From WXXI news.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection.

This offer is made in the contract offer to the next big Hollywood star.

Tillie Norwood is the target for a number of talent agencies who say they might want to represent Norwood.

They see Tilly Norwood as potentially the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman.

But there's a twist here.

Tillie Norwood is not a human being.

I would say she, but I don't even feel comfortable saying she.

It really is an artificial intelligence creation.

The product of a Dutch AI lab that believes artificial intelligence movie stars are a big part of the future.

And maybe that's true.

After all, when Carrie Fisher died, the Star Wars franchise used A.I.

to keep her character involved in the next Star Wars installments.

There was no great backlash when that happened, but this seems different to me.

The attempted creation of a movie star from scratch, with a name and a look and a personality, even an Instagram feed.

There are questions about what the industry is going to do about this.

Already a wave of actors are speaking out against Tillie Norwood.

The technology.

But what about us as the viewing public?

What will we say about it?

What lines will we draw?

I'm tempted to go back to the ideas of Jimmy Highsmith, who was on this program recently talking about AI and music creation and the term he uses is synthetic music versus music.

What do we want?

Well, we're going to talk about that this hour with our guests in studio.

Let me welcome Jay Simmons, who is an actor, director and educator and acting coach, a fight choreographer.

I mean, all the cool things.

Yeah, I get to do a lot of fun and a real person and a real person.

Yeah.

Welcome to you.

Thank you so much.

Nice to have you.

Reuben Jay Tapp is with us, artistic director of theater Nuff see, a member of the Bronze Collective and a local voiceover artist with Vision Point Media.

Also a real human.

Welcome to you.

Thank you.

Nice to have you.

And welcome on the line to Robert Thompson is professor of popular culture and founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Pop Culture at Syracuse University.

Welcome back to the program, sir.

Thank you for having me.

And it's good to have Bob.

And it's good to have Nicole Sherrill with us as well.

An actor, chair of the Sag-Aftra performers with Disabilities Committee in Los Angeles and vice chair of the Sag-Aftra performers with Disabilities Committee National there.

Nicole, welcome.

Thanks for being back with us.

Oh, thanks for having me back.

So a lot of different places to go with this.

Bob, your time is a little shorter than the rest of the guest.

So I'm going to start with you.

Is there a difference between Star Wars keeping Carrie Fisher's character alive, Princess Leia alive after she passes during filming, and the creation of Tilly Norwood from scratch, trying to convince us all that this is the next big star.

Are those two different things in your mind?

Oh, they are, although I think it's a spectrum from, you know, the actual physical in time and space existence of something through its representation and maybe animation or whatever else.

I guess the Carrie Fisher thing is a little closer to that end of reality than, something that's on, on the other side.

You know, I should start off saying I'm an old guy.

I'm 66.

This stuff gives me the creeps in profound kinds of, kinds of ways.

On the other hand, I think some of the ways in which we're responding to it, have to be looked at from a historical perspective.

One could, I guess, say that all of new technologies, new ways of, of doing things, and telling stories from the very beginning have been disturbing to others.

I suppose you could make the argument that the very art of acting was a new way of getting to truth, of of, telling stories, whatever.

Where we take people and they pretend to be people they aren't, whether that's Helen of Troy or whether it's, one of the, you know, harpies.

Whatever, actors made this big jump that they were going to be something other than they are.

The argument that people keep giving now is animation, CGI.

These are, taking the place of what may have once been, actual, actors.

However, those things have all been absorbed into the ever evolving art of storytelling.

So I am willing to, acknowledge that this bothers me in very significant sorts of ways.

I think in some ways it seems positively unnatural.

At the same time, I'm also willing to see that what this AI stuff is going to be capable of doing when it can fully absorb the contents of a mind.

What books it's read, what places have gone, and everything.

Is going to be a creative force that has has to be reckoned with.

I remember when I was a young, person just getting into this field.

Max Headroom was kind of the early idea of what, this was going to be.

And he had his own talk show.

No, he was, of course, voiced by a human being, Matt Frewer.

But, he, he supported New Coke.

Look where that went.

And, then he ultimately had his own ABC, show.

I think of that spike Jones, film her.

We're going to actually need to start telling stories about artificial intelligence beings.

And I suppose the best people to portray those are going to be artificial intelligence.

At some point, we're going to look back at her and say, I can't believe they let a good eye roll go to a human, when in fact there would be plenty of they could have played it.

Now, I'm kidding about that.

But it's worth thinking about now, Bob, that's a dystopia in future that seems absolutely inevitable and awful.

So let me ask the other guests here, and I'm going to ask our guests in studio, and I'm going to ask Nicole to talk a little bit about what Sag-Aftra has been saying, which I think is a series of really important, and very relevant things as we talk about Tilly Norwood.

You're not going to hear me say she was Tilly Norwood.

She implies anthropomorphism or whatever that word is.

I mean, I don't think we should be doing that.

I think it's an it.

It is an AI creation.

But here, Jay Simmons, here's how the Dutch lab that created Lily Norwood defends its creation.

