Tilly Norwood, AI Actress

[GuiltyCowboy]

A significant percentage of modern Hollywood actors and actresses came from privileged backgrounds.
There are more talented people than your typical movie star working at community theatres all over the world.
The current set doesn't deserve any deference as great artists.

Actors don't become movie stars because of talent, though it's certainly extremely useful.

They have some ineffable quality that represents something that everyone values. Cary Grant was a movie star because he radiated charm and ease. Jimmy Stewart represented decency. James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart no-nonsense grit. To be the living embodiment of charm, decency and grit takes something extremely special, and talent is only tiny aspect of it. I'm afraid you really don't find those people all over the place. You can't just pick a nice looking fellow from a community theatre and expect him to have the same effect as Cary Grant.

And this is one of the main reasons why AI is not going to have much of an effect on movies. AI simply doesn't have the tools to emulate the process of how Cary Grant became the Cary Grant. Hell, not even Cary Grant knew how to do it until Leo McCarey dragged him kicking and screaming through the process on the set of The Awful Truth.

 

[crookedletter]

Judo Dench

Don't fuck with Judo Dench.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

It will be interesting to see who gets squeezed. Most actors get paid almost nothing already, and AI and CGI have had nothing to do with that.

I'm old enough to remember when, in the early 1980s, some people said synthesizers were going to replace instruments. What they didn't take into account is that people still wanted to listen to real musicians playing on real instruments. It's a part of the art you can't replace with a machine.

Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, hell, Lion king; all these Broadway shows are still successfully touring even with movie versions being released. Absolutely, people still want the live action version. Also, tastes evolve but there's a reason the Rolling Stones are still able to sell out shows even though "popular" music has "passed them by"(smirk)...

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Actors don't become movie stars because of talent, though it's certainly extremely useful.

They have some ineffable quality that represents something that everyone values. Cary Grant was a movie star because he radiated charm and ease. Jimmy Stewart represented decency. James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart no-nonsense grit. To be the living embodiment of charm, decency and grit takes something extremely special, and talent is only tiny aspect of it. I'm afraid you really don't find those people all over the place. You can't just pick a nice looking fellow from a community theatre and expect him to have the same effect as Cary Grant.

And this is one of the main reasons why AI is not going to have much of an effect on movies. AI simply doesn't have the tools to emulate the process of how Cary Grant became the Cary Grant. Hell, not even Cary Grant knew how to do it until Leo McCarey dragged him kicking and screaming through the process on the set of The Awful Truth.

I'd offer that all your examples are people who died in the last century, Bogart was amazing but he's been dead for almost 70 years.
There was a time when virtually anyone could move to Hollywood and wait tables to try and be a star. Most of them failed obviously, but it was viable. Look at the modern crop. Nepotism is rampant.

 

[SimonDoom]

Phantom of the Opera, Wicked, hell, Lion king; all these Broadway shows are still successfully touring even with movie versions being released. Absolutely, people still want the live action version. Also, tastes evolve but there's a reason the Rolling Stones are still able to sell out shows even though "popular" music has "passed them by"(smirk)...

Plus, at this point an AI version of Mick Jagger undoubtedly would sing better than the real thing. I saw the Stones in concert in 1998 or something like that, and they were old then and Jagger's voice was a pale imitation of what it had been. You're absolutely right, though. People don't care. They want to see their heroes in person. I don't think AI will ever replace that need that people have to experience art in a personal way.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Plus, at this point an AI version of Mick Jagger undoubtedly would sing better than the real thing. I saw the Stones in concert in 1998 or something like that, and they were old then and Jagger's voice was a pale imitation of what it had been. You're absolutely right, though. People don't care. They want to see their heroes in person. I don't think AI will ever replace that need that people have to experience art in a personal way.

I saw Stevie Ray Vaughan in a dive bar back in the late 70's. AI will never match something like that.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Actors don't become movie stars because of talent, though it's certainly extremely useful.

They have some ineffable quality that represents something that everyone values. Cary Grant was a movie star because he radiated charm and ease. Jimmy Stewart represented decency. James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart no-nonsense grit. To be the living embodiment of charm, decency and grit takes something extremely special, and talent is only tiny aspect of it. I'm afraid you really don't find those people all over the place. You can't just pick a nice looking fellow from a community theatre and expect him to have the same effect as Cary Grant.

