Strike in Hollywood serves as a warning to investors – 07/23/2023 – Marcos de Vasconcellos

Having movie stars on strike can seem like a dystopia, on a planet where news about workers killed in coal mine explosions or in situations similar to slavery is still commonplace. But the strike is real and it raises important issues for you to make better decisions about your investments.

In addition to the classic labor agenda (adjustments, longer contracts and health plans), Hollywood actors and screenwriters try to hold back the use of artificial intelligence in productions. Technology has the power to reduce costs and increase companies’ profit margins. And the costs to be cut may just be the actors’ and screenwriters’ time.

Anyone who hasn’t seen the Volkswagen commercial “with” Elis Regina has at least heard about it. If we don’t need an Elis to make her ride a Kombi on the small screen, for how long will the cost of actors, actresses and voice actors still be a relevant line in the accounting of entertainment companies?

But technology doesn’t create faces, voices and text “out of thin air”. In a way, the production of artists becomes raw material. Screenwriter David Simon, who has been an active voice in the strike, explains the point: “[Os algoritmos] they’re not just being trained in these scripts. My scripts are the amalgamation of what they will then produce as the product of artificial intelligence, not the product of a living human screenwriter.”

Fighting against the use of technology that has the capacity to increase production and profit margins seems doomed to defeat, like a ludism in the middle of the 21st century. Breaking the machines did not prevent them from replacing the weaving workers at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. There is room, however, for the increase in profit margins to be, in part, directed at those who feed the robots.

It is this boat that the writers and actors regret having missed on the DVD releases. The endless box sales with entire series didn’t turn money into their pockets. The revenue generated by its productions on streaming platforms is still under discussion. The creation of new products with artificial intelligence based on its archives of ideas, texts and performances really needs to be included in the companies’ planning.

More than believing that it will be decided as an arm wrestling match – where either the production will be entirely generated by machines or there will be a barrier to the entry of AI in the studios –, it is essential to try to see who is preparing to navigate this new world without fear.

A recent Netflix deal, reported by the New York Times, sought to grant the company free use of a simulation of an actor’s voice “through all technologies and processes now known or hereafter developed, throughout the universe and in perpetuity.”

Such an open contract has a lot of room for questioning, according to lawyers who understand the subject. But it is better to have a forecast than to wait for new surprises. Reviewing old contracts, still in force, to adapt them to the new reality seems the right step.

This is just one of the areas to be affected by the advance of generative intelligences. I have already spoken here about the education sector and it is also worth thinking about the entire marketing, customer relationship and software development market.

Those looking for scalable and exponentially growing businesses to invest in need to be aware of the discussions and, often, the omissions of companies about what seems to be a new technological leap. The price of ignoring it could be becoming the target of a strike in the future or, even worse, being the new Blockbuster, the movie rental that became just a memory.

PRESENT LINK: Did you like this text? Subscriber can release five free hits of any link per day. Just click the blue F below.