The actor told an audience in London that AI was a “burning issue” for actors.

  • banana_meccanica@feddit.it
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    11 months ago

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

    • Lmaydev@programming.dev
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      11 months ago

      No one cared when spreadsheets replaced a huge chunk of office workers.

      If the results are the same what’s the issue.

      Artists feel special because until recently computer couldn’t automate them. But it’s the same as any job.

      • MBM@lemmings.world
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        11 months ago

        Making art is something people enjoy, for one thing. Good art also has something of the artist in it, something to it other than “it was made from this prompt”.

        • Lmaydev@programming.dev
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          11 months ago

          Art is just combining previously learnt techniques together with a specific subject. Since AI essentially knows all the techniques it could be better eventually.

          Nothing is stopping people making art for fun.

          • MBM@lemmings.world
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            11 months ago

            Art is just combining previously learnt techniques together with a specific subject.

            If that’s what you look for in art then sure, but I disagree with that definition. A child’s drawing of her dad has aspects to it that a picture of that dad taken in a photo booth can never have. A poem about war is much more meaningful when it comes from a refugee. The Wikipedia page for art lists several ‘purposes’ and most of them are not something AI art can ever fulfil.

            • Lmaydev@programming.dev
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              11 months ago

              You can’t say ever. It could learn every diary and report from war ever and write amazing stuff. It’s just a matter of time. It’s currently limited by computer power quite significantly.

              • Glytch@ttrpg.network
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                11 months ago

                It could do that, but its writing would be hollow because those stories are meaningful due to the lived experiences behind them. For example anyone who’s read The Diary of a Young Girl could write something similar in Anne Frank’s style, but it wouldn’t be nearly as impactful because learning about an event is very different from living through it.

      • TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        The people who lost those jobs cared.

        If not for the wages, people hardly have any attachment to most office jobs. But when it comes to artistic endeavors, a lot of people dream of being able to make a career in those fields. Frankly, that sort of comment itself seems like it comes from envy, like artists ought to be taken down a peg for daring to work with something they are passionate about. I couldn’t think of a single artist who bragged about being above automation.

        As someone who works of in an office job, if AI could free me to work on something creative that would be wonderful, but if it will instead replace already existing creatives and leave us both without anywhere to work, that is not really helping anybody but executives profiting over it. What benefit does that even add to my life? Remixed porn? Meme generators? It’s not the same level of benefit as industrial automation, if any. The human element of art enriches it in an unique way that AI trying to distill a style from countless samples won’t be able to do.

        • cloudy1999@sh.itjust.works
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          11 months ago

          This hits the nail on the head. A major component of art is that it’s an outlet of human creativity, something we find fulfilling to both produce and consume. If creativity is delegated to machines, what’s left for us humans? At some point, we’ll grow tired of Taco Bell and re-runs, and what then?

          • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            That’s why QA will still exist.

            Plus when I say “AI will kill data entry jobs” I don’t mean ChatGPT3.5/4.0, I’m talking about either a dedicated Saas offering or a future LLM model intended for individual Enterprise environment deployment and trained specifically on company data alongside Cloud and Data engineering.

            Keep downvoting the guy who literally works in IT and is seeing these changes happen in real time, I’m sure you all know better than I do.

          • Lmaydev@programming.dev
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            11 months ago

            Literally what computer programmes are. A large part of development is making sure end users do things correctly.

            It’s a perfect task for AI. In fact most of it is achievable with standard coding.

    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Fair enough. It’s not theft, it’s something else.

      But that’s just semantics, though.

      The point is that his voice is being used without his permission, and that companies, profiteering people, and scammers will do so using his voice and the voices others. He likely wants some kind of law against this kind of stuff.

        • idiomaddict@feddit.de
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          11 months ago

          It’s emotionally charging to hear your own voice saying things you did not. Dismissing a victim describing what happened because they’re emotional about how they were wronged doesn’t make sense to me.

      • Hubi@feddit.de
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        11 months ago

        How is this different from a human doing an impersonation?

            • idiomaddict@feddit.de
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              11 months ago

              Yes, but if “things” is replaced by scamming artists, that’s a shitty society

              • Armok: God of Blood@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                11 months ago

                Artists aren’t being scammed. They’re being replaced by automated systems. It’s the same thing that happened to weavers and glassblowers. The issue isn’t that their job is being automated. It’s that people replaced by automation aren’t compensated. Blame the game, not the players.

                • gregorum@lemm.ee
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                  11 months ago

                  It’s much closer to having glass blowing artists designs, perfectly replicated in an automated fashion, and at scale— and without compensation to the artist. I would argue that it is tantamount to being scammed.

            • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
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              11 months ago

              I don’t think it’s a particularly odious mental challenge to understand that we’re not upset about the general concept of doing things at scale, and that it depends on what the thing in question is.

              For instance, you’d probably not be terribly upset about me randomly approaching you on the street once - mildly annoyed at most. You’d probably be much more upset if I followed you around 24/7 every time you entered a public space and kept badgering you.

        • Laticauda@lemmy.ca
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          11 months ago

          You know what the difference is, trying to act otherwise is just being obtuse.

        • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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          11 months ago

          There was a difference between complete duplication and impersonation for the purposes of satire.

    • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      If you made a painting for me, and then I started making copies of it without your permission and selling them off, while I might not have stolen the physical painting, I have stolen your art.

      Just because they didn’t rip his larynx out of his throat, doesn’t mean you can’t steal someone’s voice.

      • ThenThreeMore@startrek.website
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        11 months ago

        We’re getting into samantics but it’s counterfeit not stolen.

        It would be more like if you made a painting for me, and I then used that to replicate your artistic style and used that to make new paintings without your permission and passed it off as your work.

      • drekly@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Well, I just printed a picture of the Mona Lisa.

        Did I steal the Mona Lisa? Or did I just copy it? Reproduce it?

        • stopthatgirl7@kbin.socialOP
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          11 months ago

          You’re also not causing da Vinci to potentially miss out on jobs by copying it. You’re also not taking away his ability to say no to something he doesn’t want to be associated with.

          • drekly@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            That’s fine. I’m not arguing this is a bad thing, I’m just being pedantic about the word theft.

            Having your voice used to say things you didn’t say is a terrifying prospect. Combined with deep faking takes it one step further.

        • FaceDeer@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          No, the use of words matter when having a debate. “Theft” is an emotionally charged word that has a lot of implications that don’t actually map well to what’s going on here. It’s not a good word to be using for this.

          • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Seems to map pretty well. I’ve looked up a handful of definitions of theft and looking at it from an emotionless perspective it seems to fit. To take something without permission or the right to. I don’t really see where the removal of a finite resource is required.

            Thats why I figured that comment was just a dad joke.

            • FaceDeer@kbin.social
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              11 months ago

              When you steal something the person you stole it from doesn’t have it any more. That’s why copyright violation is covered by an entirely different set of laws from theft.

              This isn’t even copying, really, since the end result is not the same as anything in the source material.

              Lots of people may want it to be illegal, may want to call it theft, but that won’t make it so when they take it to court.

              • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                “When you steal something the person you stole it from doesn’t have it any more.”

                Idk “identity theft” is a crime but you don’t actually remove the persons identity from them either. And also digital reproduction like in the case of piracy doesn’t remove a copy from the author but that is also illegal and is also considered theft. So I’m not really sure where you’re getting this idea that something isn’t both considered theft and a crime if it doesn’t remove a copy from the original owner, there are multiple examples to the contrary.

                • FaceDeer@kbin.social
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                  11 months ago

                  And also digital reproduction like in the case of piracy doesn’t remove a copy from the author but that is also illegal and is also considered theft.

                  No, it is considered copyright violation. That’s a crime too (well, often a civil tort) but it is not theft. It’s a different crime.

                  If you want something to be illegal there needs to be an actual law making it illegal. There isn’t one in the case of AI training because it isn’t theft and it isn’t copyright violation. This is a new thing and new things are not illegal by default.

                  Calling it “theft” is simply incorrect, and meaningfully so since it’s an emotionally charged and prejudicial term.

                • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  The point is loss. You have to show you were damaged. In this case fry isn’t losing anything.

        • OhNoMoreLemmy@lemmy.ml
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          11 months ago

          It’s not copyright infringement. You can’t copyright a style, which is basically what a voice amounts to.

          This is something new. It’s a way of taking something that we always thought of as belonging to a person, and using it without their permission.

          At the moment the closest thing is trademark infringement, assuming you could trademark your personal identity (which you can’t). The harms are basically the same, deliberately passing off something cheap or dodgy as if it was associated with a particular entity. Doesn’t matter if the entity is Stephen fry or Pepsi Max.

          • gregorum@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            It is, as a matter of fact. When Fry recorded his voice for those audiobooks, they were copyrighted. Reproducing the contents of those works as they have is, arguably a violation of copyright.

            And when you compare Steven Frye to Pepsi Max, that’s a false equivalence, because you’re comparing a copyrighted material to a trademarked brand which are two different things.

            Still, to your point of theft, nobody is taking anything from anyone. They are using something without permission, and that still falls squarely as copyright infringement, not theft.

