictions happen etc etc because it might be hard for humans to keep track of all that happened in say 4 or 5 season prior or on different movies (or books) etc
If I was a business that already was thinking about replacing people to save money, that's the first thing I would be thinking about
@@ketdog1860 Even if every writer embraced this, what do you propose this fixes? Writers are asking for better compensation, in addition to other things like better time tables. Let's say a writer works 10x faster using ChatGPT and their work doesn't suffer at all. How does this help when they need better pay? The studio will just be happy they got a script faster, not pay them more. You might say that then writer can then write 10x as many scripts for more money, but that means fewer writers will be working. I don't see how using the tools really helps them that much. I know they are also striking against the use of AI, but it's more that they are rejecting the replacement of writers wholesale, not someone who uses tools as a writer.
As an artist and game dev, I use tools all the time and it's great when it can save time or make things better quality. But I think it's not a conversation. Just use tools as you desire. The strike should still continue for all the other reasons.
Wow, you're the first (or only video so far) that I encountered that actually answered 'Yes' to actors getting replaced eventually. I think all the other videos are just not looking far enough ahead, or are just too afraid to predict doom on such a popular occupation.
11:45, I feel like the thing that really sold it for me was the tongue movement. That's some impressive stuff
As a very minor actor I find the threat of AI taking what little work I get pretty daunting. While it may be a while before lead actors can be trivially generated (if that ever becomes a thing) I can see a near future when there will no longer be a space in the industry for supporting artistes (aka extras) or minor characters.
Thanks for covering this topic. As someone in the industry and affected by the current strikes, it feels like an incredibly precarious time.
On one hand, it is fascinating to see what can be done with ever-improving technology. The toolset it can provide could be a major boon to all areas of the industry, such as quality of VFX, or safety as you mentioned.
On the other hand, the uncertainty as to what corporations who prioritise profits above anything else (ethics, artisty, etc) is terrifying. If AI is developed to a point where companies can forgo the entire production crew, not only does an section of industry collapse overnight, but their monopoly over media we consume will be unfathomable.
Great work guys.. and yes, we would like more videos on this topic featuring representatives from both sides.
Wren always has this positive energetic feel that is really fun to watch. Lol
Great vidéo guys as always !
It reminds me of "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" main character "Dr. Aki Ross" who should've been the very first virtual actress to be featured in other movies after this one, but it flopped so none of this happened. Also, no AI involved here, only artists but it was in 2001 and was a real project, I've always wondered what kind of movies we would've to this day if this movie was successful...
Keep up the good work !
Before Spirits Within, there was Kyoko Date and the DK-96 project (Digital Kids)
Japan already worked on the virtual idol thing. And Hatsune Miku and others followed.
The twist at the end was good!
Two of my favorite movies about this topic are Simone and The Congress. I would love if you guys reacted to them.
"When the first model-T Ford (22 horsepower) rolled off the production line in 1908 there were around 25 million horses in the United States, alongside 90 million people. When the first Ford Falcon (260 horsepower) appeared in 1960, there were just 3 million horses left - and nearly 180 million people. The horse as worker was effectively obsolete."
-- The Guardian, Aug. 19, 2023
and they thought too many horses was bad for polluting the earth, hahaha
This is a very important video for not only those who are on a strike for actors' rights but also for those who are advocating for the unionization and rights of VFX artists. Their rights should also be protected because soon they will be responsible for generating entire performances from a descriptive prompt.
Any kind of demand from the actors that involves the future not happening is not going to fly. If somebody's job is made redundant, there's really nothing to negotiate.
@@AnthonyFlack You do you, boo, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise...
The biggest ethical concern, as always, is the sourcing of training data. The only reason systems like Midjourney are able to produce halfway decent results is because of how much training data they have, and most of that training data was likely acquired without the knowledge or consent of the original artist.