And this is one of the main reasons why AI is not going to have much of an effect on movies. AI simply doesn't have the tools to emulate the process of how Cary Grant became the Cary Grant. Hell, not even Cary Grant knew how to do it until Leo McCarey dragged him kicking and screaming through the process on the set of The Awful Truth.

I think you're on to something here. I think about actors like Tom Hanks and McConaughey, they disappear into their characters. Others like Rock and Ryan Reynolds play the same character again and again in different clothes to as different script. I'm going to get flamed, but AI could play Deadpool. Pick a Tom Hanks movie, not a chance.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

They want to see their heroes in person. I don't think AI will ever replace that need that people have to experience art in a personal way.

Absolutely. You can see ABBA as holograms in London but the concerts are missing a key ingredient - the jeopardy of live action. Every concert is exactly the same and exactly perfect and you know exactly what you're going to get. They're fun but they're also not satisfying. The concerts lack flavor.

 

[caleb35]

First off, it's not an "actress," even with qualifiers, so I hate whenever this topic is discussed the construct is referred to as an actress. Second, I hate that tech bros (and a complicit media and public) have accepted the term AI to refer to shitty fakes -- they may be artificial but there is no intelligence about them. Third, regarding the invasion of tech fakes into porn, that's already underway, mostly in illustration but also in writing (hence the numerous rejections and debates about rejections of a "AI" submittals on this website). Let's be honest, there's more than one "writer" who posts to this site and others who use LLM software to at least help them write (if not perform all the writing) and whose profiles (including photos) are solely software-generated. We may, eventually, with public pressure, exclude software-generated media from many of the creative arts but I think porn is the one industry its going to continue to thrive in until the next tech revolution.

 

[crookedletter]

I think you're on to something here. I think about actors like Tom Hanks and McConaughey, they disappear into their characters. Others like Rock and Ryan Reynolds play the same character again and again in different clothes to as different script. I'm going to get flamed, but AI could play Deadpool. Pick a Tom Hanks movie, not a chance.

The Rock seems to have taken a little more of a swing in his latest, The Smashing Machine, though I haven't seen it yet.

I don't disagree with the overall point. But Ryan Reynolds still has more personality than an AI Ryan Reynolds, even if superficially hard to detect.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

I'd offer that all your examples are people who died in the last century, Bogart was amazing but he's been dead for almost 70 years.
There was a time when virtually anyone could move to Hollywood and wait tables to try and be a star. Most of them failed obviously, but it was viable. Look at the modern crop. Nepotism is rampant.

Well, I picked all time greats to illustrate my point. And their auras have grown as time has passed too.

Remember, nepotism is a two way street: sometimes the child is better than the parent. Margaret Qualley and Andie McDowell, for example (though I like both personally). Or Ben Stiller and Jerry Stiller (though Anne Meara tops them both).

I think it's a misplaced concern to worry about nepotism in the arts. You've either got it or you haven't. It's a bit like sport in that way. Did Jean Renoir have an advantage because his father was Auguste Renoir? I'm sure he did. He still became one of the best filmmakers that ever lived and the world would be a poorer place without his films.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Well, I picked all time greats to illustrate my point. And their auras have grown as time has passed too.

Remember, nepotism is a two way street: sometimes the child is better than the parent. Margaret Qualley and Andie McDowell, for example (though I like both personally). Or Ben Stiller and Jerry Stiller (though Anne Meara tops them both).

I think it's a misplaced concern to worry about nepotism in the arts. You've either got it or you haven't. It's a bit like sport in that way. Did Jean Renoir have an advantage because his father was Auguste Renoir? I'm sure he did. He still became one of the best filmmakers that ever lived and the world would be a poorer place without his films.

It's completely different than sports in that way. Sports is a pure meritocracy. Major League Baseball spends millions of dollars scouring the earth looking for the best talent.
Hollywood does not, they don't care about the best, they care about good enough.

In sports it doesn't matter who your parents are, if you can't play, you can't play. Michael Jordan's kids played in college, but didn't make it to the NBA. They weren't good enough.
In a true meritocracy people like Jaden Smith would not have careers.

 

[TheRedChamber]

It will be interesting to see who gets squeezed. Most actors get paid almost nothing already, and AI and CGI have had nothing to do with that.

