Some of you might remember that a couple of months ago I wrote a whole set of posts about AI and the potential benefits it offers, but also more significantly the threats that go alongside it. AI should have probably remained airgapped, but that ship has already sailed..
However, I was thinking last night, without any prompt, something that AI offers an immediate threat to...
...and that is film actors, who unless they make it big struggle to make ends meet (I know a Polish actor, and a budding Polish actress) so I know this to be the case for sure, but then when they do make it they can demand exorbitant fees and especially if they are at the top of their game. For example a quick Bing search showed that Tom Hanks typically earns $20m per movie. Yes I know it is Bing but I am staking those rewards.
Just think about it for a minute, and I am not talking about Pixar animation here, but true to life movies. The following are landmark exemplars.
First we had
Then we had...
and for my final example we had
The last image, from Star Wars: Rogue One, is of particular interest because while at the time of making it was still less than perfect, it depicted a real actor who died many, many years ago and he was instantly recognisable as the late great Peter Cushing. The technology has significantly improved since than and anybody who watches Tik Tok or Reels will come across many, often fan-produced but not always, Star Wars stories featuring very realistic looking characters like Obi Wan (usually in the form of a CGI Ewan MacGregor),
Yes it is CGI, but the root of all modern CGI is AI.
Actors will become moreorless obsolete, although it seems voice generation is way behind image generation for now in the movies even though the technology is there.
Let me use another example to illustrate my point and I must emphasise I only know something about this as part of some necessary research into some dark places. In recent years it has become almost impossible to make good money from working directly for a pornographic production company. Back in the day there were some "actors" making good money by allowing themselves to be filmed and such material was relatively rare and only available in certain places, but then along came the internet, VoIP technology and the concept of content creation which can then be monetised through such platforms as OnlyFans*, or even direct access to live streamed shows. Furthermore, with the proliferation of smartphones everybody is filming and there seems to be an irresistible need for people to then to post explicit content online.
In the later example, I think it really is a case of selfies gone mad!
The net consequence is that such amateur content creation (don't be fooled it is often high quality in technical terms) has driven convention porn, for making money almost under, especially when you consider that almost all content is now freely available on tube sites. The landscape has become too competitive for conventional porn to keep up.
Forgive the unsavoury example, but as I wrote recently, each to their own so long as it is legal, my point is that AI driven CGI might just do the to actors and the final irony is that there seems to be an emerging trend in porn for AI avatars which might also kill off the business model of the new generation of content creators.
* Just to be clear about OnlyFans, it is a monetised social media website for any kind of legal content, which is moderated and its target clients do things such as cooking, playing sport etc among other things, but it would be naive to think that that is all it does. I don't know the percentages but the fact is that if you mention OnlyFans, it is usually followed by a nod and a knowing wink, or a person professing that they have no idea what it is. OnlyFans goes hand in hand with the idea of Adult Content Creators.
As always stay safe and well my friends.
