It isn't too hard to image a future where actors no longer sell their skills but rather just their name and likeness. And – similar to photoshop or autotune — expressions, dialog, posture and everything else can be edited as needed.
Acting, as a craft, only ever had coincidental ties to physical appearance. What it really is is the talent of being human. I think what we'll see is a lot of pretty faces who aren't actually that good at acting exiting the business, while upcoming talent won't have its career limited by birth attributes. It should be very interesting.
Assuming you mean they build up a name and then license their image ... I'm not sure you've met an actor before. This goes against every impulse of a great actor. They're completely obsessed with controlling their image and practicing their craft.
I think you may have meant celebrities.
I'm sure textile workers said the same thing before their skill and craft was replaced by a machine. Every artist and artisan thinks they're irreplaceable. Currently, many programmers think theirs is the only industry that can't be automated because there's some magical golden juice in their minds that produces some creative and intellectual quality no machine will ever be able to replicate. Like textile workers of old, their time will come too.
As much as actors may want their work to be art, their work is also product. When it becomes possible to manufacture an acceptable equivalent product through automation, then artists of all stripes will simply have to adapt to the new terms of the market like everyone else, or find other work. No one is going to care about the effort an actor puts into their performance when it becomes feasible to pay a few dollars to stream Marlon Brando into the original Star Wars.
As long as there are humans, then actors, musicians, dancers, etc will be fine. People are fascinated with artists because they demonstrate a spectacle of skill and a genius which we don't have.
The textile workers replaced by automation were also once extremely rare, talented individuals. Rugs were once prized works of art, infused with culture and artisanal techniques passed down through generations. Now you can buy them at Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, the post-industrial market doesn't optimize for skill, it optimizes against it.
>People are fascinated with artists because they demonstrate a spectacle of skill and a genius which we don't have.
Most people aren't fascinated with skill and genius, they're fascinated with celebrity. Art isn't made to be appreciated nowadays, it's mass produced to be consumed like fast food, with little regard beyond the immediate satisfaction it provides, and the familiar comfort of mediocrity.
Sure, there will always be a place for human artists, dancers, musicians, etc, just as there is still a place for people who can weave rugs. But I do believe that most mainstream art will be automated as soon as the result is acceptable to the mainstream, and that includes automating the persona of the artist as well.
While a lot of cultural products (not art) like movies and shows are created like fast food, people are drawn to them because of the unique talent, charisma, looks, presence etc of the actors that participate. I don't see Avengers: End Game breaking box office records if it didn't have those rarefied individuals.
If you go back to my initial post, I pondered whether the original comment meant celebrity.
Physical features will be cosmetic and plastic, and they will be engineered to match the desired setting.