Comment by johnea | Hacker News Reader

Comment by johnea | Hacker News Reader

I true HN style, I'd like to reply in an only tangentially related way...

That would be: How could a tea commercial actress cause scandal anyway?

I mean, who really cares if your tea commercial actress has an abortion, or just breaks up with her boy friend?

In Japan, there's a really weird relationship between "fans" and "idols".

The public has very extreme expectations that the performer will somehow conform to their fantasy ideal of the person.

Young idol group members are prohibited from having personal relationships by their management, and deviations from these restrictions leads to those public applogies where the management and performer are bowing in front of a bunch of microphones becauses the actor failed to uphold the fantasy relationships that a million virgin otakus have for the performer.

I'm a big fan of Japanese culture myself, having studied it and the language for years. Having an ancient culture with a direct lineage to the present brings a lot of long term learning and wisdom, but it also brings a lot of hateful baggage,

This weird expectation of the personal behaviour of entertainment personalities is just one small example of that kind of baggage...

>That would be: How could a tea commercial actress cause scandal anyway?

By being employed by a talent representative with a fifty year history of sexually abusing their clients. Imagine if their tea commercial came on right after the news story about them being abused, not a great look for the company.

I agree that the scrutiny idols are put under is ridiculous. Also, I doubt this decision actually has anything to do with the ongoing scandal. But your comment looks really bad considering what is happening.

> How could a tea commercial actress cause scandal anyway?

Imagine someone at the company makes a lewd prank involving the model and it gets out of hand, making its way into the public

A couple of examples of something similar happening already: In 2005, people discovered the "Hot Coffee mod" in Rockstar's game Grand Theft Auto which showed a sex scene that would have given the game an "Adults Only" rating, meaning that most stores wouldn't carry it. The game had to be recalled and reissued, resulting in at least tens of millions of dollars in losses

Later, in 2013, the game "Beyond: Two Souls" had a scandal with actress Ellen Page who contributed her likeness, voice acting, and mocap animation. There is apparently a shower scene in the game that is censored, but a fully naked version of her character's model leaked online. This sparked controversy since Page herself didn't appear naked for the game's material, nor did she consent to being depicted fully naked as far as I'm aware. I don't think this resulted in any lawsuits, but this was being talked about as a possibility at the time

Now imagine if this happened with the tea commercial AI model. People would start coming forward, claiming that the model is based on their appearances. They would demand compensation for being defamed. Under the right circumstances, it could have devastating results for whoever is involved

(To that, I'm almost surprised that the "AI art is theft" crowd hasn't been making noise about AI actors and actresses potentially being made to bear the likenesses of real people)

I can imagine companies like Disney going for this, as they insist on having cast members that have the purest of pasts and will not cause controversy with parents who are entrusting Disney with their children's time. It's like a vice clause for VCs' LPs. What better way to avoid controversy than to hire an actor who cannot cause controversy, by not actually existing.

Not sure if that's actually ever been an issue for a company like Disney, and I'm sure that the supply of actors they have access to is broad enough that it's impossible for them to find someone who will comply with their requirements. But who knows, maybe they'll go for AI talent too.

Ultimately my hunch is that AI actors will be used to save on cost, not to reduce controversy.

Reducing controversy could reduce costs. Plus I’m sure Disney would be happy to have fully generated and manipulable actors protected under copyright for decades upon decades. Essentially zero risk of actors making “bad” choices, especially “aging” or “getting fat”, or “retiring”.

And the worst choice of all - asking for more money.

Imagine how much money Hollywood could have saved by being able to digitize Tom Cruise, Will Smith, or Leonardo DiCaprio early on in their careers, when they were doing acting gigs for beer money - and then simply use the digitized versions in lieu of the real thing after they made it big.

That’s exactly part of the issue in the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike: https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/13/23794224/sag-aftra-actors...

Why would the studios not just use a completely fictional ai character in the first place? That way you only have to pay for someone to model the character etc. I don't see the need for scanning real actors anyway

Uncanny valley

> That would be: How could a tea commercial actress cause scandal anyway?

It’s all about image. If the spokesperson can’t project the image the sponsor wants, they are gone.

Anything from sex scandals (leaked photos/videos) to being caught doing drugs (pretty much a death sentence for any celebrity’s career there) could get you dropped and blacklisted from the industry.

It seems you have answered your own question.

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