That's, the Dutch actor producer Allana van der Velden, whose London based AI production studio particle six created Tilly Norwood, said recently that after months of facing boardroom skepticism, talent agents are now telling her we need to do something with you guys, and that she said that they are coming out of the woodwork to say that this is the future for a lot of different reasons.

And she thinks a and a talent agency deal for Lily, Tilly Norwood is just a few months away, so she thinks it's filling a need that studios are going to say that they have.

What do you say to that?

I, I honestly, I'm I'm completely opposed to it, and I don't know what need that would be paying fewer humans.

Yeah.

Just because we have a lot of, capable humans and people that have made their whole lives around this.

One of the things that, you know, I had mentioned to you was, I really feel like this is plagiarism of people and of actors who have worked their whole lives.

I mean, some have spent tons of money to go to school to do this.

Some have just spent their whole lives doing this.

Tell me why plagiarism?

I think this is important to me.

Why?

Because you're you're literally in order for the AI to be informed on technique.

Informed on performance, they're they're taking all the things that collective they've seen by real people, and they're processing it through whatever filter.

I mean, I'm not a technological guy, but processing it through whatever filter there is and then spitting out, reused performances and reused experiences.

And also a lot of actors go through a lot of I won't go as far as to call it trauma, but maybe in some cases it it is where we put ourselves in places that are unsafe and, you know, and something comes along and it literally just the, the experiences that we've had to share with other people and be vulnerable.

It it is sterile.

I don't, I, I don't understand the word need.

If you wanted to make a whole I, you know, series, I mean, there's animated series, there's things like that.

I can see that, but to also have an A-list, quote unquote, celebrity who has done nothing, really spits in the face of true art, in my opinion.

Yeah.

And so if you take Reuben J. Tap's voice, you know, Reuben is someone who's done a lot of voiceover work, and he.

You might say, I love that voice.

I'm going to steal it for this new production.

I'm doing it.

I'm not going to tell Reuben, and I'm hoping he's not going to find out.

And it's Ruben's actual voice.

That's a very easy case to see that it's theft or plagiarism or all of the above.

And that's actionable by law, no question about it.

Whereas to what Jay is saying is, when I takes a source material that is, I don't know, the existing internet, every book, every written, you can give it 30 years worth of movies.

You could give it 30 years worth of plays.

When you put that in, you're not going to be able to instantly, or maybe even ever understand why it spits out what it spits out, whether it's a book, a poem or what.

Tilly Norwood how quote unquote, Tilly Norwood would portray a scene, but it is based on existing work.

It's just harder to trace.

And, you know, I don't know.

Nicole is the SAG after I think that's actionable in the same way that if I ripped off Reuben, it would be obviously actionable.

Can you is there a way to to battle this in court?

Actually, yes.

And there's a lot of things that have been said that we've already talked about and we already know.

First of all, I love Max headroom.

I did it.

That was performance capture.

That was and I'm sorry, I can't remember his name right now, but that was an actor doing the voice and doing performance capture.

They were modeling Max headroom after his actual performance, so we also don't refer to the AI creation of Charlie Norwood as an actor.

It is a synthetic.

It is absolutely Harry Fisher.

There's the key right there.

Carrie Fisher's character of Princess Leia was done with consent and compensation to her family, to her estate.

It was not that they just made Princess Leia.

They did it with consent and compensation.

And not only that, they did it.

And going back to that training conversation by training the AI software with Carrie's work.

So it was Carrie's training, training, her performances that created that character.

Right?

So to that conversation, we have, it is not original, it is plagiarism.

It is taking our work and training the AI.

And when you look at things like this, what they can do is say, we want Meryl Streep, give us an actor that is reminiscent of Meryl Streep, but is 22 years old and have the comedic stylings of Martin Short.

It can do that and create a perceived original creation, but it is not original.

It is Meryl Streep, Martin Short, and whoever they modeled the look after.

So when we can look at their prompts, which is something we talk about in negotiations and have said publicly and we can look at their prompts, we know what they're using to create this synthetic, and we can go through courts and we need things like the no Fakes Act, and we are working on those things to get that control.

And then it goes down to the ability to watermark the data so that we can trace where that A.I.

source material is coming from.

So there's a lot going on and a lot that we're doing both inside the union with negotiations and with the law and with the government to try and create things like the No Fakes Act and other pieces that we're working on, other legislation.

There's a lot going on that we can talk about that.

And when you talk about agents representing fully Norwood.

Well, they won't that's not a thing because Tillie Norwood is not a person.

The agents would have to represent the company that created and runs the AI software.

So it's a whole different conversation and we are planning upcoming talks with the agents are not planning.

We have upcoming talks with the agents to discuss how that's going to work.

Because look, there are going to be people that want to watch AI.

They're they're going to they find it fascinating.

They find a curious, but that is not going to replace the connection that the audience creates with an actor that's not going to you're not going to have AI conventions where people come to hear their favorite actors talk about what it was like shooting the show.

They're not going to replace us, right?

They may take some of our jobs.

