Hollywood Stars Ask Trump to Save Them From AI
You want to read a story that can actually make you taste your favorite ice cream? This is the one, and it’s hilarious. Artificial Intelligence is one of the big issues right now – certainly for the country and even the world, but specifically for Hollywood. The writers’ and actors’ strikes of 2023 happened in large part because the creative elements of the movie industry are afraid of being replaced by AI through programs like ChatGPT to write scripts or DeepFake to replace expensive actors (probably not those exact ones, but something like them). The creatives wanted to control the use of AI, to be able to use it without having the studios replace them with it, which sort of feels like having your cake and eating it, too. But I get it; it’s a battle for survival, and in a social climate that is increasingly sick and tired of these self-righteous boors and their increasingly lousy product, they’re understandably worried. Now that the government is considering how to proceed with AI, and we have an America-first President who wants us to lead the way on emerging technology, the entertainment world is once again scared – so scared that a letter signed by 400 Hollywood people has been sent to President Trump. This letter asks the President not to allow AI companies – particularly Google and OpenAI – to get around copyright laws and use AI to replicate copyrighted material without permission.
On the issue at hand, I don’t think AI should be able to run roughshod over copyrighted work or use an actor’s likeness without getting permission if it’s going to be used to make money. But to be fair, according to Variety, the AI companies don’t seem to want to do that; they’re talking about existing exemptions to copyright law like fair use so they can innovate the technology itself. As such, clarifying what AI companies can and cannot do in relation to copyright law should satisfy both sides, provided the creatives are on the level and merely want to maintain their current protections and AI companies really want to stay within the rules and innovate. But that’s not what makes this so much fun; what makes it fun is watching these bitter, angry, smug, condescending, Trump-hating narcissists have to grovel before him and ask him to protect them from the big, bad computer nerds after insisting that he’s the most evil man who ever lived and will pull them into the darkness and eat them if they leave their legs dangling over their beds while the lights are out. I mean, look at some of the people who signed it: Ben Stiller, who stumped for Kamala Harris during the election; Mark Ruffalo, who just starred in a movie where he played a caricature of Trump as an evil, stupid, would-be dictator; Bette Midler, who makes Trump-induced social media tirades an art form; Judd Apatow, who recently told anyone who voted for President Trump that God would judge them and cursed out Telsa owners; Ava DuVernay, who called Trump and Elon Musk criminals whose freedom is reflective of America’s racism; Olivia Wilde, who protested Trump Tower with Ruffalo and called Trump a bunch of names while declaring she hates him “with all [her] guts” on Instagram; and… you get the idea. If they were just people who disliked or disagreed with President Trump, or any politician, I don’t think anyone would care. But these people are so hateful that they go after regular people for supporting him, and they delight in using their platforms to admonish anyone who disagrees with them. They even address the letter to no one in particular to pretend they’re not talking to the President: “Hello Friends & Strangers.” (If ever there were an argument for replacing Hollywood writers with AI, that would be it.) To see them now having to ask Trump for help, to essentially save their careers and their very industry, is one of the most satisfying things to come from his election. And unlike pretty much every comedy that’s come out in the last God-knows-how-long, it’s funny.
Let us know what you think of Hollywood asking President Trump to save them from AI in the comments!
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Comments (1)
Agree with the column. How many time did Hollywood vilify Southerners or Midwesterners using their likeness to put them down? Also, if they were so special and so professional, there would be no fear, they would just out compete them in content and story and plot and characters but that’s where the fear really comes from. They had tight control and now, they won’t and better writers are only going to be equipped with better tools to produce programming themselves. In a way, it’s already like that as youtube channels get bigger ratings that shows. They are whining but it’s over. They are in the past. If they even show up on the radar, it means they are still relevant somehow but the future happened already and the future is now and it was predicted that one day, filmmakers would be able to produce from their desktops so instead of Desktop Publishing, it would be Desktop Production of movies and shows. The documentaries being done are already better than Michael Moore or Rob Reiner. This is why you hear bizarre comments about how some say the economy works best when only a few have broad control. Works best for who though? These people had the privilege of barriers to entry into the business and no that walls are falling and strongholds are breaking and captive audiences are being set free, they are crying.
I am curious about Stiller’s Pickleball comedy. Hoping it will be good. I think it will. He still has some good content now and then. DeNiro could be replaced at just about any time. He got to play so many characters, but there is a lack of honesty how those mobsters all went into banking and are stealing and looting the nations via their oligarch status as we speak and trying to get people to accept owning nothing and being happy, so why would anyone have even a shred of compassion for them? They are looking to gut you like fishes and they did for generations, and for longer than we’ve been alive, they had privileges we never had and they accused suburbia of it.