Everyone knows one of many largest points each of the placing guilds, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA, have with AMPTP’s provide for a brand new contract is a scarcity of protection against and regulation of AI. However now it appears the studios are doubling down on their funding in AI.
The Intercept has reported that Netflix has posted a brand new Product Supervisor function for his or her AI Machine Studying Program — and it pays a whopping $900K.
In response to the job description, the Product Supervisor place will concentrate on “rising the leverage of our Machine Studying Platform.” The MLP is Netflix’s in-house AI program, which has historically been used to energy the algorithmic suggestions of the corporate’s streaming service. In response to a Netflix’s research page, the corporate is now making a bigger effort to make use of this system to “optimize” film and TV manufacturing, though how they plan to take action is stored considerably obscure.
“Traditionally, personalization has been probably the most well-known space, the place machine studying powers our advice algorithms,” Netflix’s description of the MLP reads. “We’re additionally utilizing machine studying to assist form our catalog of films and TV reveals by studying traits that make content material profitable. We use it to optimize the manufacturing of unique motion pictures and TV reveals in Netflix’s quickly rising studio.”
Netflix’s growth into AI for content material creation comes not simply in the midst of a labor dispute partly based mostly round combating exploitative use of the expertise, however after the corporate satirized using AI in TV itself. The current Season 6 of “Black Mirror,” one in every of Netflix’s hottest reveals, began with an episode the place a streamer, intentionally made to resemble Netflix, used AI expertise to make use of the digital likeness of Salma Hayek towards her will.
“So $900k/yr per soldier of their godless AI military when that quantity of earnings might qualify thirty-five actors and their households for SAG-AFTRA medical health insurance is simply ghoulish,” actor Rob Delaney, who starred within the “Black Mirror” episode, advised The Intercept. “Having been poor and wealthy on this enterprise, I can guarantee you there’s sufficient cash to go round; it’s nearly priorities.” It’s additionally hiring a $650K AI technical director function for its gaming division.
Netflix isn’t the one studio in Tinseltown to start investing extra into utilizing AI to generate content material. In response to the Intercept, Disney can be hiring for a senior AI engineer to “drive innovation throughout our cinematic pipelines and theatrical experiences.” (They usually have already got job listings up for roles within the Imagineering division of Disney Parks.)
We’ve been constructing to this second for years: In 2020, IndieWire reported how Warner Bros. cut a deal to make use of the AI program Cinelytic in an effort to assist with decisions relating to theatrical or streaming distribution. What might be subsequent?