Survey Shows Entertainment Industry Anxious About AI

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes further integrated across a wide segment of industries, there’s one particular sector that recently expressed increased anxiety in a recent survey — namely, the entertainment industry.

The survey, put together by Variety, showed that nearly one-third, or 36% of those surveyed were “very” or “somewhat concerned” about the impact specifically generative AI will have on their jobs.

Some of the greatest concerns shown were in regard to intellectual property (IP) protections, something several major guilds have called protests to raise awareness for and to get terms on the table for renegotiation. Other groups on strike include the Directors Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA.

In the case of SAG-AFTRA, an internal letter with over 1,000 signatures including from many A-listers, was sent to union leaders, demanding protections for actor likenesses and compensation for when any past work is used to train AI systems.

It’s not just A-listers who are concerned though — when survey participants were asked if they feared that “Generative AI will be used for intellectual property infringement,” nearly 50 percent responded that they were “very concerned” it would.

Interestingly enough however, some actors like Tom Hanks appear to be excited by the idea of AI, stating that “What is a bona fide possibility right now is, if I wanted to, I could get together and pitch a series of seven movies that would star me in them in which I would be 32 years old from now until kingdom come,” he shared in a May interview on the topic.

That being said, the beloved actor also expressed that there is much legal work to be done before it is an equitable option and that “there is discussions going on in all of the guilds, all of the agencies, and all of the legal firms in order to come up with the legal ramifications of my face and my voice and everybody else’s being our intellectual property.”

In related news, see this week’s Tech Roundup which.