A system being rearranged is tempting, and yes, a very likely outcome. Hollywood depends on its advantage in production values, which is quickly being eroded by AI.

However, if recent history is a guide, we won't see an increase in the number of paid artists, I'd say looking at the music industry, what we saw was the increase in the number of artists in general, but success seems to me as fickle as ever. Now, apparently, thanks to Ticketmaster monopoly, even live tours barely make any money and musicians are turning to Onlyfans (not porn, just direct support) to make money.

So here's the state of the music industry (partially due to unchallenged monopolies):

You, for the most part, don't make money making music and distributing it online

You don't make money from a live tour either.

Amazing outcome for an industry where the cost of production and distribution has collapsed. No one makes money except for the monopolies in streaming (Spotify) and ticketing (Ticketmaster).

Without monopoly protections, that's what you get. Thankfully, there's a bit more competition in the audiovisual realm with Youtube and multiple streamers. Still, I don't know what to think about what might happen.

Most artists / people in audiovisual production will likely make less money. Some will likely make a lot of money. My (kind of unfounded atm) assumption is that AI will just increase the differences in Paretto distribution of income, making the top 20% very rich and the bottom 80% very poor. Before genAI, you had a very large and vibrant VFX industry, with relatively well paid workers, which is likely to be cut down by huge numbers (it's already been cut by around 50%).

Yes we do.

You don’t get it. Those programs are made because they make money. Netflix is profitable because it makes shows that X number of people want to see.

The number of people like yourself who are underserved by stuff to watch is too low to be profitable - or they don’t know how to make a show that would appeal to this group yet.

The dark truth about TV is that it’s what people want to watch. There is no conspiracy. Here is a good Steve Jobs quote on the subject:

“ When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth.”

Anyway assuming that an industry screwed up because you personally don’t like their product is pretty incredible. No they didnt screw up. They’re just serving people who aren’t quite like yourself.

For three hours, they gave everyone access to create videos with Sora, some of which could very well be art. Not only that, but the form in which they did this and the statement they made could also be considered art. I think they've done well here.

In their statement, they make it clear that they're not opposed to the use of AI in art: they're opposed to the abuse of artists to pretend that OpenAI is doing this for their sake. This serves their perspective better than any juvenile anti-AI quilt could have.

> Why not organize a worldwide protest where every participant produces and shares Art denouncing generative AI

Ah yes, a feel good protest that can be completely ignored by everyone, especially OpenAI. Even better, maybe OpenAI could fund it? That way they get to claim they hear the protests but they don't have to actually change anything.

Someone linked the actual open letter above: https://huggingface.co/spaces/PR-Puppets/PR-Puppet-Sora

If you read it they state quite clearly that they feel like their participation was different than they expected it to be and that's why they are upset.

They opted in with the express purpose of protesting, it seems.

Surely the morality depends on how they go about their protest.

a protest which happened because they were about to be replaced while already working in extremely dangerous conditions with terrible compensation.

Gee. Being "replaced" in a job like that sounds like a good career move to me.

The system that prevailed up to that point didn't give them many options, of course... but neither would their response to it. Sabotage doesn't bring progress, no matter who told you that it did, or how much you want to believe it.

If a machine can take your work, perhaps you weren't as "highly skilled" as you thought you were.

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Taking out your frustrations on the hardware isn't part of any hacker ethos I'm familiar with. I guess times have changed.