I thought the point you brought up about generating a movie from your tv starring you and all your friends was interesting. I feel as though we might see something like this in the near future. And also along those lines, im currently going to school for music production, and the future of AI generated music haunts me... makes me feel worried i could be learning my passion foe nothing 😢
i know how you feel, a few months ago i just graduated from film school, i haven't even started to work yet and this is making me very worried i might never be able to make a living out of my degree. working on film has always been a very inconsistent, stressfull, complex, difficult, based-on-luck job, but the fact it might not even exist anymore bc of ai is terrifying for someone who just got here. it all happened so fast, i have no idea what the future holds and it's kinda scary tbh. (sorry i think i just needed to vent lol but if music makes you happy just like film makes me happy, i fully encourage you to go for it!! i don't regret any step of my journey with college, it's a wonderful experience and learning more and more about what you love is very fulfilling)
@FileCode1459 I agree, thanks. I needed to hear that! :)
It’s so weird to see this revolution happening in front of me. Like as a programmer it’s so fun and fascinating seeing and learning about this new machine learning stuff and where we can take it. while on the other hand, as an artist it does feel pretty scary to see something that i and many other consider a “human” thing being generate by a machine. makes me wonder about what even makes us human…
Easy, DNA makes us human
And even as a programmer i would be scared tbh..
Yes. To me there simply isn't anything else defining "humanity" but origin. All this is becoming like an existential crisis in my head. For me the pressure of getting rid of "unnecessary human parts" in the audiovisual media fields symbolizes our growing inability to live and work together as a species. It's an antithesis to our social qualities.
Holy shit this is the earliest I've ever been to a Corridor Crew release
Me too. I must have refreshed the browser just in the minute they released it. The counter says "no views 33 seconds ago" :D
Another great video guys. I wonder what people like Gui thinks about their stunt profession being completely replaced with CG.
I am completely ok with the Art Station and Dall-E and Hollywood strikes that are occurring. This has been scary, and as a private content creator, I am completely with them all. It makes me question of I should even bother making the content, when it could possibly be made for me(not quite free yet).
Just that 3 second shot of deepfake de-aged Robert Denero at 7:41 blew me away, because it really did look better than the manual de-aging. Was it less accurate? Possibly, but it looked more human and more detailed, which is almost the more important part for selling the effect to the audience.
Maybe even more accurate, since in The Irishman they were also stylizing the final look to bring him closer to the mobster he was portraying(Another interesting implication of deepfake technology. Will it be used to make actors look more convincingly like the real people they portray in biopics?).
The problem with the fan-made Deepfake De Niro than the one made by the Studio is that they made him look like a Young De Niro, it removed the prosthetic Eye-lid and the Blue eyes they purposely put on him to make him look more closer to the real "Irishman" assassin guy, instead of young Italian-American character from the movie roles he past played.
I’d love to see you guys take a look at the Pacino film “S1m0ne” (2002) as it pertains to AI actors. Its a film that is actually light on VFX but was way ahead of it’s time.
There's an even older movie, called "Looker" (1981) by Michael Crichton (yes, the guy who wrote Jurassic Park).
It already features computer-generated people - models for advertising, etc.
Thank your for doing this episode. With all your work with AI I wasn’t wondering when you’d do one and what your take would be.
At 13:25 time stamp, this description is exactly like using the holodecks in Star Trek. Before entering the holodeck you give the computer the specifications of the simulation like the time period, location, environment elements, and the characters to interact with while in it.
I think it’s important to point out:
- The actors are striking for a lot of reasons, especially being drastically underpaid. The strike doesn’t hinge on particular “fears” about AI, or any particular prediction about AI actors. (In case anyone hasn’t been following the strike.)
- Background actors in a restaurant would still have to be animated, eg eating a steak. It’s possible for AI to do that one day but not to be underestimated. Widespread use of the Luke Skywalker effect is one thing; having the computer generate the performance, too, and having it not be an expensive VFX shot is another. I don’t know how much it costs to hire extras vs a VFX shot, but I’m pretty sure VFX shots are all pretty expensive. Even if you have amazing tech, if you need a team of artists using it to model and animate every background actor, is it really worth it for most productions? Maybe effects companies will create “stock” background scenes to reuse work. It seems like they could charge an arm and a leg for it, though, and unlike an animated movie (with animated background actors), you have the uncanny valley to worry about so everything is orders of magnitude harder.
- Having agreements between the unions and the studios is not “regulation.” I don’t think regulating VFX technology or AI image or video generation really makes sense, personally, or is much a part of the discussion.
