I think it's an abomination and a sad state of affairs if we switch to AI generated actors. that is just ridiculous and something I hope never surpasses or comes close to flesh and blood actors. i can't imagine not seeing them anymore. I know this is well into the future, but what we saw with this new AI actress that is getting all the ire and buzz. I'm dead against it all.

I'm not even sure how an AI generated "actor" would work: Would the other actors (if there were any) work against a green screen, and how good would the actual "acting" be as opposed to I dunno, just hiring some no-name? Going by how grating even just AI voices are to me in like youtube videos, I have a hard time seeing this gain traction from just a feasibility standpoint.

From an ethics standpoint, ugh all the way around though.

They're ideal for 1-2 minutes.

Won’t watch anything that features an A.I generated actor, ever.

I think they are great!

The multinational corporation that employs me is determined to figure out a way to replace me with AI, so I'm fine with it happening to those pampered and overpaid "actors."

We'll be fine if the computers and robots completely take over the workforce.

Except Wall-e is a world with nationalized healthcare or UBI or something. Or maybe all the poor people are dead and these are just the rich people left.

I'm aware of limited use of CGI for recreating small performances, such as Tarkin and Leia in Rogue One, but those were based on pre-existing actors and used real body doubles.

The idea of a completely fabricated actor is horrific. They just want someone that isn't going to complain about working conditions or get in trouble for political comments on social media.

Background non-speaking? Maybe in some circumstances. But as an actual “character”? Hell No.

See if this were talking about CGI/animation replicating real actors (with their permission and paying for their likeness) then ok. Gross, but ok.

But completely fabricating a human and then on top of it having AI actually act instead of having a voice actor dub? That seems like a huge stretch with current AI technology (which is good because we don't really want AI that's indistinguishable from humans)

Isn't de-aging considered a form of AI?

Does that count?

I am not just against AI Actors, I am Against AI Anything in the Arts. AAAA
I have a terrible bad taste in my mouth from AI. I think, in the end, it will be the end to society as we know it, and not in a good way. But that is me.

I just want to know if Tilly Norwood is up for doing full nudity.

Last year, I would have agreed with this, but this year definitely not. The line has blurred significantly in a short period of time, and AI is now at the point where “consistent character” is pretty much perfected.

I see Tilly Norwood mentioned in this thread and the recently revived S1MONE thread, but as no one posted any relevant videos, I’m assuming it’s the “Norwood issue” that prompted the discussions. Frankly, I think the video that spawned all the backlash and buzz probably started out as something of a troll just to, well, generate backlash and buzz. I doubt there was any interest from “agencies” in signing her until the uproar started, and even then I’m skeptical. But clearly it struck a nerve, with literally every media outlet and social media influencer and their mothers weighing in on the pros and cons while generating content content content and views for themselves.

I believe this video from Particle 6, her creators, is is a followup to the video with all the ‘movie’ clips that has everybody either incensed or considering the possibilities. In this one, everyone is AI. The dialogue is mostly silly, on purpose, but delivered realistically, and it’s pretty evident that the ‘uncanny valley’ stuff we’ve all figured would prevent AI from making serious headway is virtually non-existent at this point:


Again, now that the ‘consistent character’ aspect is seemingly becoming less of an issue – especially as regards the Tilly character and the manufactured controversy she engendered – AI can generate increasingly believable ‘performances’ like those above. I have no doubt it’s only a matter of time before some filmmakers, somewhere, go all in. Perhaps the major players will stay away from it (or be seen to stay away from it ) on principle. But how long will that last? I can totally see low-end B- and C- and Z-movie makers – like the folks who already flood streamers such as Tubi with cookie-cutter, lowest-common-denominator movie “content” – making their ‘jobs’ even easier by flooding Tubi et al with AI movie “content” too. When folks higher up the food chain see how drastically production costs are presumably reduced, I’m sure the gears will be spinning.