I'm old enough to remember when, in the early 1980s, some people said synthesizers were going to replace instruments. What they didn't take into account is that people still wanted to listen to real musicians playing on real instruments. It's a part of the art you can't replace with a machine.

Firstly, while I know what you mean, I'm amused by the implication that synthesizers aren't instruments or indeed that, for example, a piano or electric guitar is less of a machine than a Korg.

But, in any case, the invention of the synthesizer, drum machine and sampling did change pop/rock completely and things are never going back to the way things were. I'd ask how many of the songs in the top 40 have electric guitars in them versus 'electronic' production except I'd have no way of answering that - the UK top 40 seems weird at the moment containing two old songs by Coldplay and one by Gorillaz* as well as three by Sabrina Carpenter (of whom the only thing I am certain is that she's not related to Karen Carpenter and thus is probably playing for 'the enemy')

*Damon Albarn being an excellent example of an artist using whatever is right/at hand to make whatever music he feels like at that moment.

I think I said on another thread that people will undoubtedly 'make' great music with AI (whatever 'make' means) They'll also make mostly crap with it just like at every other stage of history.

 

[ChuckWolf]

One of the important things about companies like OpenAI, though, is that they're really not keen on paying artists of any kind for the rights to the material they want to train on.

Yeah, but if you have a celeb voluntarily leasing out their likeness, maybe spending a tiny bit will give you legitimacy, legal protection and helping clients to get over the moral implications, maybe that's worth it?

Down the road, I think this is where we're headed, with celebs & their estates going this route.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Yeah, but if you have a celeb voluntarily leasing out their likeness, maybe spending a tiny bit will give you legitimacy, legal protection and helping clients to get over the moral implications, maybe that's worth it?

Down the road, I think this is where we're headed, with celebs & their estates going this route.

Especially their estates. Nepo Babies gotta eat, and caviar is expensive.

 

[dirk2024]

For an even darker concern, it will be turned into fodder for pedo's, giving them videos to further inflame their sick desires.

 

[AlinaX]

Know why Hollywood hates "Her"

They can't rape her on a casting couch.

A lot of people who do like ‘her’ (or the idea of her) seem awfully keen to do exactly that. Imagine, a pretty young woman with zero agency.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

For an even darker concern, it will be turned into fodder for pedo's, giving them videos to further inflame their sick desires.

That's going to be a very thorny problem. Wait for the first case where someone argues that their "collection" was all AI generated and thus "legal".

 

[Robin_Starveling]

AI simply doesn't have the tools to emulate the process of how Cary Grant became the Cary Grant.

The hell it doesn’t! Just upload every photo, movie, or clip of Grant; let it learn every expression, every gesture, every muscle twitch; and you’ll have a reliable replica. Maybe not today, but give it five years.

Humans’ contradictions are darkly hilarious. On the one hand, they loudly insist AI art is garbage and could never rival human work; on the other, they swarm every thread about it, compulsively reminding everyone how totally unbothered they are by these “silly machines.”

It’s interesting to note that these are often the same people who insist God doesn’t exist. Life, they wisely claim, is mere chance: there are 400 billion stars in our galaxy alone, and trillions of galaxies beyond. Among 10^24 stars, it’s easy to assume some must have Earth-like conditions, and therefore life. We’re not that special.

And yet, those who believe life (and therefore our intelligence) is merely the inevitable product of certain accumulated circumstances are the very same people who passionately insist their art is special, singular, inimitable… all while rejecting the idea of a soul.

Ask why Julia Roberts was so wildly popular in her prime, and people would likely say she had that luminous, transparent skin; you could see her soul through it. Her soul.

Humans’ contradictions really are a strange thing. With X-ray vision into people, one doesn’t know whether to pity or scorn them.

 

[dream_yahoozie]

The whole concept of using AI to create art, music, literature, makes me want to vomit.

Why would you want machines doing what should be fun? Creating things for others to enjoy. We should be using AI to make WORK easier so there is more time to enjoy leisure activities.

There will always be someone creating things for our viewing and reading pleasure. Why outsource that?

 

[OddLove]

I consider myself an 'artist' because I make music and write, but my biggest concern with AI isn't the bastardization of art. It's the destruction of job markets and people's livelihoods that I'm much more concerned about. What I find the MOST annoying about the global conversation happening everywhere, is the dull minded "AI can't do my job" argument.