Maybe films should move production to Atlanta Georgia "film capital of the east coast" where the cost-of-living hasn't been completely r***d by california policies.
I think it’s more likely that some company will shoot a bunch of restaurant plates of extras under different conditions and costumes and these will be sold or licensed as stock elements, the same way prop houses supply the same newspapers and cereal boxes to every show.
>I don’t know how much it costs to hire extras vs a VFX shot
The thing you're missing is that a shot with only 1~2 actors can be done on a $100 set with a bluescreen, background (actors and all) can be added in later. Renting a famous hotel, getting all the crew there with gear etc costs many thousands of dollars for a day of shooting. Each background actor eating a steak is $500 by itself.
Literally you can cut a 3 minute cafe talking scene in a tv drama from $25,000 to maybe $10,000. That's massive.
Few things you are missing.
-the strike is about both pay and AI. They didn't negotiate good terms over streaming because TV was still big at the time. They don't want to make the same mistake over AI because it will resort in their pay decreasing. Studios are right, the streaming model is financially broken, it's their fault for rushing into it but it's broken. They want to use AI to reduce their costs to turn streaming around instead of rethinking things and making sacrifices on their end. That's unfair, and why there's strikes. So AI should not be downplayed like it's a minor issue. Watch one of Fran Drescher's interviews and see how much she talks about AI dangers not just for actors but across all labor.
-VFX is different from AI and VFX workers shouldn't be conflated with AI. The generative AI studios want to invest is to replace both actors and VFX workers. Using VFX workers to replace actors is not AI Furthermore, VFX studios don't charge an arm and a leg. They underbid each other to get names like Marvel on their resume because studios know they have the upper hand. Most VFX studios barely break even if that. Look up Life of Pi. The VFX studio went bankrupt while accepting an Oscar. VFX workers have terrible working conditions and until a week ago with marvel, had no unionization.
-We need unions and regulations to make sure AI works for the workers. Not just in the entertainment industry but across all labor. And most Americans agree. They've saw how social media self regulated and a poll came out last week overwhelming among Democrats and Republicans that they don't trust AI companies to self regulate and want government intervention.
A DC federal judge declared on Friday that AI-generated works cannot be copyrighted, and I think that’s going to be a HUGE blow to Hollywood Exec’s and a major push in the right direction for writers and actors. Imagine - a studio releasing a movie where the script was written in ChatGPT, and indie filmmakers making an exact duplicate film with the same script - the studio wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing about it!
I would put good money that there's an appeal dropping ASAP; until SCOTUS gives a decision, I'll be hopeful, but with a lot of caution.
the DC federal judge ruled that AI generated works can't be copyrighted as-is, but can be copyrighted if curated by a human with specific intent. All the studios need to do is generate multiple scripts with ChatGPT and then have a human editor poring through it to cobble the script into something coherent.
That judgement is un intelligent imo, it just goes to show the judge doesnt understand ai nd how it works. i am a software developer, have been for 15years, i've messed with soo many softwares for art, music, painting etc that have come nd gone. When it comes to software the major number 1 priority is to take something tidious and make it faster/easier to perform, thats it, thats what i love about my job, i have ADD and my love for softwre was a natural attraction. The judgement pretty much means that if i, a software developer and artist invent something that automates tidious processes making it lightening fast then i cant copyright it because it was done too fast? thats just wrong. Code is human made art
@@afrosymphony8207But AI is trained off of copyrighted artwork. The speed of generation has nothing to do with it
Thank you for making this. A lot more discussion needs to be had around the pros and cons of LLM's and gigantic neural networks. A lot of people simply don't understand, and don't want to understand. And I don't know what's more terrifying...
Thanks for explaining this topic the corridor crew way!
I think that every artist denying the problems that AI bring to the field is either trying to look tough of just not seeing the real extent of this paradigm change. The AI in itself it's so powerful that the need of actors, cg artists, writers or self proclaimed "artists" who work in an industry like entertainment will be in a steep decline, eventually leaving almost everyone outside, especially since this tool enable the studios to make what they think is their role: rip off the people working for them. Ideally this could allow indie studios or even persons get high quality results, but I think that the real outcome will be studios getting bigger and bigger, concentrating all the profits and the attention of the people. The only concern left, since looks obvious that almost all human jobs will be over in this field, is if the AI could eventually produce work not seen as derivative.
with the amount of reboots an sequilitus filling the movie theatres and streaming services we don't have to wait for AI.
