Disney making $1 billion investment in OpenAI, will allow characters on Sora AI video generator

[Casper Gutman]

Talk of using AI as just another tool sort of overlooks how AI is being used and how it is impacting users. It’s making people less able to read or understand what they read, less able to write, less able to think critically or actually “do their own research” in a meaningful and productive way. And frankly (*gesturing wildly at everything*) the decline in those abilities was already having a massive negative impact even before the widespread adoption of AI.

And this may be an over generalization, but AI is also very popular among people trying to devalue the act of human creativity, either for political reasons or because they can’t create or understand art themselves. Very powerful people, among many media executives and the people who own media companies, for instance, love the idea that creatives can be replaced like “antenna installers.” All the nonsense about AI being just “a new tool” like a wrench or calculator plays into this. AI IS a tool, but it’s a great deal more then that too, and as a society we aren’t reckoning with that.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Not to open a can of worms, but we also have to reckon with the fact that their has NEVER been a medium REMOTELY as adept as AI at propagandizing the population, both in determining what people see and hear and how capable people are of thinking critically about that material. It’s an intellectual nuclear warhead and we’re treating it like a toy.

 

[Spectro shire]

At least in the IT world, reliance on "AI" will result in a dumber IT work force incapable of troubleshooting or knowing how things work intrinsically, because every problem will be solved by asking AI for help. Maybe it can be different elsewhere, but there is a lot of "artificial" and no "intelligence" in "AI". It's mostly a search engine with pretty results for most, and automation inside applications elsewhere.

AI arrives at my job next quarter. It looks to save time and stupid employee questions that's for sure.

But in the case of my last job, we had this worker who was a waste of space who would probably get better with AI. I think she was Gen Z. The only one I have worked with so far.

I know the CEO's say AI is going to take over everything (I've seen videos of robots that make that look doubtful) which how will people afford anything?

 

[MisterPenguin]

I give AI three thumbs up!!

 

[lazyboy97o]

For the same reason animators hired inbetweeners. To offload work to allow the person to do more or other things

#1 - the person is always responsible for the output -- If someone passes along garbage, the fault is the human

Having in-betweeners wasn’t just about offloading work. It was also a means for training and developing skills. And that’s true of a lot of in-between type work.

 

[Serpico Jones]

 

[flynnibus]

Having in-betweeners wasn’t just about offloading work. It was also a means for training and developing skills. And that’s true of a lot of in-between type work.

Missing the forrest for the trees kind of response.

The specific worker's values are not material to the bigger picture. Roles are not forever - Roles are a function of the work needed, which evolves - often driven by technology or innovation changes. Take stenographers, typists, "human computers", runners, whatever example you want.

No one looked down on animators for offloading their work into stuff that could be handled by less skilled animators so they could focus on the more impactful work. No one looked down on people for replacing "computers" with solid state technology. And no one was looked down upon for using Google instead of going to their library's card catalog.

Nor should anyone dig in and say "we need to stop indexing the web because it's killing those other jobs".. and god help anyone who thinks they can survive in the future insisting they won't use Search Engines. Same thing here..

 

[lazyboy97o]

Missing the forrest for the trees kind of response.

The specific worker's values are not material to the bigger picture. Roles are not forever - Roles are a function of the work needed, which evolves - often driven by technology or innovation changes. Take stenographers, typists, "human computers", runners, whatever example you want.

No one looked down on animators for offloading their work into stuff that could be handled by less skilled animators so they could focus on the more impactful work. No one looked down on people for replacing "computers" with solid state technology. And no one was looked down upon for using Google instead of going to their library's card catalog.

Nor should anyone dig in and say "we need to stop indexing the web because it's killing those other jobs".. and god help anyone who thinks they can survive in the future insisting they won't use Search Engines. Same thing here..

The bigger picture requires people with skills that have to be developed somehow. People didn’t just jump to being a lead animator because there were skills that needed to be developed. That’s true with a lot of other fields, especially creative ones.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Missing the forrest for the trees kind of response.

The specific worker's values are not material to the bigger picture. Roles are not forever - Roles are a function of the work needed, which evolves - often driven by technology or innovation changes. Take stenographers, typists, "human computers", runners, whatever example you want.

No one looked down on animators for offloading their work into stuff that could be handled by less skilled animators so they could focus on the more impactful work. No one looked down on people for replacing "computers" with solid state technology. And no one was looked down upon for using Google instead of going to their library's card catalog.

Nor should anyone dig in and say "we need to stop indexing the web because it's killing those other jobs".. and god help anyone who thinks they can survive in the future insisting they won't use Search Engines. Same thing here..

Flynn won’t see this because he blocked me long ago, but this is just a bunch of boilerplate ignoring massive issues. First, there is an ENORMOUS problem when you eliminate entry-level/training positions, which is exactly what AI is doing. Who becomes a top animator if no one has been trained through the lower levels of the job hierarchy? All of this assumes, of course, that an actual, artistically gifted individual doesn’t bring anything to the in-betweener role that N AI doesn’t, which is… anti-humanist?

Tools change users. When computerized searching let us stop using card catalogs we forgot how to use card catalogs. When word processing replaced dictation we forgot shorthand. What happens when we have tools that supposedly read, write, research, THINK for us? We don’t have to guess - we can already see the results.

And on a side note, AI companies do not have the right to appropriate hundreds of years of the artistic output of millions of creators for free just because they really want to.