In reality, yes, AI and automation can do anyone's job if a corporation is determined to develop the machinery and software to do so. Even the jobs to code future software and do maintenance and repairs on machines can be replaced with AI and automation.

So I'm bummed out that AI slop is flooding the art world, but I've been dreading the impending doom of the future of humanity. And I feel like society is trying to gaslight anyone who acknowledges how disastrous this is going to be. When the owners of this planet automate every single industry, and there's nothing left for the 'peasants'

People like to think "Oh, we'll just tax the robots and give everyone all the money they need to live, and we'll exist in a utopian world where nobody has to worry about money."

And that kind of naive and foolish thinking paired with this 'don't be silly' kind of handwaving is exactly why we're all doomed.

 

[GuiltyCowboy]

The hell it doesn’t! Just upload every photo, movie, or clip of Grant; let it learn every expression, every gesture, every muscle twitch; and you’ll have a reliable replica. Maybe not today, but give it five years.

That ain't how you make a Cary Grant!

You're describing how to make a photocopy of Cary Grant. I'm talking about how you make Cary Grant in the first place.

AI can probably simulate shit acting.

But it can’t create an actor that people cherish because acting is based on experience and AI doesn’t know what it is to lose a mother or walk into a restaurant or be late for an appointment or even laugh. And that’s just the most superficial level of acting. The most basic level of human experience. Things like chemistry are going to be way beyond its ability to simply copy what’s been done before.

And of course one of the things we get excited about with great new actors is seeing something that we’ve never seen before: this particular person with this particular experience expressing this particular moment in this particular time
and place. Something that no one else can do in quite the same way.

And then, if they’re any good, those actors build up a patina and a history with their audience so that each performance is layered with the feelings we’ve had from all their previous performances and who they are in real life and who they’ve had relationships with and what they wear in public and their hairstyles and which car they drive and where they holiday and on and on.

AI can’t do any of that. And never will. Because it copies what was done in the past and has no experience.

 

[Cly_Anders]

But who is going to pay whom what, and for what?

Artists aren't entitled to receive any pay beyond what those who enjoy their art are willing to pay.

I don't pretend to know where all of this is headed, but if consumers are satisfied with AI-generated art, real live artists will be hard pressed to demand that consumers pay them for something consumers can get elsewhere for free. We've already seen how this works on the Internet in the last 25 years.

Millions of people are "satisfied" with artifically bleached gluten meal. And yet, despite dozens of automated bread companies with their filler ingredients that line the shelves of every grocery store, bakeries still exist, selling high quality at high quality prices and there's still people making bread at home from scratch. I can get chicken noodle soup in a can from dozens of different mega companies, all exact and automated and the same in every can, and millions are satisfied with that. But I would still pay more for the homemade chicken noodle soup the old ladies are selling at the church. It straight up tastes better. I know people will get used to automated slop. But artisans never went away just because machines replaced them large scale. I'm honestly not as worried as I used to be. Seeing "retro gaming" making a resurgence because people are tired of the uncanny valley and the big visuals with mega corp check boxes only proves there is a push back. Unfortunately, it'll only last a generation or two. Those raised with this won't be as outraged.

 

[caleb35]

Millions of people are "satisfied" with artifically bleached gluten meal. And yet, despite dozens of automated bread companies with their filler ingredients that line the shelves of every grocery store, bakeries still exist, selling high quality at high quality prices and there's still people making bread at home from scratch. I can get chicken noodle soup in a can from dozens of different mega companies, all exact and automated and the same in every can, and millions are satisfied with that. But I would still pay more for the homemade chicken noodle soup the old ladies are selling at the church. It straight up tastes better. I know people will get used to automated slop. But artisans never went away just because machines replaced them large scale. I'm honestly not as worried as I used to be. Seeing "retro gaming" making a resurgence because people are tired of the uncanny valley and the big visuals with mega corp check boxes only proves there is a push back. Unfortunately, it'll only last a generation or two. Those raised with this won't be as outraged.

...you're comparing food options with creative arts (and the corollary issue of how artists are to be recompensed in the future). I don't think your analogy works as well as you think.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

...you're comparing food options with creative arts (and the corollary issue of how artists are to be recompensed in the future). I don't think your analogy works as well as you think.

People still go to small venues and watch nobodies perform. People still go to community theaters. Etc...