On today’s episode of the 5 Things podcast: AI technology has emerged as a sticking point for workers in the entertainment industry. Without any guardrails, writers and actors both say their work can essentially be used to train AI that can then put them out of a job. As an industry bellwether for AI’s potential to displace huge numbers of workers, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and Writers Guild (WGA) are both under contract renegotiations that are being closely watched by many outside of Hollywood. What’s really at stake here? Actor, writer, director, producer and computer scientist Justine Bateman joins us to share her take.
Podcasts:True crime, in-depth interviews and more USA TODAY podcasts right here
Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
Dana Taylor:
Hello and welcome to 5 Things. I’m Dana Taylor. Today is Sunday, July 9th, 2023. With the Screen Actors and Writers Guild contracts both under renegotiation, AI technology has emerged as a primary issue of concern for workers in the entertainment industry. Our guest has a unique perspective on the matter. We first came to know Justine Bateman as an actor, now as a filmmaker. Justine is a member of the Writer’s Guild, the Director’s Guild, and a former Screen Actor’s Guild board member and negotiating team member. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science and digital media management from UCLA. Justine has been a vocal advocate for workers’ rights in the face of AI technology. She’s with us today to discuss the issues. Thank you so much for joining us, Justine.
Justine Bateman:
Hi.
Dana Taylor:
So the past year we’ve seen an explosion of easily available AI tools for manipulating words, audio and visuals. The dystopian tech is eerily captured in a recent episode of the hit series Black Mirror, where actress Selma Hayek is cloned by AI. Her likeness is then used in endless dramatizations without Selma’s overt approval. Justine, what’s at stake here?
Justine Bateman:
Well, first of all, I want to say that episode didn’t capture the absolute crushing, emotional, spiritual, and economic crushing of that sort of thing going on, of confusing people about what’s real and what’s not. Because what’s happened is, studios, streamers, tech companies, corporations have valued greed over people to such an extent that we’re going to see a cratering of the way our society is set up. And in the entertainment business, this is a microcosm of that. So what’s at stake is everybody’s jobs. The way AI works for someone who doesn’t know or generative AI, I’ll simplify it, it’s like a box. It’s say you want it to write books, you feed it a bunch of books, and then you give it a task, write me a book about pandas and outer space, and it’ll spit out that book.
So you can imagine for screenwriters this, and they’re called large language models. So this LLM, you feed it all these scripts that all these screenwriters have written, and then you give it a task, give me a script about pandas and outer space and it’ll spit it out. So you can imagine it’s not just that like, “Oh, here’s a new tech, it’s something new, it’s going to…” No, at this point, tech companies are like carpet baggers, they’re coming into areas that we don’t need them. We don’t need AI in the arts. We are not lacking writers, directors, performers, nothing. And so, to imagine something coming in and not only displacing you, but displacing you with your own work, that’s what’s at stake.
Dana Taylor:
So as the Screen Actors and Writer’s Guild contracts were coming up for renegotiation, did the sudden release of AI applications catch the Guild off guard?
Justine Bateman:
I don’t know that it caught the Guild off guard, definitely not… Writer’s Guild came in with a very strong position. The Director’s Guild, I don’t think it was as apparent to the DGA leadership how exactly directors would be replaced. And in my estimation, that position will just be eliminated. They’re not going to replace directors with AI, it’d just be eliminated. You’ll just have a project manager overseeing some customized AI film for someone based on their viewing habits. Now, the Screen Actors Guild have been involved in deep fake lawsuits and stuff for some time now, so they were well-prepared to take this on in the negotiations. But you bring up an interesting point. What if we had done all these negotiations and we do it in a three-year cycle? What if we had done all these negotiations and they had made these LLMs available to the public in October, instead of when they did? We would’ve already negotiated and we would’ve had to sit there for three years and not be able to do anything about it and not be able to have any kind of labor action as a creater of business.
Dana Taylor:
But what protections can artists have against their work being used to train AI?
Justine Bateman:
Yes. First of all, if I was a studio or streamer and I had a lot of copyrights, I’d be going to every large video LLM and demanding they show a list of every single film they’ve fed into it. And if any of my copyrighted films are on there, I would tell them, “You got to delete this entire LLM.” Because you can’t unwind where the LLM is absorbed the information from what you’ve fed it. I don’t know if that’s going on, but short of that, consent and compensation, I myself, I never want to have anything to do with it, because it goes in the opposite direction of where I’m going as an artist.
I want to go further out creatively, get deeper into the emotional connection with the audience. And AI is the complete opposite direction. It’s a regurgitation of the past, and we’ve been primed for that, because we’ve seen so many reboots and sequels and all of this the last 15 years. It just automates that. I want to go in complete opposite direction. But if people do want to get involved in it and be compensated for having their work fed into it, or as an actor, want to have their image fed into an LLM, that is their prerogative, but there should be consent and compensation.
Dana Taylor:
So how is this labor dispute affecting the behind-the-scenes entertainment industry workers?
Justine Bateman:
You mean like the crew?
Dana Taylor:
Yeah.
