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While OpenAI and ChatGPT opened up to a wild start and had a record-breaking number of sign-ups in its initial days, it has steadily seen its user base decline over the last couple of months. According to SimilarWeb, July 2023 saw its user base drop by 12 per cent compared to June – it went from 1.7 billion users to 1.5 billion users. Do note that this data only shows users who visited the ChatGPT website, and does not account for users who are using OpenAI’s APIs
https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/wga-response-studios-not-quick-strike-1235697413/
The two sides remain at odds on items across the board, including streaming residuals and a higher minimum tier for TV writer-producers
The WGA wants to tie streaming residuals to the popularity of a show, but streamers had adamantly refused to share such viewership data.
The WGA is also seeking a provision that would allow its members to honor other unions’ picket lines.
Four in five (80%) of bosses told workplace software firm Envoy that, had they had a better grasp on actual employee preferences, they would have taken a starkly different approach to their return to office plans. The problem, they said: They didn’t have access to workplace data to help them make their decision.
Lucasfilm is winding down operations in Singapore after nearly 20 years in the country, with parent company Disney citing economic factors affecting the industry.
According to an ILM employee in Singapore, there are 340 staff members in the company and work will continue until the end of the year.
https://variety.com/2023/artisans/news/marvel-vfx-artists-unionize-1235690272/
BREAKING: Visual Effects (VFX) crews at Marvel Studios have filed for a unionization election with the National Labor Relations Board, Monday. The move signals a major shift in an industry that has largely remained non-union since VFX was pioneered during production of the first Star Wars films in the 1970s. A supermajority of Marvel’s more than 50-worker crew had signed authorization cards indicating they wished to be represented by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE).
This marks the first time VFX professionals have joined together to demand the same rights and protections as their unionized colleagues in the film industry. Mark Patch, VFX Organizer for IATSE, highlighted the significance of this moment: “For almost half a century, workers in the visual effects industry have been denied the same protections and benefits their coworkers and crewmates have relied upon since the beginning of the Hollywood film industry. This is a historic first step for VFX workers coming together with a collective voice demanding respect for the work we do.”
While positions like Production Designers/Art Directors, Camera Operators, Sound, Editors, Hair and Makeup Artists, Costumes / Wardrobe, Script Supervisors, Grips, Lighting, Props, and Paint, among others, have historically been represented by IATSE in motion picture and television, workers in VFX classifications historically have not.
Bella Huffman, VFX Coordinator, highlighted the challenging nature of the industry: “Turnaround times don’t apply to us, protected hours don’t apply to us, and pay equity doesn’t apply to us. Visual Effects must become a sustainable and safe department for everyone who’s suffered far too long and for all newcomers who need to know they won’t be exploited.”
The Marvel VFX workers’ filing for a union election comes at a pivotal moment in the film and television industry, amidst ongoing strikes by both the Actors and Writers guilds as both seek fair contracts with the studios and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP).
IATSE International President Matthew D. Loeb put it in plain terms, “We are witnessing an unprecedented wave of solidarity that’s breaking down old barriers in the industry and proving we’re all in this fight together. That doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Entertainment workers everywhere are sticking up for each other’s rights, that’s what our movement is all about. I congratulate these workers on taking this important step and using their collective voice.”
“The studio is always telling you that they’re losing money, but they always find a way to make a new level of profit for 10, 15 years. … It’s that perpetual industrial problem with a capitalist group that pays its executives more and more money and screws the average writer.”
Fran Drescher
“Thank you everybody for coming to this press conference today. It’s really important that this negotiation be covered, because the eyes of the world, and particularly the eyes of labor, are upon us. What happens here is important because what’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor, when employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and they forget about the essential contributors that make the machine run.
“We have a problem, and we are experiencing that right at this moment. This is a very seminal hour for us. I went in in earnest thinking that we would be able to avert a strike. The gravity of this move is not lost on me, or our negotiating committee, or our board members. It’s a very serious thing that impacts thousands, if not millions, of people all across this country and around the world — not only members of this union, but people who work in other industries.
“And so it came with great sadness that we came to this crossroads. But we had no choice. We are the victims here. We are being victimized by a very greedy entity. I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us. I cannot believe it, quite frankly: How far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. Shame on them.
“They stand on the wrong side of history at this very moment. We stand in solidarity, in unprecedented unity. Our union and our sister unions and the unions around the world are standing by us, as well as other labor unions. Because at some point, the jig is up. You cannot keep being dwindled and marginalized and disrespected and dishonored. The entire business model has been changed by streaming, digital, AI.