            • SCB@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Reproducing the contents of those works as they have is

              This did not occur.

              • gregorum@lemm.ee
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                11 months ago

                When they reproduced Fry’s voice with an AI based on what they captured from the copyrighted audiobook, that’s precisely what happened. Just because you refuse to understand or admit it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

                • SCB@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  That’s not reproduction of content so isn’t a copyright violation. Not shouldn’t be. Literally right now is not.

                  The whole reason people are so up in arms about this is that we do not currently have laws or even standards that accurately police this kind of thing.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    11 months ago

    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.


    The original article contains 911 words, the summary contains 213 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • banneryear1868@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Studios basically want to own the personas of their actors so they can liberate the human element 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.

      • Glytch@ttrpg.network
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        11 months ago

        Who cares if his estate agreed to it? HE didn’t. His estate shouldn’t have the right to make money off of things he never actually did.

        Let the dead stay dead, it’s just an excuse to not pay new, living artists.

        • hyperhopper@lemmy.ml
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          11 months ago

          That’s literally how estates work.

          Once I’m 6 feet under, if it could give my family a better life I’d say they should be able to agree to whatever they want on my behalf as long as it doesn’t go against my will.

          • Glytch@ttrpg.network
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            11 months ago

            I know that legally they have the right. I’m saying they shouldn’t have that right because reanimating a digital facsimile of your corpse just to puppet it to make money is fucked up. This includes shit like the CG Tarkin and Leia in Star Wars as well as the Tupac hologram

  • Damage@feddit.it
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    11 months ago

    “it wasn’t me planning the terrorist attack over the phone, it was someone stealing my voice with an AI”

  • anarchotaoist@links.hackliberty.org
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    11 months ago

    This is from a guy who advocates Linux as it is Open Source! The only violation here would be if another used that voice claiming it to be Fry. That would be fraud. Otherwise there is no issue.

  • monobot@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    Since it is paywalled I can only guess from the title.

    I don’t understand the problem. He was payed for reading books and now we all have his voice. What did he expect?

    Is there an AI imitating his voice making money? Is it being represented with his name? If not, what would be the difference with some person imitating his voice, whould that be stealing too?

    Basically I don’t see any problem with me buying those books training local model and give it other books to read. That can not be illegal, right?

    Giving it to other people mentioning his name would definitely be fraud. But stealing? I don’t know.

    Selling it to other people under other name… I don’t see a problem.

    But than we come to AI generated images and I do start thinking in that way. Thou if they can find someone that looks like him, and other person sounding like him… they are all good?

  • nxfsi@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Don’t worry, ““artists”” only complain about ai when open source ai gets released.

    • Lexi Sneptaur@pawb.social
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      11 months ago

      Get your head out of your ass. Their voices are their art and to replicate that is not only disturbing it’s morally wrong. Especially if you do so for profit.

      • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        It’s only wrong when done for profit.

        Otherwise you’re just having their material as data for an algorithm and a personal use case.

        • Lexi Sneptaur@pawb.social
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          11 months ago

          I don’t know what someone would use AI art for “personal use” aside from trying to make some sort of porn or something for themselves

          • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Use the voices for a film project or machinima if you want, use the picture generation models to create wallpapers, it’s not my fault you insist on being obtuse about this by pretending you can’t figure out a use case that isn’t based around making money.

    • pjhenry1216@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      AI can very easily be abused and I don’t see how this is related to the tech being open sourced or not. Fighting to ensure you aren’t exploited is fine and I support anyone to fight against exploitation.

      • ANGRY_MAPLE@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        I don’t get why so many people feel the need to defend big corporations this much. It’s not like they’re going to share the profits with the people who defend them, nor do they probably care.

        If anything, the industry will just use whatever they can to exploit more people.

        Without maintaining and creating protections, they will roll back until there are almost none. Our current labor rights didn’t come for free. They were fought for.

    • SickPanda@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      They downvoted him because he spoke the truth.

      It’s funny how all (or at least most of them) of the parents of those “artists” told them to do/learn something real and now they get their recipe for their bad choice.

      I’ve discussed with someone about how pictures made by stable diffusion is not Art while there are literally “paintings” where the “artist” just jizzed on the canvas which then got declared as Art. I trolled him by sending him multiple generated anime pictures and asked him which is “Art” because he said he could recognize Art. He chose one and fell into the trap.

      • pjhenry1216@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        ChatGPT is why the public is scrambling about AI. AI art has been around awhile and there’s always been complaining because its lame compared to real artists. This has fuck all to do with it suddenly being open source AI.