Some of you responded to my last newsletter about how scary AI seems to be and how its unlimited power over us and our daily lives is already very nerve-wracking. Last week, I talked about deepfakes and the many ways AI could be used to mislead and deceive us, scams included. For this week, I will discuss how AI is pretty much already taking our jobs.
Yes, the big dreaded moment is here and is still arriving. Below is a TikTok video made by an actor taking part in the SAG-AFTRA strike. As you might’ve heard, members of those unions, along with the Writers Guild of America, went on strike on July 14th for better pay and job security amidst the streaming boom. This is the first time in over 60 years that both writers and actors have gone on strike together.
The strike is still going, and this actor, named Patrick Keefe, who’s TikTok handle is “thatgreygentleman”, displays in this video what the entertainment industry could be like in the near future, thanks to AI itself (WARNING: Language):
Whoa! Imagine every actor, famous or not-so-much, having their voices and even images used without their permission by movie companies to make movies and TV series, just so those companies wouldn’t have to pay anyone - be it $150,000 to $50 million a movie.
Even more scary, this means that these actors’ voices are no longer theirs to own. Anyone - a movie company or someone working on some AI video somewhere - can take voices and twist them to say what they want that voice to say, without that person’s knowledge or consent. And not just famous people, dead or alive, but also regular, everyday people. Our voices are not ours. So far, there’s no way to legally protect our voices and images. And even if that could be done, who’s to say our voices and images cannot be stolen anyway?
This also shows how AI can take away so many jobs in the entertainment industry. So many people can be out of work so quickly because AI barely costs the same amount as many entertainers call for.
Don’t forget the same thing can happen to journalists. In fact, it already is. Last month, just a few days after the SAG-AFTRA strike began, the New York Times announced that Google is testing an AI tool that can write news articles so those articles can be published by the Times. How upsetting and infuriating that was to see that headline! I had difficulty reading the article because I was too upset.
Also, writers are already starting to struggle to make ends meet. One copywriter, Emily Hanley, wrote this personal essay for Insider last month about how she lost work and clients because AI is cheaper than an actual writer. As of July, Hanley is working in a grocery store.
And then there was the great Christiane Amanpour who seemed quite nervous as she reported about India’s first AI news anchor. After showing a clip of the computer-generated anchor, Amanpour’s firm “yikes!” could not be ignored.
So does this mean AI is coming for our jobs much sooner than we expected? Are we about to lose our jobs next month rather than five years from now?
Well, it depends. I believe it really means just how soon regulations are put in place so AI does not grow into this gigantic monster we are all fearing. I also believe those regulations need to put businesses in place so AI is not more frequently used than a human being. I think that is truly the big worry here: businesses will want to have AI do the job instead of humans. Meaning, that it is the businesses we need to be concerned about, not AI itself (not yet at least).
Also, I believe we all need to come to our senses over how exciting technology can be sometimes and realize how these tools are turning our human lives upside down. Studies and studies have shown that social media is hurting the mental health of teens. Staring at the digital blue screens all day is ruining our eyesight. Social skills have deteriorated over the years because we’re not making enough eye contact like we used to. Perhaps we need a crackdown on technology to some degree.
As for journalism, I say we all need to ask ourselves what we want to see in the byline of any written article, even the one by Google. Do you want to see a name or “AI”? Or find out that name is fake and AI really wrote that? Wouldn’t it be best to see a familiar name in the byline every time you read an article, so you can get used to that reporter’s work and start to trust them?
Many people say the news media cannot be trusted. How would AI make that any better?
The same goes for how AI is a computer, a robot. Do those things know anything about the human experience? How can AI conduct interviews and gain subjects’ trust? Especially a whistleblower or someone who does not open up very much. How can it analyze a major issue from a human perspective?
Finally, when Christiane Amanpour did her segment on AI anchors, she spoke to broadcaster Hari Sreenivasan, who believes AI would free up journalists to do more important work, such as investigative reporting. Sreenivasan added that AI could even be used for local newspapers, which often struggle with staying in business, to do the basic weather, sports scores, and other short articles, while the staff reports on the big stories.
Amanpour responded by quoting the CEO of the New York Times, Meredith Kopit Levien, “You cannot put bots on the front lines of Bakhmut in Ukraine to tell you what is happening there and to help you make sense of it.”
Later on in the segment, Sreenivasan mentioned that it is still early in the game to see what AI can do, and not do, for journalism and other jobs.
Some people have the “wait and see” approach. But others, like yours truly, want to set boundaries now before The Great Flood begins and our worst fears happen.
ARTICLES TO CHECK OUT:
Update on The Marion County Record Raid: Last time, I mentioned the raid at a newspaper in a rural town in Kansas which echoed what many countries with limited free press go through. Well, the Washington Post ran an in-depth report explaining what happened and why the raid occurred at all. The Associated Press took a look at the legal side of this story.
NYPD or Security Guards Disrupted Reporters From Interviewing Migrants: And over in NYC, cops or security guards either prevented migrants from talking to journalists or vice versa. This was mentioned on Twitter by the editor-in-chief of The City, Richard Kim, and the publications included Politico, NY Times, and the NY Post. Even the Post wrote about it, while quoting an attorney who said these actions violated the First Amendment’s Freedom of the Press.
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