Netflix Offers $900,000 a Year for AI Manager, and Hollywood Actors Shudder — Why?

Last Updated on 08/07/2023 by てんしょく飯

Netflix Offers $900,000 Annual Salary for AI Manager Job, Hollywood Actors Tremble

While the massive strike by the Hollywood labor union of screenwriters and actors shows no signs of abating, the transformation of the industry through AI is accelerating.

The investigative news media “Intercept” is making waves by reporting that video distribution giant Netflix is offering up to $900,000 a year for the position of “AI product manager” in the midst of this strike.

The discrepancy is stark, as nearly 90% of the actors participating in the strike reportedly earn less than $26,000 a year, which does not even qualify them for health insurance.

Adding to this, Netflix’s current sci-fi drama has an episode about the tragedy of “actors selling out their digital likenesses,” which is helping to drive the company’s AI job impact.

Netflix is not alone. Disney’s programming division also opened a job opening for a senior vice president of innovation, including AI, in the midst of the strike.

Hollywood has been rapidly making use of AI, unleashing a sci-fi epic in which AI will destroy the world, and having actors who are already deceased appear in new films.

The AI casts a big shadow over Hollywood actors.

●AI is used to produce superior content.

Machine learning/artificial intelligence is driving innovation in all areas of (Netflix’s) business. This includes everything from buying and producing great content and helping members choose the right titles through personalization to optimizing payment processing and other revenue-focused strategies.

Netflix’s job posting, “Product Manager – Machine Learning Platform,” described it as such.

Ken Klippenstein of The Intercept discussed the job in a July 25 article, which includes “creating great content” through “machine learning/artificial intelligence.”

The job made the news because it was in the midst of the first major joint Hollywood strike by the Screenwriters Guild of America (WGA, 11,500 members) and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA, 160,000 members) since 1960, reportedly the first in 63 years.

The job offer stated that the compensation was “between $300,000 and $900,000”.

Meanwhile, according to the SAG-AFTRA survey, the income level of the actors is much lower.

Only 12.7% of all union members meet the minimum annual income of $26,470 to qualify for health insurance. The remaining 87.3% earn less than that.

According to Variety’s summary, the top income ranking for movie stars in 2022 is $100 million for “Top Gun Maverick” star Tom Cruise.

But most actors are not associated with that kind of income.

The fear that their current income will be threatened by AI is behind the first major joint strike in 63 years.

By simple arithmetic, the maximum annual salary of $900,000 for one AI product manager recruited by Netflix is equivalent to the annual health insurance eligibility of 34 actors in the union.

The Intercept’s report caused a stir, and after the article was published, Netflix removed from the job description the phrase “purchase or production of superior content” as a use case for AI, among other things.

But the ripples don’t stop with the company’s job openings.

The very threat of AI that the unions point out is being portrayed in a drama being distributed by Netflix.

●Concerns about “digital replicas

Actors consider “Black Mirror’s” “Joan is a Terrible Person” to be a documentary about the future. A future where their portraits are sold off and used as producers and film companies see fit. We want a clear path. The studios just say, “Trust us. We can’t trust them.

In a July 10 article on the news site Deadline, one of SAG-AFTRA’s members was interviewed.

The union decided on the historic strike three days later.

The union member is commenting on the first episode “Joan is a Terrible Person,” the first episode of season 6 of the sci-fi drama series “Black Mirror,” which Netflix has been distributing since June.

The episode is about Salma Hayek, known for her role in “Frida” and other films (and even Cate Blanchett, who appears only in still images), and other cameo actors who have given the video distribution company permission to use “digital replicas,” which causes the AI-produced drama to The film depicts a dystopia.

Union members call it a “documentary of the future” because digital replicas of actors are one of the focal points of negotiations between the producers’ trade group, the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers of America (AMPTP), and the labor union, SAG-AFTRA.

The producers have stated in the negotiations that they have proposed digital portrait rights protection that would require “the consent of the performer to the creation, use, or substitution of a digital replica.

The union, on the other hand, claimed that they were going to scan an extra performer for a day’s payment and use it forever, which the producers countered as “false. The union demanded “consent and remuneration each time” by the performers for the creation and modification of digital replicas.

● Deceased performers appear in new productions

In Hollywood, there have been cases of deceased actors who have already been digitized being resurrected to appear in new productions.

In the 2016 spin-off of the “Star Wars” series, “Rogue One,” the late Peter Cushing (d. 1994) played Governor Tarkin, commander of the Death Star following the first film, “Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope” (1977), The late Peter Cushing (d. 1994), who played the Death Star commander, Governor Tarkin, following “Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope” (1977), has been revived by motion capture and CG.

Also, actor Bruce Willis, whose retirement was announced in March 2022 due to aphasia, appeared in a commercial for a Russian telecommunications company in August 2021, the year before, using AI-based “deepfakes” technology to replace his facial image. The actual acting was done by a Russian actor.

The Daily Mail reported in September 2022 that “Mr. Willis sold the rights to the digital twin (reproduction)” over this performance, but Mr. Willis denies this report. However, it is not clear what the actual arrangement was between the commercial production company and Mr. Willis’ side.

Furthermore, Mr. Val Kilmer, who appeared in the 2022 release of “Top Gun Maverick,” the first sequel in 36 years, lost his voice in 2014 due to laryngeal cancer surgery. However, based on past voice data, Mr. Kilmer’s voice was recreated by AI in the play.

Extra actors have also been streamlined by AI technology.

In the Apple TV+ comedy-drama “Ted Lasso: The Unlikely Coach Goes,” dozens of digital replicas of actors were used to fill a soccer stadium auditorium at a time when the number of extras was limited by the Corona disaster.

Meanwhile, the ethics surrounding the use of AI are also being questioned.

In July 2021, questions erupted over the documentary film “The Roadrunner” about the late famous American chef Anthony Bourdain, in which he had AI-generated voices read out and inserted emails and other information from his life.

These instances are also paper-thin, with the “Black Mirror” episodes.

● Even at Disney.

Netflix is not alone in hiring executives related to AI.

Disney Branded Television, which is responsible for the production of Disney+ and other programs, also announced a job opening for the position of senior vice president of post-production innovation as of July 28, during the massive strike.

The description indicates a division of responsibility “to be at the forefront of technological developments such as AI.

Concerns about “digital replicas” spread among Hollywood actors as a real threat.

And the concern is not likely to be limited to Hollywood.