2023-08-01 17:58:04
Media workers strike in California
The authors and actors worry about their future because their work could be replaced by AI applications.
(Photo: AP)
San Francisco Apparently, the ongoing Hollywood media workers’ strike did not come a minute too soon. Because the big media groups are currently equipping their departments for artificial intelligence (AI) with more and more power and personnel.
AI specialists can earn enormously high salaries for eliminating en masse traditional jobs – so the fear of the rest of the film industry. Meanwhile, actors and authors are on strike to ensure that their work will still play a role in an AI film world in the future.
Die most spectacular offer with up to 900,000 dollars annual salary comes from Netflix, where they are looking for a specialist to set up an AI platform on which various group applications will later be built. It would examine the chances of success of digital content and suggest new content, according to the job posting. In the Netflix job offer, it was initially also said that “great content” would be created. That was later deleted.
A detailed Investigation by industry magazine The Hollywood Reporter unearthed numerous job offers from media companies for AI specialists across the USA. All the big companies are there. Disney alone has at least six vacancies advertised.
Meanwhile, the fronts in the dispute between the actors and authors on the one hand and the big media companies on the other have remained hardened. The Hollywood strike has now lasted more than three months. Market observers consider an agreement in the current year to be unlikely. Neither side is ready to enter into new negotiations.
Actors and writers could be replaced by AI
It is mainly about the use and framework conditions of artificial intelligence. The studios, represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), want a liberal interpretation of digital property rights that would allow companies infinite use of performers’ recordings for a one-time fee.
>> Read also: The Hollywood strike could be the start of a long, grueling conflict
An actress would come into the studio for a day and be fully recorded digitally for a few hundred dollars. From then on, the studio could use, modify, and repurpose those recordings indefinitely—with no further payment or time limits. Authors would have to watch as their material was rewritten by AI, integrated into other works or completely rewritten – even without participation.
The current flood of high-paying AI job offers is therefore particularly bitter for the strikers. Commenting on the Hollywood Reporter’s report on Twitter, Joe Russo, the independent filmmaker, said: “Netflix is willing to pay any imitator more than we pay for our scripts.”
Media professionals are therefore trying to update existing ownership and broadcasting rights for the streaming age. If, for example, a new series character is created with the likeness of an actor, this actor should also be paid for it. The studios want these exploitation rights free of charge.
Absurd excesses in the Hollywood strike
Meanwhile, the ongoing labor dispute in Hollywood is becoming more and more abstruse. Universal Studios in Los Angeles was fined $250 by the municipality in late July for trimming trees in front of the company’s headquarters during demonstrations that provided protesting media workers with at least some shade in the Southern California heat. In the US, it’s common for demonstrators to march in front of a company’s headquarters with protest placards, chanting slogans and blowing whistles.
The City of Los Angeles investigated the incident and confirmed that the necessary permits for the work had not been obtained. However, due to “outdated legislation” one is not entitled to impose a fine of more than 250 dollars. Universal asserted that it was “a mistake” and that they would provide shadows in other ways. In the meantime, local media reports, tents have been set up for rest and water is being distributed.
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