“This is a moment of history and is a moment of truth. If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble. We are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines and big business who cares more about Wall Street than you and your family. Most of Americans don’t have more than $500 in case of an emergency. This is a very big deal, and it weighed heavy on us. But at some point you have to say, ‘No, we’re not going to take this anymore. You people are crazy. What are you doing? Why are you doing this?’
“Privately, they all say we’re the center of the wheel. Everybody else tinkers around our artistry, but actions speak louder than words, and there was nothing there. It was insulting. So we came together in strength and solidarity and unity with the largest strike authorization vote in our union’s history. And we made the hard decision that we tell you as we stand before you today. This is major. It’s really serious and it’s going to impact every single person that is in labor. We are fortunate enough to be in a country right now that happens to be labor-friendly, and yet we were facing opposition that was so labor-unfriendly, so tone deaf to what we are saying.
“You cannot change the business model as much as it has changed and not expect the contract to change too. We’re not going to keep doing incremental changes on a contract that no longer honors what is happening right now with this business model that was foisted upon us. What are we doing… moving around furniture on the Titanic? It’s crazy. So the jig is up AMPTP. We stand tall. You have to wake up and smell the coffee. We are labor and we stand tall and we demand respect and to be honored for our contribution. You share the wealth because you cannot exist without us. Thank you.”
John H. Liu
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66185585
the negotiating committee of SAG-AFTRA – the union which represents 160,000 actors and performers – has voted unanimously to recommend strike action to its board.
It had been seeking a fairer split of streaming profits and a guarantee that AI will not be used to replace duties performed by actors.
https://www.indiewire.com/news/breaking-news/david-simon-writers-strike-wont-end-soon-1234882393/
“I heard a very funny thing,” Simon said. “It may be apocryphal, but somebody, the vice president of the East, she assured me the other day that she had it on good authority that all of the rental yachts from Santa Barbara down to San Diego had been rented through the end of summer. All the execs are gone for the summer.”
https://deadline.com/2023/07/writers-strike-hollywood-studios-deal-fight-wga-actors-1235434335/
Regardless of whether SAG-AFTRA goes on strike this week, the studios have no intention of sitting down with the Writers Guild for several more months.“I think we’re in for a long strike, and they’re going to let it bleed out,” said one industry veteran intimate with the POV of studio CEOs.
With the scribes’ strike now finishing its 71st day and the actors’ union just 30 hours from a possible labor action of its own, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are planning to dig in hard this fall before even entertaining the idea of more talks with the WGA, I’ve learned. “Not Halloween precisely, but late October, for sure, is the intention,” says a top-tier producer close to the Carol Lombardini-run AMPTP.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/hollywood-actors-union-authorize-strike-1.6866720
Talks between the 160,000-member union, Hollywood’s largest, and the major studios are scheduled to start on Wednesday, June 28th.
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/06/an-actors-strike-could-devastate-studios
https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/
The AI Act is a proposed European law on artificial intelligence (AI) – the first law on AI by a major regulator anywhere. The law assigns applications of AI to three risk categories. First, applications and systems that create an unacceptable risk, such as government-run social scoring of the type used in China, are banned. Second, high-risk applications, such as a CV-scanning tool that ranks job applicants, are subject to specific legal requirements. Lastly, applications not explicitly banned or listed as high-risk are largely left unregulated.
https://www.vulture.com/2023/06/vfx-artists-in-hollywood-push-for-union-amidst-wga-strike.html
The CGI in The Little Mermaid was criticized for having an uncanny and soulless look. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania was called out for lackluster visual effects. So much of what we see onscreen relies on computer-generated imagery, and it costs a lot of money to make. So why does it often look so bad?
Vulture’s Chris Lee explains there is a long list of reasons: a lack of qualified workers, directors with limited visual-effects experience, and studios such as Marvel overworking and underpaying. “It’s an unsustainable business model,” he tells Into It, “and I’m told over and over again by not knowing what they want, and by overworking these employees, it’s basically a race to the bottom. The films decline in quality, and the fans revolt.”
“I think the push in some quarters to get everyone back into the office for the majority of the time is being driven by two factors.
The first one is concern about commercial property values.
The second is a peculiar harking back by some managers to a 1950s Theory X approach. Theory X assumes that all workers are lazy, must be watched at all times and need to be directed and controlled in order to work.”