And as someone in voiceover, I do a lot of voiceovers.

The disabled performer, we know they're already coming for us.

Yeah, we absolutely know that.

And it's unfortunate.

And there's a lot of other things to discuss when it comes to AI and synthetics and what they can do with it.

And things are terrifying because wormwood isn't the first synthetic that has been out there.

The first one that caught on.

Why?

Ask yourself why?

It's a young woman.

Okay, this is making me uncomfortable, but there's a lot of truth there.

And, let me ask Ruben.

Jay, Tab and I, we didn't try to queue up a panel of people just to post this.

I don't know anybody besides maybe the studio heads who think this is a good idea, but, maybe they exist.

I don't know that it's you, Ruben.

How do you feel about this?

What was your first reaction to the Charlie Norwood story?

I thought when I, when I, when I saw it, I, I was curious in terms of where they, the direction that they were, they were looking at going because, oftentimes with, with technology.

I know some people say that technology is neutral, but oftentimes it mimics, our social and cultural and economic systems and so just looking at where it is, where, where that's going.

And so at some point, the, the personnel or the companies are going to have to figure out some type of, economic thing because they almost seems like a race to the bottom, similar to how Napster was when people started copying different, different things.

And so with this, it seems it seems similar, in, in terms of if, certain people's, professions or the certain, I guess, skills that that, Jay has had mentioned that they had going through their life to, to acquire, if it's about a portion of it is able to be copied.

Then what would prevent someone from copying the, the copying?

So it's.

Yeah.

And all of a sudden, how do you even get compensated for the work that you did?

Correct.

As a creator.

Correct.

I mean, like, and I know that's a big part of what Sag-Aftra is concerned about.

It's a big part of what The New York Times, what authors are concerned about when AI is creating this stuff.

They're not doing it from whole cloth.

Nicole is not wrong about that.

But do you think anybody's going to compensate you if your voice is in the mix, there is someone going to call you and be like, Ruben, we're going to give you 1/100 of the income of this, this AI creation, because your voice was one of the sampling materials that this AI program used.

Do you ever expect that to happen?

No.

And it's hard to find sometimes.

It's hard to even find a copy or when you are being used in general.

So to say nothing of AI, right?

To say nothing of AI.

Yeah.

And so in in this instance, when the.

Yeah, it is being gathered by so many different sources, potentially so many different sources and mixed in and things of that sort.

So how, how are you able to say my voice is being used this this way as opposed to this person's over here and just, just artists as far as streaming there.

They're finding that out.

Now, as for it, well, they've been finding it out in terms of getting their, their, their royalties and things of that sort.

So the same the same way you want to edit that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I actually I, I don't know why this, it's it's an adjacent add on.

I thought of the comment that the gentleman said about, you know, people having having artificial people and having other people come and look at those people who are portraying people.

And there's a there's a realm for that.

I, I remember growing up with, like, the lawnmower Man with Russell Crowe, and he played a program and, you know, those types of things.

Again, I just don't see you once, once something is emulating or or trying to copy.

There's no way to track to compensate.

As actors, we fight for compensation all the time.

Royalties, things like that.

People don't know that.

You know, certain things.

We we don't get compensated on.

You see, a commercial multiple times, we may have only gotten a flat rate versus residuals.

There's a lot of things that especially local.

Yeah, especially.

Well, East Coast, the West Coast is a very different thing too.

And so like, you know, if you're an East Coast, worker, you're used to commercial work or you're used to payouts buyouts versus, West Coast, which is residual.

And so, you know, there's a lot of stuff to that, that there's no way to, to track at a certain point.

And, and I don't know if that's, that's one I think we're getting away from art as well.

If we're trying to track who did what.

Because this is a collective Reuben.

I have actually been in shows together.

We have worked together on stage.

We worked together off stage, our shared experience together.

Those are things that you can't replicate.

And there is, certain thing that, you know, we've done a lot of things that you didn't didn't pay great.

But they added to our repertoire, they added to our education.

They added to our our method at approach to acting or directing.

And you're just pressing go and, and, you know, I saw a snippet where it said, it's going to cut 90% of costs for people or studio costs.

And it's like, well, yeah, because you're not paying anybody anything.

Yeah.

You know, like it's done.

It's just a set a Wag the Dog is another one of those ones where they just like put things together.

I think also really quick that I to me when I see special effects used, even in movies where I know someone can't do that, it takes me out of it and it and it and it breaks that connection.

I want to see people go through something.

I want to know that someone struggled.

I want to know that somebody put hard work.

That's what makes the experience interesting to me, to go, wow, this live actor just like rode on the underside of a horse that whole way, like did their own stunts.

It just it takes away everything.

If we if we push that go button and then the question for me becomes Bob Thompson, who wants it.

So as a, I guess as just one guy who doesn't want it, I'm too naive here because I realize somebody will like this stuff.

Someone will see the Tillie Norwood Instagram feed and be like, I to check that out every day.

I would like to meet these people and I would want to understand what's going on in there.

Yeah, but you know, I mean, but but what does the public want it it it's I mean, what it is, is changing.

