Entertainment Industry Has High Anxiety About Generative AI: Survey

Many U.S. entertainment industry workers have strong concerns about if and how generative AI technology will affect their role, company, industry and broader cultural environment, according to an exclusive Variety Intelligence Platform survey conducted by YouGov.

Over a third (36%) of entertainment workers surveyed in late June were “very” or “somewhat concerned” about the impact gen AI will have on their own jobs. For context, respondent awareness of gen AI is high, with 87% at least aware of tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney, while two-thirds (65%) claim some knowledge of the technology (explored in depth in the recent VIP+ special report Generative AI & Entertainment).

Among generative AI’s possible negative outcomes for the industry, the majority of professionals were either “very” or “somewhat” concerned about IP infringement across copyright, trademark and right of publicity; job losses due to employers’ use of gen AI; and cybersecurity and data privacy.

Equally damning, 43% believe the use of generative AI will hurt the quality of the entertainment industry’s creative output, in contrast to 16% who feel it would improve.

This industry moment is particularly fraught as gen AI’s rise coincides with expiring union contracts and negotiations with the studios, as the WGA, DGA and SAG-AFTRA each respectively demand new contract language that provides clarity, protections and restrictions on the use of generative AI regarding employment terms with writers, directors and actors.

Writers Guild of America: Nine weeks since their previous contract expired, striking WGA writers remain at a standstill with studios on their particular AI demands.

Directors Guild of America: The DGA ratified its new contract June 23, taking effect July 1. The agreement provides some guidance on AI, stating it isn’t a “person,” can’t take over ordinary duties of directors, and that studios can’t use AI without consulting directors.

SAG-AFTRA: The union and the AMPTP extended their current contract to July 12 to allow more time for negotiations. On June 5, guild actors had voted 98% in favor of authorizing a strike if both sides failed to reach an acceptable deal. On June 27, the actors sent an internal letter to union leaders, with over 1,000 signatures including many A-listers, demanding that the negotiations protect actor likenesses and ensure actors are compensated when any of their past work is used to train AI.

SEE ALSO: Studio Transparency Critical in WGA Battle Over AI

Given the pace of change, a multiyear contract that lays out studios’ permitted AI use in vague or noncomprehensive terms seems likely to age quickly or lose any protective value it might’ve held.

Driving some concerns are the number of unknowns surrounding gen AI’s future capabilities, legality and use or misuse. As AI models rapidly improve, so will AI software’s capabilities to produce material at human-level creative skill.

The future capabilities of generative AI, and when they will reach certain competency levels, are hard to predict. But there is clear and mounting evidence that gen AI is already effective for some uses.

Asked to select various creative tasks they believed gen AI will be able to accomplish effectively in the next two to three years, entertainment workers were most likely to identify ones these tools are now demonstrably capable of, if not currently used in practice or trial already, including creating realistic sound effects for film, TV or games (58% of workers); autocompleting code to assist game programming (54%); and developing artwork for film, TV or game storyboards (52%).

Notably, AI still has many flaws and reasons to forestall industry use, including for studios — not least of which includes murkiness around intellectual property law as it pertains to AI training data (input) and generated material (output). But that’s not exactly stopping companies across creative industries in the business of content from contemplating just how these tools might help them create new kinds of efficiencies.

SEE ALSO: How Content, Marketing Execs Can Use AI 'Simulation'

Of course, not all generative AI uses in the industry need be wholesale disenfranchising for human creatives. Indeed, some presumably stand to benefit human workers in certain roles, such as by automating rote or time-consuming manual VFX tasks to be able to deliver high-quality work faster.

Entertainment workers are starting to use gen AI tools or expect they or their company will. Nearly a third (30%) of U.S. entertainment industry professionals workers said they, their team or their company are either currently using gen AI (13%) or planned to (17%).

Some AI misuses impacting industry workers will take legal or regulatory fixes to address and shield against, likely requiring a complicated years-long effort as lawsuits are waged and legal and regulatory frameworks strive to catch up to the technology globally.

But robust union protections will be a meaningful, likely first, line of defense against damage or labor unfairness that could result from studio employers’ or workplace uses of AI.

See our full catalog of artificial intelligence articles ...