 

[JD80]

The bigger picture requires people with skills that have to be developed somehow. People didn’t just jump to being a lead animator because there were skills that needed to be developed. That’s true with a lot of other fields, especially creative ones.

Are you sure you're not inventing an argument? The last century and a half is full of examples of jobs and careers that have been eliminated, changed, or require less people because of technological advances across all sectors of society.

 

[Tha Realest]

Correct! I believe there is a particular movie that set the precedent where a studio can’t just reuse existing or unused footage for new purposes without paying the talent/actors involved. I can’t recall the name, but this movie had so much unused footage that the studio attempted to make a 2nd film out of it without re-paying the actors. The studio got sued and did not win.

BTTF 2. Crispin Glover sued the production.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Are you sure you're not inventing an argument? The last century and a half is full of examples of jobs and careers that have been eliminated, changed, or require less people because of technological advances across all sectors of society.

Different things are different. Humans had made a lot of weapons before Alamogordo, but the nuclear bomb changed everything - politics, culture, religion - everything.

AI is a bigger change.

Making long division easier is not the same as destroying the idea of artistic creativity and the human soul.

 

[JD80]

Flynn won’t see this because he blocked me long ago, but this is just a bunch of boilerplate ignoring massive issues. First, there is an ENORMOUS problem when you eliminate entry-level/training positions, which is exactly what AI is doing. Who becomes a top animator if no one has been trained through the lower levels of the job hierarchy? All of this assumes, of course, that an actual, artistically gifted individual doesn’t bring anything to the in-betweener role that N AI doesn’t, which is… anti-humanist?

Tools change users. When computerized searching let us stop using card catalogs we forgot how to use card catalogs. When word processing replaced dictation we forgot shorthand. What happens when we have tools that supposedly read, write, research, THINK for us? We don’t have to guess - we can already see the results.

And on a side note, AI companies do not have the right to appropriate hundreds of years of the artistic output of millions of creators for free just because they really want to.

Assuming we will stick to just creative uses of AI, can you show proof that new animators aren't being hired at all because of AI or significantly less? The tech sector is being disruptive (and maybe course correcting after a glut of people studying programming over the last 30 years) but where do you see significant impact in Hollywood or even at Disney?

Or is this supposition?

 

[Casper Gutman]

The idea that “nothing ever happens,” is a plague, a disease, and it’s killing us. The collective certainty that everything will stay the same, that history happens in books, is almost universal and it’s mad. History is happening at an unthinkable pace.

We live in Interesting Times. It’s awful.

 

[JD80]

The idea that “nothing ever happens,” is a plague, a disease, and it’s killing us. The collective certainty that everything will stay the same, that history happens in books, is almost universal and it’s mad. History is happening at an unthinkable pace.

We live in Interesting Times. It’s awful.

Who said nothing ever happens? You're doomcasting. I'm not saying AI will have no impact, but to wax poetic about how it AI is "destroying the idea of artistic creativity and the human soul." is extremely hyperbolic.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Assuming we will stick to just creative uses of AI, can you show proof that new animators aren't being hired at all because of AI or significantly less? The tech sector is being disruptive (and maybe course correcting after a glut of people studying programming over the last 30 years) but where do you see significant impact in Hollywood or even at Disney?

Or is this supposition?

Entry-level positions are disappearing everywhere and it’s already causing massive problems. The entry-level job field is the worst it’s been in 37 years - that’s since 1989. To put that in terms we WDW fans can understand, that’s two years BEFORE Beauty and the Beast: Live on Stage debuted.

The creative industries in Hollywood are fighting tooth and nail to try and stave off the problems we’re seeing in the legal, corporate, etc. fields, but they’re losing.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Are you sure you're not inventing an argument? The last century and a half is full of examples of jobs and careers that have been eliminated, changed, or require less people because of technological advances across all sectors of society.

Are we supposed to be picking up pre-approved arguments from somewhere?

There are a number of professions where the skills and knowledge are built up over years of doing the work. Technology has changed some facets of those jobs but it didn’t just cut out the development of expertise.

 

[JD80]

Entry-level positions are disappearing everywhere and it’s already causing massive problems. The entry-level job field is the worst it’s been in 37 years - that’s since 1989. To put that in terms we WDW fans can understand, that’s two years BEFORE Beauty and the Beast: Live on Stage debuted.

The creative industries in Hollywood are fighting tooth and nail to try and stave off the problems we’re seeing in the legal, corporate, etc. fields, but they’re losing.

I'm not doubting that. However you're argument, at least to my reading of it, seems to be making the case that it's catastrophic to the ending of human creativity.

My argument is that it is not catastrophic as you seem to phrase it. I will agree that it's incredibly disruptive and people will have to adapt to the new reality. But humans have been doing that for 1000s of years.

 

[JD80]

Are we supposed to be picking up pre-approved arguments from somewhere?

There are a number of professions where the skills and knowledge are built up over years of doing the work. Technology has changed some facets of those jobs but it didn’t just cut out the development of expertise.

Yes at the argument store.

 

[flynnibus]

The bigger picture requires people with skills that have to be developed somehow. People didn’t just jump to being a lead animator because there were skills that needed to be developed. That’s true with a lot of other fields, especially creative ones.

Animators don't know how to start a fire with sticks and stones either... because they don't need that skill anymore. The skills they do need, will still be learned.