I mean, I has developed since this conversation started, this probably so I think we're at this point these, you know, we're still thinking of A.I.

as these things with seven fingers and, all of that kind of stuff, but that's, that's getting, that's getting fixed up when the distinctions can't be made anymore.

What is the effect of AI versus the IT of what was there before?

There's a couple of things I think we should clarify, by the way.

I feel like I should preface every sentence.

This stuff gives me the creeps.

I don't like it.

Very, very disturbing to me.

However, there's a couple of things that I think we should make a distinction.

Compensation and consent.

Those are issues of commerce, not issues of art.

And I do think we ought to make a distinction before copyrights, before people even thought of the idea of, plagiarism.

Some very fine art lifted an awful lot of stuff from other things and, made masterpieces.

Shakespeare was borrowing from all, kinds of stuff, and we like, Shakespeare.

So what art does and what, is correct up in terms of compensation and consent can be two different things.

That's number one.

Number two, this issue of plagiarism.

Once again, I don't like this stuff.

It disturbs me.

It's creepy.

This issue of plagiarism, we all to some extent, whether we're actors, whether we are teachers, whether we're scholars, are taking from the sum total of the experiences we've had.

And that includes the books we've read, that includes the places we've gone, the movies we've seen.

The way I teach every day is ripping off from the learning I did from all of the great teachers I really like.

The way I use my language is ripping off from books that I, that I really like.

My love of alliteration came straight out of Melville.

I mean, to an extent, I am an I without an a, but I am.

I have gone through the same process of being fed all this stuff, and then I'm regurgitating it.

And by the way, I never sent the check to Herman Melville's state.

I never sent the check to any of the teachers that I've, that I've had.

But I think what I've come up with has been something unique.

And I think I is going to be able to do this one last thing, and then I will shut up the fact that you won't refer to, these creations with any pronoun besides it.

Let's just take.

Oh, I don't know, J. Gatsby.

Jay Gatsby doesn't exist.

Jay Gatsby is fake.

Jay Gatsby is not a person in any sense of the word.

Yet we are more than happy to give Jay Gatsby the pronoun of he.

We we act as though he is a creation, even though he came out of the head of a human being.

I, for all of its problems and for all of the fact that, like nuclear weapons, I wish we just had never invented it.

AI is the creation of human beings, and I think it's a creation, and it's a tool that might be able to, God forbid, my saying this blasphemy, but it might be able to do some really interesting things.

All right.

So I'm going to argue with you for one minute because then you got to go.

And then the rest of the panel is going to talk about how they think you're wrong.

I am okay.

So I want to say first of all, Bob, I think you are challenging us in really important ways.

I think that you are.

I think there are some distinctions I would make, and I'm going to attempt to do that.

Here we go.

First of all, Jay Gatsby is a fictional character, and I pick up the book and I know that Jay Gatsby is a fictional character.

Tillie Norwood is being sold to the world as a thing with its own Instagram feed.

And I understand that we we know when we engage with that Instagram feed that that's an AI creation that's not real.

But I think that we are losing that distinction when we talk to chat bots, when people develop romantic relationships, which is literally happening right now with AI, they are losing the distinction between fictional and real, whereas Jay Gatsby we never have to wonder.

So I can feel comfortable saying he about Jay Gatsby or he or she whatever about any fictional creation, because they're not trying to sell me on something that isn't real.

The AI thing is, is blurring our brains in ways that don't feel to me, healthy.

So that's one idea.

The second point that you make about the way we lift or, you know, J.R.

From Pittsford called in to say if AI is plagiarism, then how is it different than a human actor in school learning a craft, watching others?

Is it only when a computer replicates?

And my answer is kind of yes.

And here's why.

Listen to governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.

He may run for president.

He in his speeches, if you if you know what to look for.

Oh my goodness, does he sound like Barack Obama?

And he and Barack Obama were very close.

He kind of studied under Barack Obama.

His speech intonation is very Obama.

And when he spoke at the last DNC, people were going, is that Josh Shapiro or Barack Obama on stage?

But it's an in some ways, it's learned as a technique.

Sure.

In some ways it is, I think, an omission in the same way that the work that I do on this program is based on some of the people I really respect in broadcasting, in radio, in media, in journalism.

There's no question about that.

But with Tillie Norwood, it is being sold as its own magical creation from scratch, as if it is just walked into the world being itself, when it really is stealing from others.

Barack Obama doesn't mind that Josh Shapiro sounds like him in a speech.

He probably thinks it's respectful.

But Tillie Norwood is actually stealing the work of other people who are now not getting paid.

So that's the distinctions I would make.

Where am I wrong, Bob?

I'm not sure that we are that we are being sold.

I mean, it's true you've said all this and I'm as sensitive this as anybody else.

I'm aware that someone could feed all my books, and some of my books have been, in fact, no question, training.

I, could, by teaching style, my books, whatever.

I could be replaced by AI with the technology as it stands right this very minute.

But not this idea that we're being sold something as though it's, something other than it is.

