AI and the Future of Theater
by Ashley Griffin, Stage Directions
On May 15th, Justine Bateman (@JustineBateman) shared a series of Twitter posts with revelatory information about the likely future state of AI in the entertainment industry. The post was shared in support of the announcement of the WGA writer’s strike (a SAG/AFTRA strike is also likely coming). Bateman is an American writer, director, producer, and former actress. Her posts (here listed together) read as follows:
“SAG ACTORS:
I want to talk about AI and how it will affect you. I’m a former SAG Board Member and former SAG Negotiating Committee member. I’m also WGA and DGA. As a coder and someone with a computer science degree I want to tell you where I believe AI is going.
1.) AI – written scripts & digitally-scanned actors (image and/or voice). Both already exist. Some talent agencies are actively recruiting their clients to be scanned. You choose the projects and get 75 cents on the dollar. Your digital image can be triple and quadruple booked, so that bodes well for a 10 percenter.
2.) Films customized for a viewer, based on their viewing history, which has been collected for many years. Actors will have the option to have their image “bought out” to be used in anything at all.
3.) Films “ordered up” by the viewer. For example, “I want a film about a panda and a unicorn who save the world in a rocket ship. And put Bill Murray in it.”
4.) Viewers getting digitally scanned themselves, and paying extra to have themselves inserted in these custom films.
5.) Licensing deals made with studios so that viewers can order up older films like STAR WARS and put their face on Luke Skywalker’s body and their ex-wife’s face on Darth Vader’s body, etc.
6.) Training an AI program on an older hits TV series, and creating an additional season. FAMILY TIES, for example, has 167 episodes. An AI program could easily be trained on this, and create an eighth season. We only shot seven.
AI has to be addressed now or never. I believe this is the last time any labor action will be effective in our business. If we don’t make strong rules now, they simply won’t notice if we strike in three years, because at that point they won’t need us.
Addendum: Actors, you must have iron-clad protection against the AI use of your image and voice in the SAG MBA or your profession is finished. Demand it from @sagaftra and do not accept any AMPTP proposal that does not have it. Needless to say, no @IATSE crew members, no @Teamster drivers, and no #DGA directors will be needed. At first these efforts will be run by software project managers, and eventually even they won’t be needed.”
These things are already starting to happen.
As reported in the New York Times article “Will a Chatbot Write the Next ‘Succession’?” a recent Netflix contract sought to grant the company free use of a simulation of an actor’s voice “by all technologies and processes now known or hereafter developed, throughout the universe and in perpetuity.”
Futurism’s article: “Voice Actors Enraged By Companies Stealing Their Voices With AI” says:
“It’s not just visual artists who are feeling the heat of AI’s encroachment – now, professional voice actors are being affected, too.
“Last week, Vice reported on a troubling trend that’s gaining traction in the voice acting industry: actors being “asked” – sometimes not very honestly – to sign contracts that would allow their clients to synthesize their voices using AI, enabling them to wield an actor’s voice for as long as they want, to say what they want, and often without any additional compensation…Many voice actors may have signed a contract without realizing language like this may have been added…Some actors are being told they cannot be hired without agreeing to these clauses.”
This is not to mention the other issues for writers, including the current state of the monetary aspects of streaming contracts which, frankly, have been embarrassing for a long time. In the earliest days of streaming, before anyone knew what it would become, streaming contracts (for writers and performers) were under the equivalent of the New Media agreement – which was originally created to allow SAG/AFTRA (though it was only SAG at the time) members to be in a YouTube video. It said that the actor could be paid “whatever.”
That was one thing when a performer was making a small YouTube video; it was another when a Netflix streaming show was paying “whatever” for the equivalent of a network television series. And the contracts haven’t really changed. WGA members are sharing stories of previously being able to support themselves completely off of residuals from network (cable) shows but now getting residual checks for literal pennies off of some of the biggest streaming shows out there.
And AI is coming for their jobs too. WGA members (and SAG/AFTRA members) are fending off the very real possibility of being relegated to permanent freelancers or having their jobs taken over completely by AI.
Indeed, in the past ten years (the last five, especially,) entertainment has been downgraded to “content” that needs to be constantly generated. The pandemic shone a bright light on this. Once upon a time, people would see a new movie they were excited about in theaters or plan their schedule so that they were home to watch their favorite show.
Now we are consuming content constantly – we have it on in the background while we’re doing other things, most of our lives are spent on our computers and phones (where we now get 99% of our entertainment), we stream on the subway, in the car, late at night when we can’t sleep and when we’ve soared through thirteen hours of our latest favorite show we instantly need “what’s next”. We are consuming content at a rate never before possible, meaning content has to be created faster than it ever has before. And it’s not feasible to turn out excellent, meaningful work with those constraints.
Social media influencers (where lives are turned into content) talk about the struggle to create new content fast enough to keep up with engagement – in essence, they’re running their own T.V. studio via Instagram/TikTok/YouTube. It’s no wonder being an influencer has become a literal full-time job requiring staff to keep up with demands. And that in itself feeds into the ”content” machine en mass.