Here’s a random YouTuber tech guy (undoubtedly one of many) showing how he put “Tilly” and himself into a LAST OF US type scenario. There’s definitely more to it than just typing one prompt, and it appears that he uses more than one AI generator, but the results are impressive. Not perfect, but miles better than what we were seeing a year or two ago. And he’s just making a few clips and acknowledging that getting what you see in your mind isn’t a simple process:


I’m sure there are plenty of burgeoning “AI filmmakers” already toying with trying to make a narrative short film or even a feature with either partial or full AI. In fact, I saw a segment on the “Tilly” controversy on CBC up here just last night, and at the end of it they interviewed – wait for it – an “AI filmmaker”, as in a real dude who makes AI movies of some sort:


So whether we like it or not, or ever watch it or not, this is coming. I’m at least grateful that we will still have the first 100+ years of films available to us via streaming and physical media, but I’m honestly curious to see where this goes. Hopefully both ‘modes’ can co-exist, but it’s hard not to imagine one supplanting the other in the long term, which definitely bums me out.

I did find it interesting that Open AI launched Sora 2 a couple of days ago, nearly the same time “Tilly” popped up.

First, I don't consider de-aging AI; maybe AI is used as a shortcut in the modeling/animation aspect but for this conversation I'm thinking like AI develops the animation, the personality, and the actual acting, etc. Brian may be right that it's not as far away as we thought. But for the most part AI is not only insanely expensive (which few talk about besides all the money being funneled into the technology) but also either expensive to train or trained via, I'm not sure what else to call it, theft. AI is going to have to either be trained by paid actors (and it would have to be good actors who sign up for it) or crib from existing acting performances. Same for art, at least currently yeah you can put in a prompt and come up with a cool picture, but how much does that cost and where are the sources of the art coming from? And creating a whole acting performance has a lot more nuance, not just uncanny valley stuff but actually seeming like a human without being a copy of a human, if that makes sense.

Again, if we somehow jump through these hurdles and can reasonably convince a large number of movie goers that an AI performance is a real actor (letalone a great actor), we are in big, big trouble on multiple fronts.

The technology isn't there yet for a true AI actor/actress.

It's a reused CG character. Of which Roger Ebert wrote about when Simone came out 23 years ago with regards to Final Fantasy :The Spirits Within bombing (he liked the latter a lot more than the former)

But I don't think there would be any issue if they didn't do the whole "represented by a firm" thing.

And I agree, De-aging and similar tech that uses algorithms isn't AI, it's CG with scripted tools

Who cares. You watch CGI characters all the time, even in live-action movies. What's the difference?

In other words, if you create an all AI movie with all AI-developed images, dialogue, music... if it works as a film, so be it.

I'm not all LETS REPLACE EVERYTHING WITH AI, but people who knee-jerk against it are yelling at clouds.

Also: if you rage against both AI and intellectual property laws, you are some kind of hypocrite.

With the way most films in the last 10 or so years seem to be phoned-in on auto-pilot, does it matter if AI just provides a cost-efficient shortcut to mediocrity?

I think one of the big issues with AI in general for the last couple of years has been the revelation that all of these ‘apps’ have essentially been trained – mostly illegally – on the entire history of human creativity so far. Like so many technological advancements before it, the ‘entrepreneurs and “visionaries” know full well that ethical and even legal boundaries cannot stand in their way because if they don’t do it, another company will, so it’s a constant state of oneupmanship, and while AI has been around in one form or another for a long time now, it’s only recently developed to a point where it could literally be fed on everything that we’ve been feeding to the internet for the past thirty years: every book, every piece of art, every movie, every song, every video on every social media platform, every website, not to mention a lot of the physical and digital technology that enabled it all.