I think our falling in love with chat box things are doing.

We, and especially people that are emerging generations.

My students are fully well aware of the difference between a living, breathing human organism and these other things that they, interact with.

And I think it's that it's our discomfort in being able to separate and acknowledge the fact that these, you know, we got used to the idea that, okay, if film gets invented, once they put my act on film, that act will be useful.

I've been touring with that act on the vaudeville stage for, most of the last decade of the 19th century.

Once it's put on film, everybody sees it, and I can't do that anymore.

That was a scary technology back then.

This, of course, takes that idea and escalates it to such an extraordinary, amount that I think it's really hard for us to come to grips with the fact that we may have technologies now that can actually create a degree of human experience, intelligence and learning very much the way we absorb different experiences and learning and all of these different sources.

And that leaves us with this really challenging and forget consent and compensation.

I'm talking about challenging what is the difference between something that does it through circuits and something that does it through?

Whatever the biological slime that's, inside our brains.

And this is the end, I think becomes ultimately a theological question, because that's the only discipline that's going to be able to make the distinction between the process of an artist and the process of a machine as the machines learn exactly how artists work and how brains work.

Bob, I appreciate the perspective.

And I want to tell you that when I was younger, I thought 66 was old.

But the older I get, I think you are young and you can never retire.

That's what I think.

Never retire.

Bob Thompson, thank you for saying that.

He's one of the best.

We've got to let him go.

Bob's a professor of popular culture and founding director of the center for Television and Pop Culture at Syracuse University.

When we come back, I want to know what our other guests think of that little mini debate that Bob and I had.

He made a lot of good points.

I hate when he does.

But I also have, your phone calls to take.

So Chris and Geneva, AJ, we're going to take your calls here.

We've got Reuben, Jay Tapp, and Jay Simmons with us in the studio.

Nicole Sherrill with us on the line.

Nicole's with, Sag-Aftra.

You know, Nicole's work in a number of places.

Gray's anatomy.

Nicole's work is far and wide, but also repping the people who kind of need it.

As the vice chair of Sag-Aftra performers with Disabilities Committee, National and Sag-Aftra performers in Los Angeles.

Ruben long resume artistic director of theater Nancy, member of the Bronze Collective, voiceover artist.

Jay Simmons, actor, director and educator.

A private acting coach, long resume has a lot of thoughts about I coming into our screens and into our movie theaters, and we'll come back with them next.

I'm Megan Mack Tuesday on the next connections, we sit down with the executive director of the National Comedy Center.

Journey Gunderson is in Rochester for an event, but first she joins us on the talk show to discuss the state of comedy and how sometimes comedy and politics intertwine.

We'll talk about Jimmy Kimmel.

We'll talk about South Park, we'll talk about free speech and more.

That's Tuesday on connections.

Public radio brings you the kind of enlightened discussions that keep you informed.

We rely on listeners like you to help pay for this kind of programing.

And when you become a sustaining member of WXXI, your monthly gift helps keep this vital service strong for the whole community.

Please make your gift at WXXI.

This is connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

If, if this Dutch lab that created Tilly Norwood has its weight, they're going to see eye actors on your screens more regularly on your streaming services.

In movies, probably with some human actors and some eye actors.

Is that the future you want?

Well, Let's ask our remaining guests here.

Bob Thompson had to go, but J. You heard a little bit of our little debate there.

What did you make of Bob's point?

I mean, I, I can see that there is going I mean, there's already, you know, things it's interesting him teaching in a in a school, in a college level that, you know, we're not you're not allowed to use ChatGPT.

You're not allowed.

Well I hope you don't.

All right.

But like there's there's actual programs out where you can, like, you know, scan things through to make sure that key sentences and key words are not being used over and over again as a program.

So if we're not going to allow that at that level, even if it is, somebody's learning, I don't think that we should allow it at, at a another level of replication.

And I also feel like at a certain point, this is going to be a little bit of a hot button issue here.

If we are saying that people need to go to school in order to get a degree, in order to get paid more than somebody who just enters with an entry level job, then we are screwing with the system that we're setting up as far as education careers.

It completely makes it kind of fall down as a house of cards.

If one person can just be an AI creation and circumvent that whole system and make all of that.

You got a whole you got a, you know, let's say ten actors who have spent their whole life in education doing stuff.

And you have one AI, creation just killing their whole careers.

What are we left with?

And college isn't cheap and life isn't cheap.

So I know it's time versus money, but at what cost are we killing us as humans?

And, Ruben, what do you think?

I am.

You can call me Mr.

Waffle because I'm kind of going back and back and forth.

So in one instance, I'm thinking that, I know other countries are making sure that their kids are learning AI and how to utilize AI, like kindergarten, right, so that they're ahead of the the, the, the technology technological curve.

And I know that a lot of times when I think it was China or Singapore or something like that, I know that when, when, when certain when certain groups, when when a technology come out, there is always typically some type of pushback, you know, as a counter movement and things of this sort, as far as people are adopting.

And so I understand that aspect.

