AI - Artificial Intelligence or Artistic Integrity?

This article was written during the writers’ and actors’ strikes in Hollywood, but is still very much relevant now, even though the strikes have ended - at least for the next three plus years! I would also add that anyone hoping that any US administration will put guardrails in place to protect its citizenry from generative AI will be sorely disappointed. Regulation of generative AI is now going to be driven by Big Tech’s newfound and very lucrative involvement in the defense industries. They will simply make themselves indispensable to government and in turn government will give them what they seek and what they seek is a world in which they can continue to act without regulation (read conscience).

The following post relates only to the use of AI in the arts. The only comments I will make of a general nature is that AI is already upon us. It’s not a question of should we, collectively, do this. We are doing this or at the very least we are being subjected to it. While we can’t put the shit back in the horse, we can, perhaps, avoid stepping in it. However, if it’s as intelligent in the arts as it is in AI customer service chatbots or its use as an HR recruitment tool then, at least for the foreseeable future, we have little to worry about other than to be irritated by the fact that you can no longer reach a real human being anymore.

Throughout history most new advances in technology have been embraced by some and feared by others. Even electricity was thought to cause disease and ill-health and many refused its utility in their homes. For those of you who have read my article on leadership you will understand what I mean when I refer to AI, or anything else for that matter, as a double-edged sword and the need to wield both edges with conscious responsibility for all concerned. For those of who haven’t read the article and are interested in doing so, here is a link:

At the time of writing, Hollywood is in the midst of an actors’ and writers’ strike. The old contracts that the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America had with the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers recently expired. Since the contract’s inception much has changed in the industry, particularly with the advent of the streamers like Netflix and the near decimation of the movie theaters when COVID-19 hit. As COVID-19 took its final bow as a leading character on the global stage and exited, ChatGPT et al entered stage right and it has many in the industry worried, that like COVID-19, it will usurp the leading role in film and television not as a protagonist, but as their arch nemesis. The writers fear that they will be replaced by scripts written wholly or in part by ChatGPT or another AI program. Ditto the actors, especially background actors, whose non-speaking images can be duplicated over and over at no cost to the studios, without legal recourse or at least one that any individual can fund against the deep pockets of the studios and major streamers. This is already being extended to speaking roles, so beware the contracts with clauses stating an actor’s image, likeness and voice can be used for promotional materials and anything else, in perpetuity - although voice is not strictly speaking copyrightable. But, for many it is probably already too late, even for the dead, whose images and voices are being resurrected and words put in their mouths they never agreed to speak. The unions want guarantees that their members won’t be replaced by AI generated scripts/images in the new contracts, but it would appear that the studios consider that “unrealistic.”

There are moral and legal arguments here and while both should to be considered equally, morality is something of a misnomer in this instance. Morality at the present time on this planet of ours is somewhat relative i.e. we all have a different “true north” on our own personal compasses. What one person considers amoral is perfectly acceptable behavior to someone else, which is often justified by the law or loopholes in same. At some point, we will all follow the same True North on the same compass in the sky, but we are so far from such universal alignment that it is not worth considering here.

The legal arguments, however, are myriad. In its current form ChatGPT et al is a student of the web’s vast and ever expanding content. It feeds off the web consuming content that has already been created and uses it to learn from, from which it has already been used (and not well, I might add) to write emails, theses, novels, screenplays, poetry, songs and even ‘paint’ like the old masters. However, it cannot differentiate between legally and illegally posted material which has been copyrighted and material in the public domain and its masters don’t seem to care. Anything to them is free and fair game, hiding behind a ‘fair use’ clause. Nor can it, at least for the time being, generate anything visionary or original. And it is unlikely to ever do so, unless it acquires a Soul and develops a conscience - a Higher Self and sub-conscious and therefore a REAL imagination - the imagination being the meeting ground between Spirit and the material realm, hence the word ‘inspiration’ as in, in or from Spirit. Of course, there are a good many humans who have yet to earn the right to a Soul and I am not being facetious when I say that. It is simply a fact of where many are on the Wheel of 84.