At this point, I don’t think there’s much of a cost to the user in terms in ‘training’. That has already taken place, and continues to take place on all of the new ‘content’ being produced every single day, including all of the stuff now generated by AI. It’s literally feeding on itself as well as everything we make without it. Paid actors probably aren’t needed when every AI app has already been trained on the majority of extant movies, TV, recorded stage performances, etc. It already knows every performance nuance there is from the cinema and television of virtually every culture on earth that has movies and TV shows available online. If you don’t like the performance of your AI actor you can tweak it a million times to get it right. Any additional costs to the AI aside from your time and various subscriptions (of course) are likely offset by the savings in overall production costs traditionally associated with making movies or TV (or music, books, art, etc), costs which can essentially be zeroed out for many people now: no salaries, no soundstages, no travel, no unions, no hassles. Much lower barriers to entry, but also much lower chances of making a living at it when everyone else is a “creative” just like you!

All these tech companies forged full-speed ahead, blinders off, dogged by but not slowed by countless lawsuits from creatives in any number of fields, and did every unethical thing they weren’t supposed to do, because again, if they didn’t do it the other guys would have. And now we have powerhouse AI applications like Sora 2 (posted earlier) and various others that are moving all kinds of human ‘creativity’ previously “safeguarded” by gatekeepers, unions, studios, networks, publishers, lawyers, and often requiring expensive real-world equipment to produce, into the hands of everyone, simply by speaking or typing a prompt and then fine tuning.

And yeah, they absolutely facilitated all of this by theft.

I find it equal parts democratizing, demoralizing, and even dangerous, especially given current political trends worldwide, but I’m curious to see the longterm effects (I mean, aside from the constantly expanding tsunami of slop).

I see what you're saying but I still disagree.

When the new Dune project was announced a few years back and they announced that amazing cast, I said to myself that even if the movie ended up being a flop, it would still be fun to watch that cast muck about the in the desert for 2.5 hours, spouting Frank Herbert's mystical nonsense. And I still find myself watching the 1984 version, despite it's flaws, because of the cast and production design.
Same with The Black Hole, Jane Austen's Mafia!, even the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie, very problematic scripts but incredible model work, cast members chewing the scenery with glee and of course fantastic music (looking at you John Barry) can elevate a film above it's flaws.

With a fully CGI actor, what's the point? As the saying goes: why would I want to watch a movie that nobody wanted to make?

As for de-aging with CGI: I think it should be used sparingly. Yes, I defended it's use in movies like Rogue One, but again, both Leia and Tarkin were based on existing actors and used real body doubles to make them work. CGI is a tool. It has it's place, but that place is absolutely not front and center.

(Also, we do our absolute damndest to avoid the CGI slop Disney 'live-action' remakes because they're just spitting in the faces of the original animators, chasing a few extra bucks because some people are too dense to understand and accept animation as a medium for storytelling for all ages.)

AI generated actors mean we will have no more flesh and blood actors. no more Clooney, Pitt, Di Caprio, etc...that would be very detrimental to the movie going experience and something I am dead against. de-aging ok, but fully generated actors that can look and talk like the ones we've come to know and love would be an enormous blight on the entertainment industry.

To that point, a large part of the movie watching experience is to empathize and feel a connection with the character (and, by extension, the actor that plays the character). Having movies with AI characters completely removes that shared empathic/sympathetic feeling we have to those characters. There’s always the expedition (Grave of the Fireflies, Pixar’s Up) but those are far and few between and are the exceptions that prove the rule.

I personally think AI should be used for research and data analytic purposes only. I don't think people should be using it to write and create art. Your voice and perspective are what make you unique. Using ai will only create homogenized content. I think AI should be regulated and restrictions should be placed on it to protect jobs. The Tech bros that are behind AI want to get rid of 75% of white collar jobs and even eliminate doctors with AI. I think we will end up with a mostly lower class society if we don't regulate it soon.

I think it is a matter of time until AI actors show up and while I hope it will take a long time, at one point it will be as normal an animated characters, until they are accepted as a character.

I think this is all overhyped Silicon Valley trash. Good way to convince people to throw their money into the pot and create an economic bubble so big that our government will be forced to bail them out when the house of cards crashes.