Human owned corporations are quite capable of destroying imagination.
Hollywood is dead.
The actors are the last ones in denial of its status.
I saw this movie back in the 90s called toy story didn't have a single actor in it
I saw this wagon earlier this day called car didn't have a single horse in front of it
(10:00) Yep, I am currently a SAG actor, but in my extras days, I definitely remember those overly filled Roman Army scenes that was like a factory when it came to creating makeup for everyone. They had something between 8 or 10 booths with a makeup artist for each in Cohen brother's "Hail Caesar."
I loved this perspective, Wren! Thank you for providing nuance to a very important conversation. I think this very much needs to be regulated, and we need to act now. Unfortunately, the legislative process is so far behind the curve. The Supreme Court is just now getting around to debating whether platforms have responsibility in curating content (Gonzalez vs. Google & Twitter vs. Taamneh). Lawmakers are still trying to figure out how the internet actually works. I hope that the results of the WGA & SAG-AFTRA strike lay some sort of foundation for future regulation.
There's a scam where AI is writing books based on another Authors style, listing them on amazon under the authors name and selling them to unknowing fans. This is perfectly legal (right now) because the author can't take legal action against AI, as it's not written by a person. It's weird and I'm sure that regulations will change soon enough, but I imagine it's only a matter of time before AI can render in real time movies using real actors performances and directors styles from previous movies.
tbf thats always been a threat from anyone with enough passion, and thats more an issue with amazon. People are also mad about artists using software to create art and sell it originally or in the style of another person, and entering contests etc. People seem to have forget what embracing and evolving technology entails and why our government isnt great and wont rule til usually around a decade after.. I personally think its instigation to abolish it all together, copyright and IP law. Through artificial means weve given so many lengths of power to people and companies and over value their work over actual necessary work and thats partially because of our refusal to let markets actually be free and have an iron fist on controlling the stock markets and securing banks etc. But im just some guy, regardless people have to face the future.. its only going to get faster and as time moves on and no people even remember before the internet it will be closer to reality regardless, they dont know another way.
China has and has always ripped off every company and market in the US and as a country we do nothing because of geopolitics and trade rather than being more self sufficient. If you move there you get the status of an american in china and can do this openly. Growing up seeing them jail all those old ladies for torrenting music, or a kid doing so on their network was BS. They try to pop you on existing charges rather than try and decide one way or the other on new laws. We need new laws, I just appeal for less constraining ones Disney original invoked.
Tool based immitation is one thing, however trying to pass it off as the genuine article has been frowned upon since long before computers were a thing. Computers aren't autonomous, can't conceptualise and can't independently sieze initiative, without someone setting it up. The thing about AI is the samle like talentless hacks trying to immitate other people's works ending up with vapid, shallow, formulaic gobbledygook.
It’s the “previous movies” part where it’s pretty clear, the script AI aka chaGPT makes vomit. It grinds up all the bits and just keeps trial and erroring it till it gets a close enough approximation. It’s going to end up being a bad parody passed off as original, with less value than a copypasta fan fiction … only since the actors and writers could no longer pay rent and put food on the table while building up a portfolio of work? No new “previous movies” to copy from.
You think it’s bad now with risk averse studios just doing sequel after sequel with the occasional spin off and remake of good movies into bad ones thrown in…
Can't wait to come back to this video in a couple of years to see how right they were.
Sorry, but you guys are so amazing. I Love evry Episode/video with so much detail and love to the topic. Keep it going!
You always ask for suggestions, have you covered THE FIFTH ELEMENT, in particular the weapons and cityscapes. Love that film.
