Technology

When I read striking actor Stephen Fry my brain responded Why yes he is! Rather!

Am I a bad person?

I think it's important to remember how this used to happen.

AT&T paid voice actors to record phoneme groups in the 90s/2000s and have been using those recordings to train voice models for decades now. There are about a dozen AT&T voices we're all super familiar with because they're on all those IVR/PBX replacement systems we talk to instead of humans now.

The AT&T voice actors were paid for their time, and not offered royalties but they were told that their voices would be used to generate synthentic computer voices.

This was a consensual exchange of work, not super great long term as there's no royalties or anything and it's really just a "work for hire" that turns into a product... but that aside -- the people involved all agreed to what they were doing and what their work would be used for.

The ultimate problem at the root of all the generative tools is ultimately one of consent. We don't permit the arbitrary copying of things that are perceived to be owned by people, nor do we think it's appropriate to do things without people's consent with their "Image, likeness, voice, or written works."

Artists tell politicians to stop using their music all the time etc. But ultimately until we really get a ruling on what constitutes "derivative" works nothing will happen. An AI is effectively the derivative work of all the content that makes up the vectors that represents it so it seems a no brainer, but because it's radio on the internet we're not supposed to be mad at Napster for building it's whole business on breaking the law.

Studios basically want to own the personas of their actors so they can decouple the actual human from it and just use their images. There's been a lot of weird issues with this already in videogames with body capture and voice acting, and contracts aren't read through properly or the wording is vague, and not all agents know about this stuff yet. It's very dystopian to think your whole appearance and persona can be taken from you and commodified. I remember when Tupac's hologram performed at Coachella in 2012 and thinking how fucked up that was. You have these huge studios and event promoters appropriating his image to make money, and an audience effectively watching a performance of technological necromancy where a dead person is re-animated.

It just the beginning for sure. This future will be the end of artists and still everyone will clapping to AI productions like fools.

"it wasn't me planning the terrorist attack over the phone, it was someone stealing my voice with an AI"

His voice wasn't stolen, it's still right where he left it.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Among those warning about the technology’s potential to cause harm is British actor and author Stephen Fry, who told an audience at the CogX Festival in London on Thursday about his personal experience of having his identity digitally cloned without his permission.

Speaking at a news conference as the strike was announced, union president Fran Drescher said AI “poses an existential threat” to creative industries, and said actors needed protection from having “their identity and talent exploited without consent and pay.”

As AI technology has advanced, doctored footage of celebrities and world leaders—known as deepfakes—has been circulating with increasing frequency, prompting warnings from experts about artificial intelligence risks.

At a U.K. rally held in support of the SAG-AFTRA strike over the summer, Emmy-winning Succession star Brian Cox shared an anecdote about a friend in the industry who had been told “in no uncertain terms” that a studio would keep his image and do what they liked with it.

Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey told Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff during a panel event at this year’s Dreamforce conference that he had concerns about the rise of AI in Hollywood.

A spokesperson for the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the entertainment industry’s official collective bargaining representative, was not available for comment when contacted by Fortune.

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