Artificial intelligence, pros and cons. In the film industry and beyond…

Artificial intelligence is a very actual one, among the issues and troubles related to the word of entertainment.
According to a recent Reuters piece of information, Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves have been the subject of widely viewed unauthorized videos created by AI algorithms. Reeves called the technology scary…
The technology is already used to to correct expression defects or to erase age marks, to slow down speech or alter mouth movements to sync with words when programming is dubbed in various languages. The upcoming ‘Indiana Jones‘ movie features scenes in which 80-year-old star Harrison Ford appears 40 years younger.
But now, taking everything to the extreme, to keep costs down, it could be possible to recreate scenes and new contents using images and videos, even archive footage, without anyone actually being on the set. Actors and writers envision various scenarios in which studios could try to cut costs and boost revenue using generative AI, which can be fed existing material and pump out new content.
Artificial intelligence allowed people with no real actors and far smaller resources than major Hollywood studios to generate the fake movie trailers, feeding debate on the issue that will be on the bargaining table when the SAG-AFTRA actors union begins labor talks with studios on June 7. A search for Wes Anderson on YouTube turns up trailers that the famed director with a distinctive style appears to have made for adaptations of ‘Star Wars‘, ‘Harry Potter‘ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ featuring Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson and other stars.
A studio could even take footage from a popular 1980^s TV show, and make a new season with AI!
The need for regulation for the new technology, already finished among the issues that agitate the screenwriters, who have been on strike for several weeks, could now carve out a leading role even in the negotiations that the actors will enter into in the coming weeks with the studios for the renewal of the contracts.  Some actors have signed off on specific uses of AI. AI already has divided studios and striking film and television writers, who want assurances that the emerging technology will not be used to generate scripts.
SAG-AFTRA wants to ensure its members can control use of their “digital doubles” and ensure studios pay the actual actors appropriately, said Duncan Crabtree – Ireland, the union’s chief negotiator.
As for Italy, and with a more specific focus on the protection of personal data, the Guarantor for the protection of personal data has ordered the stop to ChatGPT, the relational artificial intelligence application capable of simulating and processing human conversations, until compliance with the privacy regulations is ensured. At the same time, the Guarantor opened an investigation against OpenAI, the US company that developed and manages the platform. In the provision, the Guarantor notes the lack of information to users and all interested parties on the way in which data is collected by OpenAI, but above all the absence of a legal basis that justifies the massive collection and storage of personal data.
However, the approval by the European Union regulation on artificial intelligence is expected by 2023. But there is still no agreement on many points of the Artificial Intelligence Act (Ai Act). The European Council has opposite ideas to those of the Parliament on real-time facial recognition, while within the European Parliament itself there are conflicting positions on emotion identification systems.
The biometric analysis of movements for the identification of emotions is not prohibited by the AI Act, but only qualified as “at risk” technology. It means that the systems that use this application of artificial intelligence are listed in an annex to the regulation (which will have to be periodically updated) and are subject to specific certification procedures.
Among the biometric analysis technologies of emotions considered at risk but not prohibited by the Ai Act there are products that promise to identify those who move dangerously in the crowd (for example, those who leave luggage unattended), and there are polygraphs, i.e. real lie detector machines. The use of artificial intelligence to score people based on their behavior is prohibited in the proposed regulation, with an exception for small businesses contained in the draft approved by the Council, but deleted in the mediation one drafted by the Justice Commission of the ‘European Parliament. According to Patrick Breyer, MEP of the German Pirate Party, “Iran has announced that it is using facial recognition to report women who do not wear the veil correctly, Russia to identify people to be arrested. The use of this technology on a large scale in Europe would lead companies to strengthen its production and this would also have an impact on authoritarian regimes outside the continent”.
Cinema is not the only one at risk, then…