As you said, it’s really an economic issue moving forward. Bottom line (as a former actor myself) artists should be paid for their work, wether that artist is an actor, a model, an animator, or any other job. If the product of that collective collaboration continues to make money, then residual revenue should be paid to the people who did the work. I’m sure that background actors will go away in the near future but who’s images they use (or collections of people who they synthesize unique and bespoke characteristics off of) should also be compensated for lending their image to that library of data. When it comes to IP rights we really are “in the wild west” as Wren said. But studios are the railroad and the main entities profiting off these innovations. The artists who wield the tools are obviously going to be exploited. The Chinese who built the railroad were worked to death and buried under the rails. Corporations have always viewed the workers as a renewable and inexhaustible resource, meaning instead of valuing their labor, they are viewed as disposable. Collective bargaining in this scenario, against studio juggernauts, becomes one of the ONLY ways of protecting those who are the very means of production.
One of the best "de-ageing" effects I've seen in a movie to date is Gemini Man.
The movie itself was okay, but the young Will Smith looked basically flawless.
I got uncanny valley vibes from it
I felt the uncanny valley there, I think Longan did a better job
I know I watch too much corridor because I automatically read that as “Gem - Eeny” man lol I’ve definitely started saying things like wren for fun… “Term-in-a-tor” 2! Haha
I agree tho.. extremely mediocre movie but the effects were nearly perfect for the most part.
Lmao get your eyes checked my dude
Some shots looked flawless, others didnt. That is down to time and money. The film is almost 4 years old, so if it was made now, it would be absolutely perfect.
I worry for people who are just starting out in VFX. I came in as a runner 10 years ago, then went through match-move before going in Lighting & LookDev. I worry that AI will replace a lot of these entry level jobs first, which will make it even harder for new artists to get their foot in the door.
This just reminds me of when Midjourney and those sort of tools were just starting up. I went to a presentation done by an artist talking about how it could be used to help artists with their work. In the end his main point was this, those who are going to be affected by this new technology need to be in the room when rules and regulations are being made. There is little point trying to stop it from being used and it is best for those who are going to be affected to be the ones helping to guides it's path. Now we are starting to get rules and regulations around the use of people's art for use within these tools and I would not be surprised if similar things started to happen with actors, and writers. Even if it is something as simply as a little tick box that says I do not give permission for my content to be used within AI tools.
I like Wren's takes. His videos on these topics are always thoughtful and thought-provoking.
We are so tuned to recognising human faces and their emotions for survival even the slightest thing that is "off" about a face causes us to subconciously repel against it.
It's as if in our dim distant past there were almost human like creatures that were enemies of ours.
I think it has to do with the fact that as social creatures, you had to be amazing at judging what other humans are thinking and feeling if you wanted to stay alive. Are they hostile? Do they have something to hide? Are they lying to you?
I think the uncanny valley is just a side effect of this. I might be wrong though, I just find the topic interesting.
11:49 I about had the same reaction. So good. Wowza.
The crowd simulation argument was so good. I never took that aspect into consideration.
I'm not scared of AI itself, it can be an excellent tool. I'm scared of what will eventually be done with it
Well, we know that C-suites and the like are significantly more likely to be psychopaths than the general population. We know that capitalism demands the transfer of wealth from the bottom up. We know that companies and politicians in existence right now have a mission that "you will own nothing"
I don't think it's a question of _eventually_
Legitimate question: the corridor hosts often attribute some of their VFX guests with the invention of certain brand new technologies. Are these VFX artists literally involved in the nuts and bolts writing of code that forms the technology, or is it more of a Steve Jobs type deal? I don't imagine them as getting involved in the actual coding, but maybe I'm wrong?
Usually veteran FVX software engineers or influential art&software directors in those early projects, ILM etc, or in the case of some of their younger guests: those who worked on newer movies in developing brand new techniques in the last few years.
I'd say it's more of a putting the technology to use type thing, not necessarily coding it (I think)
That s more of a case by case basis, a lot of the old veterans did actually have their hands in the thick of it and had to figure out how to do things. So made the tools we see today, or at least their precursors. after all, once you know how to code its easier to make something yourself than to try to explain everything you need to happen to someone else hoping they understand exactly what you want.
