Blog Post #9

"It's Not About How You Post. It's If You Post."

This was the most impactful quote and one of the most prominent takeaways from the AI video we watched in class. For the last two years or so, AI has risen to become a very divisive hot topic issue. It has been brewing up for a while, but the era of AI is before us, and now we must decide how we must proceed. As you can imagine, everyone has an answer. What do you think we should do?

 Today's general consensus concerns the morality and responsibility of how AI is administered in society. After watching the video, I really appreciated the special emphasis on AI's relationship to the future of the workforce. The threat that AI poses to taking away countless jobs, specifically in America, is one of the biggest concerns that civilization has when faced with AI. 

Funny enough, the professor of my Digital Imaging class told us that AI-generated artwork threatened his job as a teacher of Adobe programs like Photoshop and Illustrator. Going back to the video, one man predicted that AI would take over 50% of jobs in America in fifteen years. That's crazy!

Mark Talmage Rostron of Nexford University created an extensive article that attempts to forecast how AI will impact the workforce up until 2030

Furthermore, the video showed how an AI program called Alpha GO, was incorporated with a chess-like board game. Interestingly enough, this program would compute and provide moves that no humans could ever fathom. " Algorithms win games," they said. 

This was reinforced later on in the video, when they showed a warehouse full of robotic arms, packaging up items to be delivered. This reminded me of something I remember hearing about a couple of years ago. 

Amazon attempted to utilize drones and artificial robotics in its delivery systems. David Streitfeild of The New York Times reported on Amazon's inclusion of technology with delivery. 

Look Up, It's A Can Of Soup! According to research online, Amazon has been slowly using delivery drones for almost one year. I have never seen one myself, but here is a picture of one:

Additionally, one woman spoke about something that I felt specifically related to my own relationship with the internet. She spoke about how we approach social media with the assumption that we are the ones using it. When in reality, social media is using us. Not only social media but instead of searching on the internet, the internet searches us as we leave behind what's called Digital Exhaust. 

Admittedly, this is not something I've considered very heavily in the past. As I've written in posts in the past, online security has never crossed my mind as a main concern. I was always aware of the threats out there, but to take action and protect myself never solidified genuinely until our recent discussions.  

Furthermore, this video got me thinking about how AI has entered into my own major and interests. I decided to study Media Production due to my love of film. One of my favorite courses that I have taken in previous semesters, has been a screenwriting class.

I very much value and cherish the intensive creative process that goes into writing a high-quality script. The class taught me the importance of leaning into your creativity and perspective. In a sense, your brain and human spirit are your greatest tools as a writer. 

Well AI has certainly made its way into Hollywood! As we all know, the SGA ( Screen Actor's Guild ) and the WGA ( Writer's Guild ) went on strike in pursuit of improving working conditions in the industry. One of the biggest contributors to the 2023 strikes, was AI's inflictions on actors and writers. 

Hollywood studios are now in a period where they have to make a decision on where they stand on applying artificial intelligence when writing scripts. Additionally, Actors refuse to give away their likenesses and refuse to be replaced with AI replications that will be used long after they die. 

My take on AI's relevance in Hollywood? I believe that we must proceed with caution. If we continue with where we're going as a society, AI will only grow and become more powerful. I do not support studios owning and using AI to make a replication of an actor's likeness.

From what I have seen in the past few years, I don't think it can replace genuine performances from real human actors.  Deepfake and de-aging technology have admittedly made impressive strides, but real humans on real sets are guaranteed to be more natural and authentic on screen.

Screenwriting-wise, I think it may be a little complex. Just like actors, you can not artificially replace the pure creativity of a writer's brain. A strong writer's room will always be superior to, "A robot" As Bryan Cranston put it, during his SAG speech over the summer. ( And I agree! ) 

AI programs such as Bard and Chat GPT, COULD, potentially serve as a generator of ideas. I have memories of staring at a white page, unable to get myself to pinpoint where I wanted to take the characters in my script, and that can be difficult to overcome.  

I hypothesize, that in a few short years,  AI text generators will make profound tools to get our minds thinking creatively with examples of where to start a story. But a writer MUST be able to take it from there. AI can NOT serve as a copy-and-paste program.

If you're interested in how the writers resolved the strike, Check out this Article from Wierd

        " In short, the contract stipulates that AI can't be used to write or rewrite any scripts or treatments, ensures that studios will disclose if any material given to writers is AI generated, and protects writers from having their scripts used to train AI without their say so." 

Just like any new tool or resource, the next order of business in society is to weaponize it. AI will be no different. But I would hope that corporate industries, Hollywood, and humans in general, would only use AI with positive intentions going forward.

What do you think?