SAG-AFTRA And WGA Fears About AI Are Warranted

Christopher Nolan compares entertainment companies and AI to the ethical dilemmas nuclear scientists faced in Oppenheimer.

At a recent Q&A following a screening of Oppenheimer, the film’s writer-director Christopher Nolan drew comparisons between the ethical issues nuclear scientists confronted when developing the atom bomb and concerns about the entertainment companies embracing the use of AI.

Via Deadline:

“When you innovate through technology, you have to make sure there is accountability. A lot of companies for 15 years have bandied about terms like ‘algorithm,’ not knowing what they really mean in any meaningful, technical sense. These guys don’t really know what an algorithm is or what it does. People in my business talking about it, they just don’t want to take responsibility for whatever that algorithm does. Applied to AI, it has terrifying possibilities. Terrifying.”

He didn’t name specific companies, but the 15-year timeframe points directly to the initial direct-to-consumer streamers, Netflix and Amazon. (Apple, Facebook and others were well under way with their own algorithmic forays by that time as well.) Panel moderator Chuck Todd had also prompted Nolan’s digression into union strife by suggesting that Nolan screen the film for a Silicon Valley audience.

Traditional media companies have also jumped into the data-driven streaming race, of course. Nolan became the personification of that disruption in 2020, cutting ties with Warner Bros over its parent company’s decision to put its film slate on HBO Max at the same time they opened in theaters.

If any tech execs or entrepreneurs do watch the film, Nolan said, “I want them to take away the notion of accountability.”

The emergence of AI certainly feels like an inflection point similar in impact as the development of atomic weapons. I mean for all we know, we could be in Chapter 1 of this post-apocalyptic nightmare:

But before we are forced to say hello to our AI overlords, we have more pressing concerns. That word Nolan uses — “accountability” — drives home a big difference between the scientists depicted in Oppenheimer who grappled with massive ethical questions about the development and use atomic power … and our current AMPTP member companies CEOs beholden to their Wall Street overlords. I mean, given how these C-suite multimillionaires have treated writers and actors during the so-called contract “negotiations,” then during the strike, is there any chance at all ethical concerns about AI and accountability in its use has ever come up as a point of discussion? Hell, these are the same people who just trimmed trees just outside the Universal lot to deprive picketing workers from having shade from the blazing hot sun.

Who trims trees in the summer? Such a mean-spirited thing to do.

Which underscores the point: The only way the companies will end up with any sort of constraints in using AI is going to derive from pressure put on them by striking WGA and SAG-AFTRA members. In other words, forced accountability.

And the long hot strike summer continues.

For the rest of the Deadline article, go here.

For the latest updates on the strike and news resources, go here.

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