Justine Bateman:
It’s awful, because if you’re using AI for scripts, you’re not using the screenwriters and there’s no heart in it and nothing good’s going to come out of it. If you are using AI for the actors, now you don’t have a set, you don’t have a cinematographer, you don’t have craft service, you don’t have a grip, you don’t have makeup and hair. I don’t even know if you have an editor at this point, if it’s customized for the viewers. So it’ll decimate the workers on a film. And again, you won’t need a director. There’s no set, there’s nothing to pull together. It’s not even going to be animated. It’s just going to be automated.
Dana Taylor:
So this action, it’s on the forefront of workers organizing to protect against AI. Other than in the arts, where do you think we could see similar situations?
Justine Bateman:
There’s a company that does audiobook recordings, and they had a whole team of actors that they use for audiobooks. And apparently they fired everyone, because the guy who was running it said, “Well, I’m just subscribing to an AI service now for $20 a month to do all of the voices.” And what will happen to him, is that whoever he’s supplying these audiobooks to will look at him and say, “Well, what do I need him for? I myself can subscribe to this $20 a month service.” I heard of a established law firm that fired all their paralegals because they just had chat GPT doing it. And tech companies are even doing it too. They’re doing it to the very people who may have had a hand in building some of these LLMs.
Dana Taylor:
Do you have real hope that the AI issue will be properly addressed by the studios in the current negotiations with SAG-AFTRA and the Writer’s Guild?
Justine Bateman:
Let me put it this way. This is the last time any of these unions will have leverage. We see how much has happened in the last, what has it been, two months? In three years, we won’t have this kind of leverage. So if we want to get anything for the next three years, we’ve got to go all in. It’s what the writers are doing. I feel that’s what DGA has done to the extent that they feel that they’ve protected their workers, from that perspective. I’d like to see past work of directors protected too, and perhaps that can be done legislatively. And the actors, when you see what is possible right now with demos, you can imagine what the Actors Guild… I can’t say too much about that because I’ve been privy to what they’re asking for as a AI consultant to them in this negotiation.
But you can just imagine what they will need to ask for, for complete protection. But I do think that regardless, this business is going to undergo a destruction, but I think there is something really remarkable on the other side. I think on the other side of that, we will actually see a new genre of significance in the arts, the degree to which we haven’t seen since the ’90s. And I don’t think that can happen unless this destruction happens of the proliferation of content, instead of films and series, pressing down on all the filmmakers and making sure everything is second screen, which is a note that the streamers give to filmmakers.
Make sure this doesn’t distract someone from their primary screen. Make it digital musak as somebody called it once. So there is hope. I think something magnificent will happen on the other side, but I think tech has been a focus, a center stage focus for us for the last 15, 20 years. And I think it’s time for it to be in its proper place. Like I said, I have a computer science degree, I love tech, but I think it needs to back off.
Dana Taylor:
So institutionally, do you think that AI would be better regulated by government or by private industry groups? How do you see that?
Justine Bateman:
I think definitely government, if they can catch up. They haven’t even regulated social media or broken up the monopolies that are so proliferate our society. But yeah, as far as AI goes, I tell you what, it’d be pretty easy to feed in everything a politician has ever said and just have an AI politician spit out amalgamation, feed in everything they’ve ever said, all the bills they’ve ever written, and then give it a task. Write me a bill that deals with homelessness. Wouldn’t that be great if AI could just deal with an actual problem we have? So politicians, I think they should get on the ball, because they’d be pretty easy to automate by AI.
Dana Taylor:
So what do you foresee as the wider impact of AI tech in Hollywood on 21st century culture and on the world?
Justine Bateman:
Well, first of all, to me, artists are tubes through which God, magic, the universe, whatever you want to call it, comes through into society. And you can see throughout history how that’s been true. So I don’t think society understands what happens when you cut that tube off and it’s just recycled air, if you will, recycled air from where you are, not bringing in anything fresh. That will affect society. It’s going to really affect our society in a negative way. But like I said, if you just hold on, I believe there’s something really good on the other side where humans are the center focus in instead of tech.
Dana Taylor:
So in a follow-up a little bit on something that you brought up earlier, and that’s the deconstruction and this new genre of art that you mentioned earlier. What is that vision for you? How do you see that?
Justine Bateman:
I don’t know what it’s going to look like. I just know it’s going to be really new in the way that, it won’t be a return to something in the past. It won’t be like, “Oh, here comes French new wave again, filmmaking or jazz or something.” It’ll be new in the way Jazz was new, or in the way rock and roll was new, or in the way musicals were new, or film noir or blockbusters. At one point, the blockbusters of the ’80s were new. We had had blockbusters here and there, like Cleopatra or Gone With the Wind or something, but not like Top Gun or Jaws or Star Wars. So even blockbusters were new at some point. So there will be something new. And I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m so excited about it. I’m so excited about it. But this between now and then, is going to be really hard for all of us.
Dana Taylor:
Justine Bateman, thank you so much for your insights.
Justine Bateman:
Sure.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks to Mark Seibel, Alexis Gustin and Cherie Saunders for their production assistance. Our senior producer is Shannon Rae Green, and our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to podcasts@usatoday.com. Thanks for listening. I’m Dana Taylor. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow with another episode of 5 Things.