Proper now, there are firms suing AI firms for scraping their copyrighted work, however these circumstances could as properly be dropped as a result of main media firms hold promoting out to those AI firms! One other instance has to do with Lionsgate Studios, which simply signed a take care of AI video firm Runway AI.
This information comes as no shock, as this isn’t the primary case of a significant media firm bowing to AI. Meta reached out to sure movie firms a couple of months in the past, and so did Alphabet. A few of the firms they reached out to have been Disney, Netflix, and Warner Brothers. Whereas the primary two didn’t straight say that they have been right down to serve up their content material, Warner Brothers appeared extra open to the concept.
Lionsgate struck a take care of Runway AI
In case you don’t know what Runway AI is, it’s an AI video firm. Its mannequin has been in a position to create some scarily good output, and this places filmmakers on edge for apparent causes. We don’t know the place the corporate received video information to coach its mannequin, however we all know the place its subsequent cargo of movies goes to come back from.
Lionsgate, the corporate behind a number of fashionable franchises like John Wick, Twilight, SAW, and The Starvation Video games, has signed a deal that can serve its content material over to Runway AI for coaching. That is mainly the corporate serving to gas the identical expertise that can put numerous filmmakers out of a job.
Lionsgate vice chair Michael Burns gave an announcement saying that this partnership will, “assist us make the most of AI to develop cutting-edge, capital-efficient content material creation alternatives.” Now we have to provide Burns credit score for not BS-ing us on why it’s doing this. Lionsgate offered out to AI in order that the corporate can reduce prices. It desires to spend much less cash on making content material however capitalize on equal field workplace earnings.
At the least he didn’t say one thing like “AI allows our creators to higher specific their imaginative and prescient… blah blah blah blah.” On the finish of the day, it’s about cash.
He continued to say that, “A number of of our filmmakers are already enthusiastic about its potential functions to their pre-production and post-production course of.” The factor is that a lot of the movie trade doesn’t just like the expertise, so we don’t know what filmmakers he’s speaking about.
Particulars are scarce
Proper now, we don’t know an excessive amount of about what kind of content material Lionsgate is serving as much as Runway. What we all know is that, identical to with different AI sellouts, Lionsgate is simply gifting away many years of human-made content material to gas soul-less AI “creations.” It’s identical to how so many information publications are taking a verify from OpenAI and serving that firm all of their content material on a silver platter.
We need to imagine that these AI instruments will likely be used solely to enhance the creators’ work whereas protecting them employed. Nonetheless, that’s hoping for an excessive amount of. When cash is concerned, somebody has to get screwed over.