AI or Artificial Intelligence has been popping up everywhere, and now it is starting to cause challenges with professional performers. As we learned before, AI is a tool that can be used for good or bad. Since this is new, formal legislation or jurisdiction has yet to govern how, when, and what is permitted to use AI. The government encourages all fields to explore, develop and utilize it to create more business opportunities. Did you know a new government task, the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative, was undertaken? Their goal is to monitor and implement the United States National AI Strategy. Throughout this article, I will explore where AI is going and how it affects people in the Actors Guild and the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers).
No surprise that AI has been a hot topic, to say the least, regarding people’s privacy, and safety, not to mention the potential for job loss in many sectors. Now that phone call you receive that appears to come from a panicky relative or friend may be a scam devised by the new marvel of artificial intelligence. The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) urges people not to share anything they would not with strangers, as this is a clever scheme. They may pretend to be your immediate family, relative, or friend who appears to be calling for help, such as money. Still, they are a terrible actor after stealing your money or, worse, your identity.
Thus, I recommend you don’t say hello after answering your phone if you don’t recognize the number. They can still spoof the number, but some don’t go through all that effort. They hope you, a family member or a friend will answer and say hello. Unfortunately, these bad actors may grab audio files from posts you have made on social media to be used in their plan. If the person calling asks you to send them money via wire, ACH, cryptocurrency, or a gift card, hang up immediately and call the person you know back to see if it was them.
I was home alone in grammar school and received a distressing call saying my parents were in the hospital because of an accident. The person on the phone, who was not my parents, asked that I call them right back to get more information. I didn’t think twice before writing down the number, hanging up, and immediately calling back. However, the bad actor at that time didn’t use a voice disguise but the intensity of the moment that I would react, which I did. They gave me a 900 number, and when I called, I got a recording to remain on the line. Something didn’t seem right; thus, I called my parents on their cell phones and verified they were ok. Later that month, when the phone bill came, there was a charge on there for $1500.00, which we disputed with the phone company, and they reversed the order.
Did you know bad actors use machine learning to clone someone’s voice quickly? Next, they combine the voice clone with social engineering techniques to convince people to transfer or move money where it should not be. The quality of the voice may not be perfect, but it sounds as if it did come from a human and easily confuses people. The first report of deep fake audio was first reported in 2019 when a chief executive of a UK energy firm was conned into sending 220,000lbs or 240,000 dollars to a Hungarian supplier after receiving a phone call that pretended to be the CEO of his parent’s company in Germany.
Again, if you get someone that calls you and asks for money to be sent, hang up immediately and call the person back they say they are. However, if they are highly sophisticated, there is the probability of you reaching that bad actor since they may have temporarily rerouted phone calls back to them. In this case, I always recommend having a passphrase that you set up with your executive management team or family that only you and they know. Keep this private from everyone or post it online or in an e-mail at any time, which should be changed every three months.
According to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, deep fakes are surfacing with consumers and businesses to persuade people to transfer money and with professional actors. A deep fraud is an impersonation of a human via voice, video, or even facial recognition to verify a person via an image. The problem is that now actors’ guilds and associations have been creating a digital replica of the actor without their permission. Studios will now be required to obtain an actor’s consent before making a replica of the actor’s voice, video, or any other attribute showing their likeliness. Unfortunately, so far, their idea is the following. I quote, “They propose that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get paid for one day’s pay, and their company should own that scan of their image, their likeness, and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity,” said Crabtree-Ireland. So, if you think that’s a groundbreaking proposal, I suggest you think again.”
The AMPTP said that SAG-AFTRA’s claim of digital replicas of actors might be used indefinitely without paying further compensation so long as it is used for the current motion picture the actor was employed for. Other use of that replica would require the actor’s consent and or a respective payment if required to the studios by the actor. Furthermore, The SAG-AFTRA has been on strike for over two months, and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA, represents many other actors.
Did you know this was the first-time television performers have been on strike since 1980? In short, the actors want a new agreement with the AMTP to cover streaming and safeguards from digital technologies. According to a recent interview on CNBC, Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger said, and I quote, “actors and writers alike were not being "realistic" in their expectations. It's very disturbing to me. We've talked about disruptive forces on this business and all the challenges we're facing, the recovery from Covid, which is ongoing; it's not completely back," he said in part. "This is the worst time in the world to add to that disruption."
Thus, I have said it before, and I will say again that AI (Artificial Intelligence) will change the shape of the world’s landscape whether we like it or not. Consumers, business owners, and legislators need to do all we can to make a plan to safeguard what AI can and can’t do and under what conditions.
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