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Comment by socialismisok | Hacker News Reader

This is interesting, but it also stands to really weaken actors. If it's anything like the move to streaming platforms, I'd expect to see much lower royalties (if any) for the likeness of a famous actor.

Also, when the studio owns a likeness rather than a performance, I feel this opens the possibility for actors to lose out big time on the roles they can take. Why would Newline hire an actor they already have the license for, ever again?

I'm reminded of the Luddites, who were not anti technology, they just didn't want to lose their positions as skilled, knowledgeable workers when automation entered. Will we see a similar movement of actors losing out as soon as there's enough of a corpus of digital stand ins?

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“The Congress” is precisely on point: It’s a movie by Robin Wright (2014) about actors signing off their numeric rights to a corporation, and going to a congress to meet other virtualized actors. It made me extremely sad, because it shows what happens when everyone lives in an illusion. It’s really hard to describe the movie, as it’s so unexpected, but so aligned with today’s Bruce Willis signing off his deepfake rights.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/zkDyKWKNeaE

Absolutely! I love that film (as much as love Blade Runner, for similar reasons), and it's spot on point. I wrote more about the film and the technology here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33044577

The Congress was written and directed by Ari Folman, it stars Robin Wright.

She was the producer and it was a passion project for her. I don’t think it’s somehow inaccurate to call it her film, just as one might call it Folman’s.

It's based on Stanislaw Lem's "The Congress", and I highly recommend reading it. It's even more depressing

Quite loosely based on it though, no?

Yes, the film "The Congress" was quite loosely based on the Stanislaw Lem book "The Futurological Congress", but in the same way that the film "Blade Runner" was quite loosely based on the Philip K Dick book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep".

Both the books and the both the movies are excellent and unique and stand on their own, all having a lot of interesting important things to say, both in common with each other and on their own.

>According to director Ari Folman, some elements of the film were inspired by the science fiction novel The Futurological Congress by Stanisław Lem in that similarly to Lem's Ijon Tichy, the actress is split between delusional and real mental states. Later, at the official website of the film, in an interview, Folman says that the idea to put Lem's work to film came to him during his film school. He describes how he reconsidered Lem's allegory of communist dictatorship into a more current setting, namely, the dictatorship in the entertainment business, and expresses his belief that he preserved the spirit of the book despite going far away from it.

> This is interesting, but it also stands to really weaken actors.

First mover advantage. I look at Bruce Willis cutting this deal like music artists in the 50's-60's who made a good returns on their recording contracts while artists of today sign '360 deals' named as such because the rights owners own everything while the artist makes a pittance, often most profitably from performance and merch.

Supply & Demand. It's the Law.

If he's decided to retire, for whatever reason, wouldn't it make sense to sell this sort of thing? Like, barring serious reputational issues, why not? You're not doing any work. They do have to pay a different actor to have you grafted onto still right?

I don't really see how you avoid this but consider... who watches Bruce Willis films? How old are they? Even if Bruce Willis's likeness is in movies or ads, there's a pretty clear expiration date (ours) even if they could use his likeness forever.

It seems pretty rational all around. New actors who can stand in for specialty CGI isn't that unusual right? And even if every actor got some kind of computer life extension and de-aging, the public interest in that actor won't last. Certainly the famous actors are being rational that their likeness may well earn more than their present day abilities can handle (including your ability to care about it).

It seems like a limited short term problem until we get to the point where the human-indistinguishable CGI are invented and then people are shoved into the CGI character. I guess sort of. Except what else was Gollum? I have the feeling this is all small scale and overblown. How many people would this really apply to for celebrity status, 50?

He's decided to retire because he has aphasia, and is therefore losing his ability to understand and use language.

Yes, I know that. It doesn't really impact that people enjoying watching a script read by Bruce Willis's voice and likeness will be commercially viable for a limited time. He's a fun actor, but all actors eventually stop being a good fit for the era.

Old cowboy films are fun to watch from a historical perspective, but I sure don't care whether a modern film has a likeness and voice of John Wayne, that's just not much of a selling point anymore. I can see it buying you an extra 20 years maybe, but actors just sort of disappear from the limelight all the time and people don't even notice.

There is so much more than simply a digital twin. Marketing, Social Media. It is not "Look, an avatar that looks like actor XYZ!" it is more like "Actor XYZ and his avatar appear on stage". Proof: it is Bruce Willis avatar, not John Doe's.

This is not really surprising with all the after effects we put on movies. Stuntmen and stuntwomen double already actors and in some of latest Terminator movies Arnold was played by CGI.

This will definitely open new possibilities. Maybe more in the sense of eternal youth. I think that this is what most producers look for, hence all the filters on Insta etc. Harrison Ford was born 1942 and in Bladerunner 2 he does not look like 70+

> in some of latest Terminator movies Arnold was played by CGI.

I think it is emotionally another thing when the character is known the exist in thousands of evil copies. A character that also don't age.

And also the character is a robot.

> Will we see a similar movement of actors losing out as soon as there's enough of a corpus of digital stand ins?

The era of the famous actor is ending.

For a while they'll use the likeness of current famous actors, like in TFA, but at some point, why deal with them or their heirs? They'll just make their own.

And without even the dream of becoming a famous movie star... quite fewer people will go into acting.

Maybe it’s a good thing. It’s about time the modern “nobility” comes from some other field.

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