Hollywood’s AI horror script should not get too dystopian

livemint.com:

Hollywood is on strike. For the first time in more than six decades, both writers and actors have walked off the job. They are protesting, principally, the disruption to residual payments in the age of streaming.

But they also are fighting to prevent studios from using actors’ digital likenesses without their consent, a prospect they rightly believe will threaten their livelihoods and their reputations as artists. It’s a delicate time for cinema. The arrival of ChatGPT last November sent ripples through creative industries.

The chatbot’s ability to churn out believable, detailed text material had scriptwriters wondering if their skills would one day no longer be needed. Then, as artificial intelligence started displaying jaw-dropping capabilities in generating images and video, people started to envision something even more disruptive: What if AI could eliminate the need for real filmmaking entirely? The technology to make this a reality isn’t quite ready, but it is developing at an intense pace thanks to billions of dollars in venture capital funding and big-tech research and development. On Thursday, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, chief negotiator for the striking Screen Actors Guild, said during a press conference that studios were already gearing up for the time when the work of “background performers," or extras, would involve being scanned, getting a single day’s pay, after which studios own those likenesses for the rest of eternity.