I personally want to watch movies that other people watch too. A film should be an event and not some arbitrary generated piece only I watch, no matter how good it might be. It's random and isolated. When there's no conscious intend and communication behind the picture, I'm not drawn to it. Time becomes more and more valuable and I don't think I'd spend my time watching arbitrary movies when I can watch something precious. People also have comfort movies which they watch over and over again. The idea that everybody constantly wants new stuff is not entirely true. What I've noticed with AIs like Midjourney is: at some point you feel empty if you do nothing but visualize your ideas. It gets monotonous super fast. Using AI as a tool in it's proper place is way more fun.
Please watch "The Congress" (2013) film with Robin Wright and Harvey Keitel. It is about this exact question, and ahead of its time. It's also an incredibly beautiful piece of art.
I just graduated college and I majored in Visual Effects. I graduated in June, just as the strikes took off. It has been one of the biggest struggles trying to find a job in the industry because of these strikes and the whole AI debate. I love this video because it really puts into perspective what sort of things we're dealing with and what might happen should AI start taking more control over people's jobs. But now more than ever, I have been watching AI expand and grow and how it is affecting me, and all I can say is I seriously hope it is regulated so that people like me and thousands of others can get a start in the industry to try and just start working without having the worry of AI taking over.
Soon NO ONE will be able to get into their respective fields. I work as a cashier while attending college, and in the past few years the store cut the number of cashier hours by around 70% in favor of self checkouts. Similar things are happening in every field!
In the next 50 years, we will have an economic crisis where there aren't any entry level jobs anywhere.
@@TheKrazyguy75Yeah that's so true. I've also noticed that self-checkout kiosks are just taking the food industry by storm as well as just convenience stores. I mean we're in just a world of hurt if we keep going down this road because sooner or later only super specialized jobs that are higher level will be available that require a shit ton of experience that no one will be able to get. It is just a scary thought.
The movie Looker answered this question back in the '80s.
Appreciate corridor weighing thoughtfully on this, great points and question raised. Ai is a pill we're being forced to swallow but aren't able to digest.
I have a feeling that in 100 years there will be some movie uni students that begins to ask themselves why are they doing it on the computer instead by filming themselves and begin to do it by themselves as an art project, and it eventually becomes this weird reversed niched thing amongst them
Like theater is nowadays, basically.
Art forms never completely disappear.
I have a feeling that in under 100 years, "movie uni students" will be basically nonexistent. Why go to college to learn when my AI personal assistant on my phone can teach me better than the top experts in the field? You vastly underestimate how fast AI is advancing.
In 100 years, "movie uni students" will be seen as the equivalent of "homeschooled" today. Some people will still do it, but people will look at those people and go "but why would you hamper your kids' development by not putting them through a personalized AI learning course?"
@@TheKrazyguy75 I think you have it backwards; home schooled students typically perform better than their institutionalized counterparts.
@@TheKrazyguy75 Maybe because university is also about the social connections you form, the discussions and meals you share with people from all sorts of fields. After covid it should be clear that a zoom-call, even with a real person, is not comparable to the real experience.
TIL. @@pylotlight
its not just the actors that will be replaced, it is going to be the whole set. look at the Manadlorian, it is already happening.
Yup. We already replace sets by just painting the walls green. Things like lighting, make up artists, costume designers, camera man AND their cameras. Music production is also on sight, you won't even need people playing instruments. Voice acting, animators. We will reach a time all we need is a computer to make entertaining content. It is way cheaper to buy a decent computer a single time than hire hundreds of people and materials to make a single set, and repeat of every movie. We already have mountains of libraries and assets just available to the public. All of these things are already being replaced and behind all of these are passionate people with jobs which were taken away.
If everyone would be able to make a movie at home, because actors and sets are not longer needed, wouldn't that break the power of the studios, who used to be the only one with the nesssary money to make a feature film?
@@pirazel7858 Yes and no. It also means they don't have to spend as much money and they can just pump out more movies. Imagine that there are 200 movies at the same time in a theater and 70 of them were made by a single company, another 70 by another company, 30 by another and the rest are indies and most of them were made by only 10 studios. Next month there will be another 200 movies. They will compete with each other for space in the theater and pay more for more time on screen, something indies can't afford. A max of about 10 screen times per movie with the option to pay for more. Even better, you won't have to go to the cinema to watch a movie as it will be available on each company's streaming platform if you pay for subscription.