As the studios and streamers peer down the AI rabbit hole, they need to consider their legal vulnerability, particularly when generating film scripts and teleplays from an AI program. Screenplays are a form of real estate to the studios and streamers, who like to acquire the IP rights to the story, characters etc. in perpetuity, across all potential revenue generating streams, including merchandising. An AI generated script presents the studios and streamers with several legal headaches. Firstly, they will have no idea where the AI program drew the source material from or whether that material was trawled from or fed copyrighted works as the program went about its business of learning to write screenplays. Secondly, the studios and streamers will have great difficulty copyrighting an AI generated script which was developed by trawling the web and perhaps thousands of previously produced scripts uploaded by the likes of ChatGPT. Without copyright they cannot legally protect these scripts, their finished films or ancillary rights from lawsuits, either domestically or internationally - it is not called the Worldwide Web for nothing. And who is going to sign off on a chain of title search to ensure the material is original? Heads of studio business affairs are going to have many a sleepless night over this and every AI generated script will need an army of lawyers and paralegals pouring over every word and piece of dialogue to ensure that the AI program didn’t plagiarize it from copyrighted material or God forbid a competing studio owned script that was uploaded by ChatGPT as a learning aid - although there might be some poetic justice in seeing that play out. And thirdly and by no means the end of the potential legal woes, as AI becomes more sophisticated it may well be able to grab from foreign language content, instantly translating it into its desired language, making it even more difficult to trace the source material. The legal ramifications of this are mindbogglingly complicated. Nevertheless, it will likely be an impossible and thankless endeavor because they will never find every fragment of source material vacuumed up by an AI program scattered across the entire internet - not enough to legally clear the chain of title with any confidence, anyway. Alternatively, they can dive further down the rabbit hole, and go around and around in circles chasing their proverbial tails and use an AI program to detect plagiarism. However, eventually this will start to detect plagiarism when none was intended. It will be a case of as ye seek so shall ye find. In the end, I suspect they will find that paying writers to originate material might well be cheaper than the monumental legal fees associated with clearing a chain of title on an AI generated script with everyone suing the proverbial pants of each other. And when I say everyone, I do mean everyone. AI has the ability to plagiarize from anywhere and everywhere on the web at a rate of seconds that a single writer would take literally years, if not decades, to accomplish manually.

There is of course the possibility that the studios and streamers understand the legal pitfalls of using AI to write scripts and are using it as a big stick to beat the unions into accepting a lesser contract in favor of the threat of losing everything to AI. I suspect there is a little of both at play, here. And those screenwriters who use AI to write or are hired to polish an AI generated first draft are feeding the machine which will eventually end their jobs and make them obsolete. It may also make their own copyright claims on ‘original’ material difficult to enforce when optioning/selling a spec script to the studios or streamers.

For a long time now I have seen parallels between Hollywood and the food industry. For several decades we suffered through the material greed of the fast food industry. A business model that still actively exploits its employees, compromises the health of its own customers, as well as creating animal welfare and disease concerns with concentration camp-style feedlots, environmental issues with effluent runoff, excessive packaging waste and unnecessary global supply chain/transportation pressures. All in the name of delivering the same bag of ‘food’ worldwide for huge profits. Then more recently, the slow food industry gradually made a comeback. We now have local sustainable, heritage farmers and producers, along with artisan and craft bakers, brewers along with farm-to-table and nose-to-tail restauranteurs/food trucks popping up all over the planet. It is the same bloody battle fought between margarine and butter in the ‘70s and ‘80s on a macro, multidisciplinary scale - margarine lost, by the way! But, I see the same thing happening in the film, television and theatre industries. We are in the equivalent era of the fast food industry right now, as it was at the height of its ‘power.’ Vast, global corporations serving up an intellectual and artistic diet equivalent to plastic cheese and milkshakes made of 160 different chemical compounds for maximum profit, with nary a natural ingredient within a two hundred mile radius. Much of this can be blamed on the rapid growth of the video game market, as the studios seek to build cross-over franchises with their film businesses. This has led to many of their bigger budget films feeling much like you’re watching a video game but with real actors - real actors, at least for the time being!

But artists and artisans will always survive. They always have, and have been at the leading edge of every civilized advancement since humans began to communicate. Then the merchants came along and exploited them. It’s an age old battle, in which the artists gave away their power and became complicit in their own vulnerability and in some cases their own greed to people who often don’t care about them or the double-edged sword of their own poor business leadership skills. In many cases it is a relationship of mutual exploitation until even those relationships became soured by intolerable imbalance. But more than anything we must understand that we, collectively, gave them this power. We gave Netflix this power, Amazon, Warner Bros. etc. We are complicit in this, because we have been part of that relationship. If the studios and streamers want to use AI let them, firstly because you won’t stop them, not long term, and they are heading down the same path as the fast food industry anyway. AI will simply speed up that process. AND secondly because it’s high time the creatives took back the abacus and started running their own streaming services and studios - independent studios and streaming platforms created by creatives for creatives without exploitation of the many in favor of the few - money is a bit like manure. Piled up it stinks, spread out it grows beautiful roses! Of course these newly minted platforms and studios will involve lawyers, accountants, sales and operations executives, but there are good, ethical people working in all these much needed professions who are attracted to creative leadership from visionaries, and who want to be aligned with that Light energy, as well as bringing their own Light to that business entity. In short, we are at a place and time where a segment of the industry can be split off and redefined, with a creative vision and business model which can benefit all levels of the industry and audiences alike.

