DeadPersonGPT

Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, "Eternal You" is a documentary that explores the emerging (and slightly unsettling) business of "thanabots" (thanatology meets robotics), where AI models are trained to resurrect those who've shuffled off this mortal coil. Continue Reading →

AI Actors, AI Music, AI IRL

Regarding the AI provisions in the pending SAG-AFTRA contract, actress-writer-filmmaker Justine Bateman said union members should only approve the deal "if they don’t want to work anymore." She is, of course, entitled to her opinion… but history tells a different story. Continue Reading →

AI’s Impact on Hollywood’s Striking Actors and Writers

Shelly Palmer delves into the intersection of AI technology and the Hollywood film industry. Amidst a strike from thousands of actors and writers seeking a fair contract in the digital age, he explores how AI capabilities are reshaping film production, including de-aging actors, replacing extras with deepfakes, and more. Original airdate: July 18, 2023. Continue Reading →

WGA Seeks to Protect Writers from Robots

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) will begin their contract negotiations on March 20. According to the WGA's Pattern of Demands (unveiled yesterday), the Guild is looking to "regulate use of material produced using artificial intelligence or similar technologies." Continue Reading →

Human Voice Over vs. AI Voice Over

I was at a cocktail party last night and the conversations kept gravitating toward – wait for it – AI. One of the guests was a voice over artist who insisted that he was now being pressured to sign contracts that included digital rights (AI synthesis rights) to his voice. He said, in a deep voice over voice, "I absolutely refused to sign." Continue Reading →

Begun, the AI Wars Have.

Microsoft is going to incorporate OpenAI tools into everything they make, leaving Google no choice but to respond. Calling AI "the most profound technology we're working with today," Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, introduced Bard, which seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence, and creativity of Google's large language models. Bard is Google's answer to ChatGPT. As Yoda would say, "Begun, the AI wars have." Continue Reading →

M3GAN: AI Toy Turned Murderer

M3GAN has been a box office smash, grossing nearly $60 million in its first two weekends on a $12 million budget. The movie follows a robotics engineer at a toy company who builds a life-like doll that begins to take on a life of its own. This raises the question: Could M3GAN be real? Continue Reading →

Deepfakeout

Bruce Willis sold the rights to his deepfake self to a firm called Deepcake. From now on, when you want a de-aged version of Bruce to appear in your project, they are the people to see. Continue Reading →