Elle magazine (also on May 15th) posted an article: “Elle Fanning Says She Lost Major Franchise Role Because Of Her Instagram Follower Count” (Her remarks come after Sophie Turner spoke previously about getting a part over a ‘far better actress’ with fewer followers.’”
This is Elle Fanning – child turned adult star and fan favorite who currently has 6.2 million followers (Sophie Turner has 14.4 million).
And now theater actors are being asked to include on their resumes how many Instagram followers they have next to their height and agent contact info.
Actors are being turned into fodder to, ultimately, be fed into an AI machine and generate more and more content getting more and more engagement. This isn’t an extreme conspiracy theory – it’s right there, smuggled into contracts artists are either being tricked into signing or told if they don’t sign, they won’t be hired.
So, what does all this mean for the theater world?
Well, first of all, there’s a lot of crossover between artists who work in theater and film/tv. But theater isn’t necessarily a safe harbor. Yes, theater, unlike film/TV, requires living, breathing bodies to get up on stage eight times a week.
But…
Writing can be outsourced to AI just as easily in the theater as in other mediums. And, frankly, just as it was with film (cinema went, shockingly fast, from the ’90s golden age of cinema to more cookie-cutter Marvel movies than we can count) so too theater is falling into the “content” trap. More and more Broadway theaters are being taken up by movie adaptations and jukebox musicals.
Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with either of those things – there have been some truly fantastic movie adaptations and jukebox musicals on the great white way… but it becomes a serious problem when those works are being generated by movie studios looking to cash in on previous “content” and are not coming from a creative spark. And it’s only a brief step to imagine what comes next. On April 30th gender rogers (@OfficialMaggieL) posted:
“Someone had AI generate Alien: the Musical, and unfortunately, it looks incredible.”
Along with some of the AI-generated images.
Digital screens and projections are already an integral part of many Broadway shows and, like theme parks, it’s also not a stretch to imagine those screens expanding in such a way as to create “immersive” experiences for audiences – allowing them to get rid of live performers (and musicians) all together in favor of digital, AI created ones. No more pesky actors calling out sick.
This week, between reading all these articles, learning of additional theaters permanently closing in NYC, and more for the first time, I’m starting to feel like I don’t recognize my own industry. And it’s not like I’ve been around for ages – I’m still a youngin’ out here.
But this article, unlike many that I write, can’t be a thought experiment or raise questions to sift through. We need a call to action, and we need it now. I read a quote which I have been unable to find again while doing research for this piece, that shared a sentiment along the lines of:
Art is human beings talking about the human experience – making sense of what it means to be human. We can’t let a machine tell us what it means to be human.
So, what is our call to action?
- We need to stand with the members of the WGA currently on strike.
- We, possibly, need to have strikes of other unions in our industry.
- Artists – READ YOUR CONTRACTS. Go through them with a fine tooth comb and do not sign anything that gives away the rights to your voice or likeness. Agents and managers should be doing the same and need to push back against companies requiring this of clients as opposed to actively courting or supporting it.
- Contact your representatives and let them know that this is an issue that needs regulation and oversight. One of the biggest news stories of the past couple of weeks was Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “Godfather of AI” quitting Google to warn about the technology’s ‘dangers’. This is not just an art issue, it’s an everyone issue. (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/technology/ai-google-chatbot-engineer-quits-hinton.html)
This is a great resource to find and contact your local officials: https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials
Humanity has a long history of asking if we COULD do something and completely ignoring whether we SHOULD. AI art-generating programs are starting to be called “plagiarism” programs, and frankly, that’s how we should look at them because that’s what they are. They’re taking human-created art, studying it, and then feeding it back in slightly different configurations. And it’s no longer just visual art that’s a casualty of these programs.
Scammers are using easily accessible AI voice generators to convince people that their daughter/husband/family member has been kidnapped by referencing mere seconds of their voice from social media accounts. And guess what? You can do the same thing right now with someone’s voice or image – often with just a quick Google search.
Right now, it’s the “fun and games” section of this story. It’s fun to share AI-generated art on social media; it’s interesting to watch AI-generated versions of famous actors doing wacky things (or not so much in the very real case of an AI-generated Emma Watson reading “Mein Kampf” which is still up online (I am not linking it for obvious reasons). After all, it’s how we got the infamous, beautifully nostalgic shot of an AI youthened Carrie Fisher appearing at the end of “Rogue One.”
But we’re fast descending into the “Dark Night of the Soul.” We need to actively do something about this now before it’s too late to do anything about it at all. And, our industries aside, imagine how this could affect the world. We are staring down the barrel of a world where we can’t longer tell the truth from fiction. We won’t even be able to tell if, watching a person comment TV, that person actually made that comment or even knows that they’re “appearing” on TV at all.
After all, can you prove, for a fact, that I even wrote this article?