And then I understand that, when I was listening to to, to Bob, I was thinking about, well, when we talk about, AI taking a wide range of sources and then coming back with, with something and possibly stealing it, it reminds me of kind of the the black TikTok where the black TikTokers were, how they were talking about doing different dances and things of this sort.

And people will come up with, with, with, with, their own dance or whatever, which looked pretty much like what they were doing.

And, but they would get the, the financial, means from it versus the person who originated it wouldn't.

And so I'm thinking about all of this type of stuff.

We we you talked about the plagiarism and it it's it's it's there's just a lot of different things that are moving parts that are going on.

And if that again, if that happens, it's kind of like, where's the end game?

Because the whole reason is we kind of talked about the whole reason for machinery or technology a lot of times is efficiency.

I pay less like do more to do that kind of things.

And so if you and businesses are always trying to get to the bottom line, they have other people that they have to they have to, answer to.

So if I can move this whole swath of people out and do, mediocre job, but it can get it done, you know, and cut this cost, then I'll get a raise.

You may be without it, but, you know, if you're keeping your eye on the end result, right.

Which is fewer human beings working?

Correct.

Yeah.

Nicole, what do you make of some of what Bob was saying?

You know, it's it's fascinating because it's true.

Right?

I'm from Pennsylvania originally, so Joshua Carol is currently the governor.

Come on.

Tell me your bio reference, isn't he?

Sounds like a pat on it, but it's it's a perfect way to lead into what I want to say about it.

Which is this, you say, if I try to do Obama, it might not sounding like William Shatner.

You get the point.

I slightly an exaggeration, but.

But it's funny the point, because everything that we do as humans.

Yes, I take in performances that I've seen, that have moved me, that have made me want to be an actor, right?

I take those in and I think about how they work and and how that influences my work.

But we can if both of us did the same thing, it's going to come out completely different because we're different people with different life experiences that bring different things to the table.

So when we come in and we say, yes, we prompted both of us at the same prompt that they gave the AI.

We're going to bring a different level of humanity and performance to it.

That the AI is unable to do because it can't have a lived experience, and so it only has.

It basically is a two plus two equals four situation, whereas we're coming in with nuance and depth and that thing that goes on behind our eyes that there's just no one can figure it out.

And it's the difference between someone singing a song that is note perfect and someone singing a song that resonates in their soul and you feel it in yours.

And that's the difference between synthetic taking in, processing the same performances that we process as humans, and delivering a performance based on that.

We are bringing that soul in that spark.

And, you know, Sag-Aftra, we only can legislate or negotiate terms.

We can't do the rest.

But it is important to say our strike a few years back, but everybody remembers.

And that brought me to your show, the FIR, for the first time, which this was a big, huge part of our strike.

And we have this generated artificial intelligence in our contract because of that negotiation.

And what is required is if they're going to use a synthetic like killing, nor would they have to come to us.

They have to negotiate it.

They have to report it to us and negotiate such that that money then goes into the union to support our membership.

But in that in compensation and how they track it, that there is availability to do that.

It's watermarking the performances, it's knowing the price, and they have to tell us the props they use so that those performers that are being used can be compensated.

And both things are important.

But I just needed to get back to the fact that it's just like, sing a note, anybody can have a computer hit a C, but what does it sound like when that soprano hits it?

Yeah, that trained talent said life experience.

Soprano.

Well said.

Well, I see the phones ring.

I better take some phone calls and I'll take some emails here.

Kathryn writes to say horror films and filmed pornography already do horrible things to the human body, especially the bodies of women.

With AI generated actors, there will be no limit on what can be depicted, because the creators could claim it's not being done to a real person.

I'm afraid this will further, desensitize us to visual violence.

That's from Catherine Wolf.

I hadn't even thought about that.

But thank you for that email.

Catherine.

Chris in Geneva next.

Hey, Chris.

Go ahead.

I haven't, you know, Sondheim in Sunday in the Park with George dealt with this.

He had the grandson of the famous painter doing the laser art in Broadway, shooting lasers around the theater and questioning whether he was really the heir of his, pointillism in a new way.

And I don't see this as any different than when the, the the cartoonists thought they could replace actors, and then they found out they had to have the actors voice and the nuance that your previous speaker just talked about.

This is this is just the tradition.

The people currently in charge and benefiting from the way things are being nervous about change.

And I think, let's see where the art goes.

There's a song in that play that says, move on, stop worrying where you're going.

Move on.

If you don't know where you're going, you can just keep moving on.

I think that's that's what's at play here.

Let's see.

It's hard.

Well, Chris, I'm I, I don't deny that this is part of the evolution of I mean like, even if we want to stop it, if the Luddites want to rise up, I don't think it's going to happen.

It's I think part of what Nichols organization is doing, part of what people like Jay and Reuben are asking us to do, is to have a thoughtful conversation before we get on that train and just go, because what are the implications?

I mean, right now, again, I keep mentioning, you know, Ruben's voice work, but voice work is an easy place for AI to for people to think that I don't even need to hire a voice actor ever again.