@@pirazel7858 i think they are going to do something legaly to attempt to stop it, which means, content making in the US will simply die, and move over seas. as far as im concerned, change is comming, and those who are denying it is going about it the wrong way. besides, if you think you can fix your way out through legal means, your out of your mind.
@@FrostedMike but thats not what has actually happened, custome designers still exists and do their job, just digitally onto a digital custome. set designers still create 3D sets, Make up artists exists literally. people are still doing the equivelant of those jobs, and while it has gotten more ambitious and less limiting, they are still there doing it.
This reminds me so much of the excellent film The Congress (2013), where Robin Wright has to give up the rights for her face, body and acting when she is digitized - absolutely prescient, and a visually stunning film on top. You should totally watch it!
When they were talking about how some day we can just tell our TV to make a movie starring us and our friends, the first thing that popped into my head was the holodeck from Star Trek.
Technology really is taking everyone’s jobs. I knew this even when I was young. But I never thought I’d see the day when actors could be replaced by computers.
As a current AI programmer that previously worked on copyright legislation in Canada, I'll say that people concerned about ownership of their likeness are utterly missing the point. That is a topic that might matter for a few dozen current hollywood actors, and other hyper famous people, but that is it. Your random face isn't worth anything, and having copyright control over it doesn't matter. AI can currently generate novel and stable faces on demand with tools like LoRA, why would they want your face unless you were famous?
Corridor recently made an anime where they trained AI on handmade character stills, but they did not need to do that. Instead they could have generated an initial image with StableDiffusion, and then built out a specific style and cast of characters using LoRA fine tuning a style transfer from other images. Though the acting and direction, the extra elements they put in, etc, would still need to be done the way they did it. But they absolutely could have cut out the illustrator. But probably not in 2 years, a number of big firms are working on text to video AI right now.
The copyright argument people are making now is one borne out of desperation, not any sort of meaningful reality. People are going to lose their jobs, their careers actually, as they aren't getting fired and going to be able to move to another company, their career is being obsoleted.
At least fears that actors won't be able to move up the ranks through background acting is moot.... the industry simply won't last that long on a large scale... although, realistically, hollywood lead actors isn't exactly a large % of the population. They just have a lot of clout.
Want a scarier one? Driving. Nearly half of male jobs today are driving, over half for men under 35. Either as the core or a significant proportion of the job. Taxis, busses, shipping, garbage trucks, but also workers going to a store to pick up items, forklift operation, etc. This is rapidly becoming a solved problem and will overtake humans in 4~6 years. The vast majority of young men going jobless in history has typically led to war. So that will be interesting.
Creative people are in the front line of this, it will affect other industries, no doubt. So that's why it's important to pay attention even if most people aren't actors. I'm an animator and I can see it affecting my field but my main concern is not my job being replaced but more the big picture of labor across the world.
As an AI programmer, what's your ideas and how this tech can be regulated and used to serve society?
@@jmhorange >how this tech can be regulated and used to serve society?
The biggest problems have to do with a accumulation of wealth and power. So strong regulations breaking up monopolies, and strong taxation of the very rich to fund a version of basic income is basically necessary. People complain about income inequality today, but in 10yrs, one person could easily break the $10TN mark, and own more than the poorest 70% of the nation.... which has issues. In order to aid in this transition, I would cut 'full time' to 32 hours (from 40) by 2028 and likely to 24hrs by 2032. And I would reduce minimum wage (as income is bolstered by BMI, reducing minimum hourly wage would increase jobs and employment without hurting individuals). The goal wouldn't be to transfer away from a society with jobs, but to make it not the core focus of the society.
AI allows the value of capital to vast outpace the value of labor. People are gradually realizing that hard work doesn't result in wealth in the same way that being born wealth does. AI effectively sets that in stone. Anyone poor in 2030 will be poor forever under current systems as AI makes any contribution they could add worthless. Only people that own AI software and hardware, or otherwise capital, will have any value.
Politically, UA-cam's recommender AI controls what people see ... that is roughly 1hr/day for Americans, that is 20% of people's free time controlled by a single corporation's closed source algorithm. Far more powerful than basically any single government institution. This sort of thing needs to be ended. (Tiktok is also ~1hr now too and controlled by the Chinese government....)