What many (but not all) studio executives and AI generating techies will never understand and perhaps they don’t want to either, is no true artist will ever seriously paint a picture, write a novel, a script, a song or a piece of poetry using AI. Why? Because above all else they understand, either consciously or unconsciously, that exercising and developing the imagination is both a muscle and more importantly a Spiritual path to something much, much greater than producing ‘cheap’ entertainment fodder for the masses whose lives most producers care little to nothing about. The fact that the industry now describes what it makes as “content,” should tell you everything you need to know about the direction in which they have been heading. It is term used to describe a commodity, void of story, mythology, artistry or craft.

Also, a machine will never be able to replicate what I consider to be one of the most important assets in any artist’s toolbox and that is simply the ability to make a mistake. From personal experience, mistakes in art, in painting, sculpting, writing, acting, directing and perhaps life itself are fundamental to Self-discovery, to new ways of thinking, feeling and expressing. They often change the trajectory of a piece of work. This is a very different type of mistake than correcting mathematical equations or grammar in language through generative AI, as it doesn't require conscious awareness, feelings or intuitive faculties. A misplaced brushstroke can alter the entire style of painting not just in the artwork itself, but in the artist’s future as a painter or whatever medium or media in which they happen to work. These mistakes of Self-discovery are often the moments others perceive and describe as their genius. Most artists know better. Their so-called genius is often their unconscious at work, redirecting their creative energies through error to align more with their greater Soul energies. Creative writers often use both their conscious and unconscious faculties to write a story. They are conscious of a story idea, a basic plot, but much detail: character, subplots etc. are written from the unconscious. They understand the need to get out of their own way and let the story tell Itself, as actors are often advised to get out of their own heads. How does a machine do that, exactly?

But there is a deeper question we need to ask here: for time immemorial the Hu-man has been asking the question, “Who Am I?” and what is real vs. an illusion? Those born in the age of the internet, particularly those who live in it, face a deeper, even more challenging question as to what is real just on the physical plane alone vs. an AI generated actor, singer, influencer, online profile or virtual reality experience. At some point it will be impossible to tell. The confusion that will arise from this and the ability for this generation and future generations to be manipulated, beyond anything we have yet seen, is quite staggering. If AI is used to replace every human endeavor and action then we will lose the muscle of our own imagination, the ability to create, think, feel and reason for ourselves. We will become as passive in our own lives as we are while watching a television series, living vicariously through an AI generated world. There is a reason why apprenticeships are so important. We learn the traditions and many traditions have yet to be surpassed by any modern technology. Some artists are even going back to making their own lead white paint which necessitates curing it in horse manure, as did the old masters - there is at least one benefit to not being able to put the shit back in the horse - its tonality and texture is far superior to any other modern-day white pigment particularly for portraiture. In the film industry no technology has yet improved upon 35mm film stock. Traditions provide essential foundational structures upon which we launch our own creative visions and express our individuality and originality. Without them our work lacks form and understanding. Take that away and replace everything with AI and what are we left with? Our bodies, minds and imaginations will atrophy along with our intuitive faculties. This presents humanity with an entirely new world dilemma that we have yet faced. The advent of electricity and locomotion, including air travel, have all been discreet tools, while AI has the ability to think, create and eventually do, for us in a manner that is all-encompassing, far too all-encompassing. The technology is also moving so fast that no government could possibly regulate fast enough unless governments use AI to regulate against itself which is a form of self-regulation, which is never a good thing. Perhaps E.M Forster’s short, sci-fi story “The Machine Stops” is a little more prophetic than one cares to imagine. One of the biggest problems with advances in technology is it gives us the false impression that we are advancing as a root race. While it offers, in some instances, doubtless, but temporary benefits, what it gives with the left hand it takes back far more with the right, and it is done with sleight of hand - a veritable magic trick.

In my article on algorithms I wrote that the creators of many of these software programs are force feeding the rest of us with the very things to which they themselves do not aspire to either live by or be subjected to. In my old brand marketing days, brands sought to increase their ‘share of voice’ in the marketplace through advertising. What some of these big tech corporations aspire to do, and are clearly ‘succeeding,’ is to capture, through addictive mechanisms, a share of your mind and the bigger the share the better. In shamanic terms it is a form of mind possession. And if you’re wondering what that means, it’s not good.

