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Justine Bateman

May 13, 2023 • 18 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X

SAG ACTORS:
I want to talk about AI and how it will affect you.
I’m a former SAG Board Member and former SAG Negotiating Committee member.
I’m also WGA and DGA. 1/

As a coder and someone with a computer science degree I want to tell you where I believe AI is going. 2/

1. AI-written scrips & digitally-scanned actors (image and/or voice). Both already exist. Some talent agencies are actively recruiting their clients to be scanned. You choose the projects and get 75 cents on the dollar. 3/

Your digital image can be triple and quadruple booked, so that bodes well for a 10 percenter. 4/

2. Films customized for a viewer, based on their viewing history, which has been collected for many years. Actors will have the option to have their image “bought out” to be used in anything at all. 5/

3. Films “ordered up“ by the viewer. For example, “I want a film about a panda and a unicorn who save the world in a rocket ship. And put Bill Murray in it.” 6/

4. Viewers getting digitally scanned themselves, and paying extra to have themselves inserted in these custom films. 7/

5. Licensing deals made with studios so that viewers can order up older films like STAR WARS and put their face on Luke Skywalker‘s body and their ex-wife‘s face on Darth Vader‘s body, etc. 8/

6. Training an AI program on an older hits TV series, and creating an additional season. FAMILY TIES, for example, has 167 episodes. An AI program could easily be trained on this, and create an eighth season. We only shot seven. 9/

AI has to be addresses now or never. I believe this is the last time any labor action will be effective in our business. If we don’t make strong rules now, they simply won’t notice if we strike in three years, because at that point they won’t need us. 10/end

@sagaftra

Addendum: Actors, you must have iron-clad protection against the AI use of your image and voice in the SAG MBA or your profession is finished. Demand it from @sagaftra and do not accept any AMPTP proposal that does not have it.

@IATSE

Needless to say, no @IATSE crew members, no @Teamster drivers, and no #DGA directors will be needed. At first these efforts will be run by software project managers, and eventually even they won’t be needed.

https://twitter.com/mrgreen/status/1656372134854160393

Here are some visual aids (and they are probably outdated):

https://twitter.com/mrgreen/status/1656372134854160393

instagram.com/reel/CqyD53pA1…

@Teamsters

(Wrong tag for @Teamsters)

AI is being used to replace human expression for the sake of greed. The #WGA fight can become a template for other industries. I’ve heard of paralegals being replaced with ChatGPT at a legit law firm, & medical grad student being replaced by ChatGPT for medical research. 1a/

And the thing about #AI replacing the arts is that it will have a devastating effect on society. Talented artists are tubes through which God, or the universe or magic or whatever you want to call it, comes into society. It is profound. 2a/

You cut that off and you cut people off from the future of life. 3a/

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More from @JustineBateman

Justine Bateman

@JustineBateman

Nov 12, 2023

#SAG Actors, I want to make you aware of some of the language in the #AI portion of the tentative SAG agreement.
Though SAG leadership made much effort to protect members in AI, there are many issues you should look at. I have saved the most serious issue for the end. 1/

If a “digital double” is made of you during a film, they must get your consent and inform you of their intentions for its use, EXCEPT "when the photography or sound track remains substantially as scripted, performed and/or recorded.”2/

This is going to be left up to the studios/streamers’ interpretation. And so, any subtlety regarding how you chose to look or move for the character during the shoot could potentially be changed. Your hair, your clothes, your make-up, etc. 3/

Read 29 tweets

Justine Bateman

@JustineBateman

Oct 1, 2023

On the eve of the AMPTP #SAG negotiations resuming, I want to remind actors, particularly the most famous of you, of what’s at stake in #AI. As the AI advisor to the SAG talks, I won’t be able to speak as freely once the negotiations resume. 1/

As of now, there are no entertainment union restrictions on generative #AI models ingesting 100 years of films/series, slicing and dicing them, and then popping out patchwork spoonfuls of all that work.
I assume the AMPTP is going to try to pattern-bargain that on SAG. 2/

But while writers and directors have multiple scripts/directions, actors have just ONE face/body/voice. Once their body movements, voice, gestures, and essence is freely put in the AI blender, our business is all but finished. 3/

Read 11 tweets

Justine Bateman

@JustineBateman

Sep 6, 2023

“Don’t Touch the Art.”
My @FastCompany Op-Ed on the CEO’s neglect of 100 years of film/series, and how the term “content” came to be. fastcompany.com/90944082/justi…

“The museum staff equivalent in the film business are the CEOs & executives at studios and streaming services. They are charged with protecting the art of film/television series. But at this moment, it does not feel like this particular “staff” is looking after this art at all.”

“(#AI) is like throwing millions of artists’ work into an algorithmic wood-chipper, so the CEOs can eliminate the overhead of paying artists to make the material they sell. (And all without consent/compensation) unless the currently striking WGA and SAG get their AI demands.”

Read 5 tweets

Justine Bateman

@JustineBateman

Jul 19, 2023

The most offensive use of #AI I have seen so far. This is what “no consent” looks like, @sagaftra.
Salvador Dalí did not consent to his likeness being used like a circus hand puppet. The disgraceful and disrespectful treatment of him by @TheDali Museum is astounding. 1/

.@thedali Museum shows no understanding of art or any knowledge of how to respect artists. Completely shameful.
This is what the studios/streamers want to do with #SAG actors, via #AI.

@TheDali 3/

Read 4 tweets

Justine Bateman

@JustineBateman

Jul 15, 2023

Want to give you background on the word “content,” as related to Film and Series. 1/

In the late 1990s/early 2000s, everyone had a website. Your lawyer, your hair salon, your dry cleaner, etc. And there was a lot of talk about “getting people to come back to your site.” 2/

If you are just supplying the address and phone number there of the dry cleaners, what’s the point? You just want people to come into your business establishment, right?
Well, people caught the “get them to come back to your site” fever and they all scrambled for solutions. 3/

Read 7 tweets

Justine Bateman

@JustineBateman

Jun 4, 2023

@Teamsters

I’m a very proud #DGA member, but I wonder about #AI-related details of the new AMPTP deal.
I believe directors will be dealt with in the same way as @Teamsters drivers: AI won’t replace us; there just simply won’t be a use for us in AI films.
dga.org/News/PressRele…

And I would like to see language related to prohibiting directors’ past work being used to train LLMs and inform the style of #AI films. The current style-theft in user-gen AI trailers is creatively violating.