I can just use AI piece of cake.

And I don't know that that's true.

If you want nuance, if you want depth.

But I think they will try.

Ruben.

Yeah, yeah, that was one of the so in terms of freelance sites, that was a scare maybe two years ago I'd say.

And there so the there has been a, a big shift in a number of people who were getting certain jobs.

So certain I don't want to say entry level jobs, but certain a certain level of jobs have kind of gone away.

However, there are still certain, areas where they don't want AI and they'll say, you know, when you when the when the call comes, comes across is like, you know, no AIS and things of this sort, but you can't you can't the nuances and the, the live direction, you won't be able to get there with AI.

And so when so that's so when you get into those type of thing, being able to take direction.

Same thing with for for actors being able to take a direction because the AI can only give you what they've already given you.

I'll give you a little a little, little different, but a lot of it's about the same of what they've already done.

Yeah.

I continue to think that part of our future is going to be consuming art that is labeled.

I mean, I was a kid when those explicit warning labels became more common, and my mom was always like was, you can't get that cassette tape.

I see there's a but like, I think it's going to be synthetic art versus art or, you know, synthetic creation music, etc.

maybe that's too optimistic, but Jay, do you want that one?

It's interesting to me, the irony of this is that we're talking about Tillie Norwood.

Right.

But then in that when every time I see her name come up, it says Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman, that's because that's what the studio wants you to think of, right?

But like, so you're, you're then liking it back to a human, an existing and an existing human with an existing style, with an existing experience as opposed to something new.

Yeah.

And instead of saying, oh, no, no, this is going to be something that's better than them, you're not even saying that.

You're saying this is going to be a combination of them.

And at the same time, what I love the comment about the music and how it as a singer, there are times, you know, we learn I was in Next to Normal, playing Dan, and one of the great things about that was there's knowing all the notes and then when emotion comes in, your voice cracks your you, you speak certain things instead of instead of singing them, you allow your voice to warble or to modulate in a way that it's not supposed to, because that shows what type of pain you're going through.

And in that way, we're just playing a video game if we do it because all we're doing is we're pressing like a an O key versus a square key in order for it to then warble at this moment.

So it sounds like it's feeling something again, we're we're just reusing humans to make this creations.

That is not human.

If it was by it, standalone by itself, then maybe this conversation for me would have a leg to stand on.

But as long as we're we're biting off the backs of real living people, then I don't see I don't see the validation of that.

All right, AJ, next on the phone.

Hey AJ, go ahead.

Hi, Evan.

So I appreciate this.

The conversation moving in this direction of talking about, human being versus, AI and what it's creating and the importance of experience and what human beings are experiencing.

And the thing that irks me and that motivates me to have to call in and talk about this, is when people like Sam Altman or others will make this argument of like, oh, I was just doing what human beings are doing, right.

There's an easy way for that conversation to sound like, oh, is AI?

Maybe it's not there yet, but maybe we'll get there to where it is.

Doing the same basic process of taking in information from the outside world experiences and turning it into some, you know, new product, which of course is never wholly original because we're all basing things off of what we've experienced.

The problem is, the other side of that is the implication that what human beings are doing is just a matter of this, you know, mathematical compute ties, you know, very advanced computations.

But it reduces it to just a material experience.

And so someone, you know, one of your panels earlier mentioned theology, and I think that's actually an important piece that like, I think it's reasonable to say that there is something fundamentally human going on in human experience that even the most advanced AI and we should be clear about what this technology is and is actually doing, right.

Like if we were to, at some point in the future, invent data, the android from Star Trek, right?

Data actually experiences a lot of things.

But also that show is very much about the things that data doesn't experience.

Right.

And I'm not the strongest Trekkie.

Right.

But in terms of like him experiencing hunger, right, or, or other needs or these kinds of things, these I tend to try to be like people are not actually experiencing those things.

So to come back, I think the point that I think is important to talk about is, well, what is it that humans are actually doing when we experience things, when we create art, when we inspire things.

Because, yeah, we can talk about, you know, John Williams, listen to all this classical music and then stole stuff and put it into Star Wars and Jaws and all that kind of thing, like, great.

He did that.

He also was creating stuff that is original, and we can talk about the parts that are original because it isn't.

We look at human culture and history, and it isn't just the same thing repeated over and over and over.

There are themes, there are through lines, there are threads, but there is also a spark of something.

Right?

And you can get the theology.

We can talk about what that is and where that comes from.

But I think we we can help to to plug metaphor from your previous hour.

It can help inoculate us, vaccinate us against believing the hype that is being sold about these artificial intelligence technologies, which I would call large language models and not actually intelligence, because I think intelligence requires experience.

We can inoculate itself against that by being really clear about what is humanity and what are humanity.

What are humans actually doing when they experience life, when they feel moved to create art, an AI, a robot, or whatever this is, is only ever going to create when you press that button.

Go.

Human beings leave themselves alone or with a group of people long enough, they will create art.

Well AJ, there's so much here.

Is it so great when we we get a phone call and I'm like, this guy should be hosting the show.

