A June 2023 episode, Joan is Awful, of the Netflix sci-fi drama Black Mirror, depicted a TV show “written” by a computer and “acted” by computer-generated images of humans. This backdrop may be used to analyse the recent strikes by American screenwriters (WGA) and actors (SAG-AFTRA). Joan is Awful was written and completed before ChatGPT and other similar services were launched, though.

A spectre of AI is haunting people all around the globe. People are concerned about losing their jobs, the erosion of culture, and seeing their lifestyles succumb to AI’s Hogwarts. The use and regulation of AI are major problems impeding negotiations with the major Hollywood studios in the case of the American strikes as well. The unions are concerned that text generators like ChatGPT could be used to generate screenplays, and actors’ images could be used to create characters without any humans involved. At a turning point in the history of humanity’s fight against AI, the screenwriters temporarily won the battle. But the actors are still engaged in combat. Can AI really replace actors, as SAG-AFTRA is concerned about? Actually, it has already. Actor Peter Cushing died in 1994, but he was digitally resurrected for the 2016 film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. For films, celebrities including Robert De Niro, Harrison Ford, and Samuel L Jackson have been digitally de-aged. And these are merely the beginning.

Human double

The US media has been quick to point out that Joan Is Awful sees Hollywood star Salma Hayek grapple with the discovery that her AI likeness can be used without her knowledge. In actuality, there’s sufficient cause for worry regarding so-called “performance cloning.” It’s not Mbappé running across the pitch at the 15-second mark in an advertisement for the Chinese dairy firm Mengniu; the runner is actually a human double who has Mbappé’s physique and skin tone and is donning an “AI-generated digital mask.”

As per an October article in the MIT Technology Review, while Hollywood actors are on strike over worries about the usage of AI, some companies hired some actors to make “virtual avatars” appear more human. An AI database would be fed their voice, face, gestures, and facial expressions to better understand and express human emotions. Well, can AI actors fully replace human actors in Hollywood, Bollywood, or any other film industry where the complexity of human emotions and experiences is central? Would they be able to convincingly portray the subtleties of human feeling and have the capacity to engage an audience on a profound, emotional level? Can SRK be replaced by an AI actor, to be specific?

Garry Kasparov, the best human chess player in the world at the time, was defeated by IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue on May 11, 1997, marking an inflection point in human civilisation. There’s little doubt that today’s much-improved AI chess engines would comfortably defeat the world’s best chess players. Still, a match between two top chess programmes would be much less interesting than, say, a match between Magnus Carlsen and Rameshbabu Praggnananda.

Here’s where human intelligence and human touch would continue to triumph against AI. Possibly so in all facets of life. However, using modern chess engines for practice has a significant positive impact on today’s chess players. In his 2017 book, Deep Thinking, Kasparov demonstrated how, in contrast to many critics who view AI as a threat, particularly to human jobs, humanity can rise to new heights with the aid of our most extraordinary creations, rather than fear them. The co-director of Avengers: Endgame, Joe Russo, similarly stated: “But AI has become like a digital calculator... It just helps us to improve our productivity.”

The eventual triumph of AI is unavoidable, though, regardless of how the American strikes turn out. We won’t be able to completely lock the genie back inside the bottle, for sure. We have to adapt to AI for our survival. The best course of action is to handle the AI genie wisely in order to enhance human capability and excellence.

The writer is Professor of Statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata

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