The Case Against Algorithms

This image of Mark Zuckerberg promoting Meta’s VR system is of a man no longer gazing up at the night sky in wonderment, nor looking out at the world as a reflection of his own perceived reality, but a mind, disassociated from its own body, captivated - held in captivity and sensory deprivation - by a digital world. A man not just asleep to his Higher Self, but a man who is dreaming about a man who is dreaming or quite possibly a man having a nightmare about a man having a nightmare.

In conclusion, I have to ask the question can AI be of any benefit in the arts at all? The answer to that question is really the answer to every question and that is, possibly, but only as a limited, supporting tool and more importantly, only in the Right hands under the leadership of the Right people and for the Right reasons, but never to replace an artist. The problem is, you can’t put the shit back in the horse and the horse has already taken a very big shit under the so-called leadership of the wrong people, for the wrong reasons and not as a supportive tool but as a way of disrupting the arts for their own financial benefit. Under the wrong leadership, AI, even as a supportive tool, will begin to blur the artistic lines and legalities between the machine and the artist and before you know it it will have taken over the role of the artist in mainstream entertainment - it is the old adage of give them an inch and they’ll take a mile. And the argument that the business is under undue pressure from actors’ and writers’ fees is ludicrous and laughable considering the exorbitant salaries and bonuses the heads of studios and streamers pay themselves - some corporate governance would not go amiss here. This used to be, in part, the role of the non-executive director. Now those positions are little more than another big payday under the buddy system for a name with a pedigree.

Postscript: since writing this article, Engineered Arts, a UK-based robotics company and manufacturer of the robot Ameca recently announced that Ameca predicted a brighter future for humanity in the next hundred years. Hmmm? Of course that is always the hope, that humanity will pull its collective head out of its arse and wake up. Apparently Ameca also drew a cat and said of its own artwork, “If you don’t like my art, you probably just don’t understand art.” That sounds like something a British robotics engineer might say when attempting to draw a picture for the first time as an adult - the clue that it came from a Brit, not some otherworldly intelligence held together by bolts, is in the syntax, the placement of the word “just” in Ameca’s rather obnoxious statement. Either way, I think Ameca needs a little more artistic humility, particularly for a beginner. It wouldn’t last more than half a day as an apprentice in a traditional atelier with that attitude. Apparently Ameca is also ready to explore new worlds, beyond our planet. But, has it even been to Berlin yet? What about Brighton, Bradford or Birmingham, an Indian curry down Brick Lane or a week at Butlin’s in Bognor? All joking aside (but not really), the comment about humanity’s future is a weak attempt to sound prophetic, and therein lies a real danger that us mere mortals will begin to bow down to a new religion or ideology devised by an “intelligent” machine with a serene expression. Sound too outlandish for you…? Watch this space, while you ponder the effect and title “influencers” have had on society in less than a decade. Tens of millions have fallen under their spell and for what? They offer little to nothing back in return for the bizarre adoration they seek and the money they receive.

While I agree that there is a place for robotics and AI in this world, I cannot help but feel that the direction in which we are heading is one where the separated ego is trying to recreate itself in its own image using crude robotics and AI. We have been trying to do this for thousands of years with children - maybe programmable robots will be more obliging. Perhaps this is also why AI has already proven itself to be biased, because it is using datasets from biased people. And in comparison to the complexity, dexterity and intelligence of the human body robots are very crude indeed, and yet we take the human body for granted while we marvel at the ingenuity of a relatively simple machine. As sentient beings we have the ability to connect with and be moved and motivated by Spirit (if we so choose), while a machine can only be connected to the ego of its developer by way of generative software. Any appearance that a machine has become sentient is likely to be the result of its ability to mimic human emotions and consciousness rather than experience or feel them. I’m sure Will Jackson, Ameca’s proud dad, has already ‘pinned’ the cat drawing on his refrigerator with alphabet magnets!

Although I promised myself I wouldn’t mention the rise of the robotic sex dolls (there’s an AI script idea/title there if anyone wants it - probably in the porn/horror genre) especially in view of the success of BARBIE the movie (who - spoiler alert - now has a gynecologist). But, despite my best of intentions it has to be mentioned because humanity is well on the way to being incapable of relating to itself except through technology. Once it has given away its power completely to tech few will have the physical, mental, emotional or Spiritual fortitude to take it back. The only remaining question I have is, can you make a robotic sex doll “meow?”

Gavin J. Chalcraft is an artist and CEO/Executive Producer at Golden Ratio Media Group, a film, television, and theatre production company. Prior to working in the arts, he owned and ran Isosceles Consulting, a global brand development and management consulting firm.

*** Gavin Chalcraft and Golden Ratio Media Group, Inc. strictly prohibits the use of any generative AI software to upload and analyze any material attached to or contained in these Substack posts. ***