Yes.

It's so much there.

And I, I want to kick this to Nicole with a couple of things that AJ is making me think of.

First of all, I appreciate AJ directing us to really be accurate in how we're describing what these technologies are and are not.

That's one of the reasons I don't like saying she for telling Norwood it's an it, but it's if it's a large language model, is it capable of feeling what humans feel?

I do not I do not deny that AI is getting better every day and approximating what humans do, or taking human creation that exists already, and then, you know, spitting out something that is, you know, what the average person might think of as impressive or emotional or whatever, I just go back to what Jason and I'm like, why do we want it to do that?

When people can do that?

Why?

Why what is what is the purpose?

Why are we creating art with AI instead of creating more time for humans to create art?

Thanks to I, I don't understand why so much of AI is focusing on the creation of art, which I think should be this very human thing, and I'm worried about what we're losing with making the choice.

Even if it's better, it can right poetry.

It can write books that are.

I'm not going to say they're all bad.

I'm just going to say like, why?

Why do I want that?

So I don't know, Nikole.

You want to get existential?

Why do we want that?

Well, it's just going to make me make an argument that I don't want to make, but I'm going to do it anyway.

So it's it's no puppeteer is an actor and a performer manipulating a puppet.

A, animator is a performer creating the animation that we are going to voice, and it's coming from our voices.

There is a place where creativity exists in different places.

If you look at somebody in a nerd and I have to go deep on the data conversation, I got to be honest about that.

But the data from Star Trek, but there are people who will look at the way a laptop is built.

They find art in that.

So to say that something isn't art, I feel is not very fair to the world.

There are people who find art in anything, in architecture, in food.

Yeah.

So there are going to be people that find this art.

However, for what I believe for for what actors do not, art is lived experience is humanity.

And when we talk about, you know, we can create a guy replica of a fish from replicants.

When we create these, I mean, you have to be in the room.

But man, it was fun.

Anyway, we created these characters because Charlie Norwood is a character.

It's not an actor, it's not a person.

It's a character that somebody created.

When we create these characters and we say, okay, now this character is going to play this role, you know what else you can't do?

It can't interact with the other actors.

It can't.

You know, any actor knows that if you're in a scene with other people and you prepare all you want by yourself, if you're a good actor, dare I say a great actor, you're going to step onto that set or that stage and you're going to begin acting.

And we all acting is reacting.

So I'm going to get my world changed by what the other actors are doing and saying.

And if that generated character can't do that and can't give that to us, it is not part of our way of doing our art.

And that's the existential part of that conversation to me.

And that, you know, it is art.

It's just not our kind of art.

It's just that what we're saying for performance is different.

And then I'll say that, you know, we're focusing on the potential erasure of an actor because of a Tilly Norwood type.

Yeah.

Character.

And what we're not addressing is that it also erases the hair and makeup department.

The department, you know, if that becomes that, we're just creating television and film behind a computer desk, it's not just the actors that are out of work, it's the writers.

Maybe writers are still going to be there, but directors, it's this I iac the stagehands, the set decorators, this set stage builders, the lighting.

It's everyone.

It's our entire industry.

So it's it's unfair, I think, to just focus on the actors that it'll harm because it'll harm our economy to a huge, massive extent.

And we stand in solidarity with our other creatives that that will also affect.

It's just not as obvious to some people looking at it.

Don't know about our last 30s.

So go ahead, Jake.

I just that was a great point that you made.

And one of the things I was going to say is the experience.

Like we think about, I'm not a supporter, okay?

I don't support too much, but one of the things about sports is people talk about the experience.

Lots of times I have friends who are like, yeah, you know, the bills game just happened.

I saw a gentleman he was talking about, yeah, we lost, but I was with all of these fans who are family and friends, and it was an experience that was shared that even though it didn't go the right way, the experience of the activity is the point of that thing.

It's not just the sport.

It's not just, you know, the people who do it.

It's the shared experience that we have as people.

And you worry about losing that.

I'm scared to death of that.

Yeah.

And I want to thank, first of all, a great audience with questions.

Comments Elizabeth and Fairport bill in Rochester.

I apologize we didn't get your calls.

They wanted to broaden the scope of the conversation about where AI is going in different industries and what that means for different quote unquote, efficiencies, what that code for, those are great comments and questions for different days that we will attack on this program.

So I want to thank you, Elizabeth and Bill, for those ideas.

And I want to thank Jay Simmons and Reuben Jay for being with us in studio, sharing your perspectives.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

A lot of wisdom in the room.

Thank you.

And thanks to Nicole Sorelle with us.

Good luck to you and the team from Sag-Aftra.

We always talk to you when there's, like, a crisis.

Maybe we'll just talk and some nice day.

Nicole I don't know, but we are always happy.

I look forward to it.

Anytime.

Anytime.

Thank you.

Nicole.

Great team here at connections.

We will be back with you tomorrow on member supported public media.

This program is a production of WXXI Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station.

Its staff, management, or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium without expressed written consent of Z is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the connections link.

At WXXI news.org.