Amazing time to be a wannabe director or producer or similar creative visionary.
Bad time to be high up in a hierarchical/gatekeeping/capital-constrained biz like Hollywood.
Amazing time to be an aspirant that would otherwise not have access to resources, capital, tools in order to bring their ideas to fruition.
On balance I think the ‘20s are going to be a great decade for creativity and the arts.
I don't see why -- the distance between "here's something that looks almost like a photo, moving only a little bit like a mannequin" and "here's something that has the subtle facial expressions and voice to convey complex emotions" is pretty freaking huge; to the point where the vast majority of actual humans fail to be that good at it. At any rate, the number of BNNs (biological neural networks) competing with actors has only been growing, with 8 billion and counting.
> Amazing time to be a wannabe director or producer or similar creative visionary. Amazing time to be an aspirant that would otherwise not have access to resources, capital, tools in order to bring their ideas to fruition.
Perhaps if you mainly want to do things for your own edification. If you want to be able to make a living off it, you're suddenly going to be in a very, very flooded market.
* Create a scene in which a character with the mannerisms of Tom Cruise from Top Gun goes into a bar and says "...."
AI models add the actual character and maybe even voice.
At that point the amount of actors we "need" will go down drastically. The same experienced group of a dozen actors can do multiple movies a month if needed.
The bull case would be something like ‘Ractives in “The Diamond Age” by Neal Stephenson; instead of video games people play at something like live plays with real human actors. In this world there is orders of magnitude more demand for acting.
Personally I think it’s more likely that we see AI cross the uncanny valley in a decade or two (at least for movies/TV/TikTok style content). But this is nothing more than a hunch; 55/45 confidence say.
> Perhaps if you mainly want to do things for your own edification.
My mental model is that most aspiring creatives fall in this category. You have to be doing quite well as an actor to make a living from it, and most who try do not.
The distance between pixelated noise and a single image is freaking huge.
The distance between a single image and a video of a consistent 3D world is freaking huge (albeit with rotating legs).
The distance between a video of a consistent 3D world and a full length movie of a consistent 3D world with subtle facial expressions is freaking huge.
So... next 12 months then.
>If you want to be able to make a living off it, you're suddenly going to be in a very, very flooded market.
That is, I believe, GPs point.
I think this will lead to a further hollowing-out of who can afford to be an actor or artist, and we will miss their creativity and perspective in ways we won't even realize. Similarly, so much art benefits from being a group endeavor instead of someone's solo project -- imagine if George Lucas had created Star Wars entirely on his own.
Even the newly empowered creators will have to fight to be noticed amid a deluge of carelessly generated spam and sludge. It will be like those weird YouTube Kids videos, but everywhere (or at least like indie and mobile games are now). I think the effect will be that many people turn to big brands known for quality, many people don't care that much, and there will be a massive doughnut hole in between.
Reminds me of Syndrome's quote in the Incredibles.
"If everyone is super, then no one will be".
I'm thinking people will probably still want to see their favorite actors, so established actors may sell the rights to their image. They're sitting on a lot of capital. Bad time to be becoming an actor though.
Younger generations growing up with hyper personalized media will likely care even less about irl media figures.
There's also the weird misery of being famous, but not rich. You can't eat fame.
I had a conversation with a Hollywood producer last year who said this is already happening.
If you can't replace Matt Damon with another equivalently skilled human, CGI won't be any different.
Granted, maybe that's less true today, given Marvell and such are more about the action than the acting. But if that's the future of the industry anyway, then acting as a worthwhile profession is already on its way out, CGI or no.
Still the idea that actors are easy to replace is preposterous to anyone who's ever worked with actors. They are preposterously HARD to replace, in theatre and film. A good actor is worth their weight in gold. Very very few people are good actors. A good actor is a good comedian, a master at controlling his body, and a master at controlling his voice, towards a specifically intended goal. They can make you laugh, cry, sigh, or feel just about anything. You just look at Paul Giamatti or Willem Dafoe or Denzel Washington. Those people are not replaceable, and their work is just as good and just as culturally important as a Picasso or a Monet. A hundred years from now people will know the name of actors, because that was the dominant mode of entertainment of our age.
In many AAA blockbusters the "actors" on screen are just CGI recreations during action scenes.
But you're right, actors won't be out of a job soon, but unless something drastic happens they'll have the role of Vinyl records in the future. For people who appreciate the "authenticity". =)